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The corner of her mouth twitched with the amusement overtaking the tension of a moment ago. “What exactly is involved in pretending to make up?”
He leaned that much closer, absorbing the rising heat from her skin. “Tell me to walk away and you’ll find out.” Her eyes widened, pooling dark at his proximity. Giving into the pull of her so close, Nate brushed his knuckles across her shoulder, over the tiny strap of her black dress. “Tell me to keep my hands to myself before someone realizes what’s going on.”
Her arms crossed as she gave him her shoulder and spoke toward the crowd using one of those hushed tones that sounded convincing but still managed to carry. “You need to stop. Walk away, Nate.”
“Do I?” He let out a gruff laugh followed by a deep sigh, close enough to her ear to stir the fine hairs around it. “Why?”
She shivered. “Someone will notice.”
It was exactly what was happening. More eyes turned their way with every passing second. “Mmm, notice how close I’m standing? How long we’ve been talking? The rapid rise and fall of your chest? Your heightened color suggesting an escalated pulse? Are they going to notice that I want you…or that you want me?”
She spun back to him, face flushed, lips parted with a frustrated plea that flickered between hostility and desire. “Nate…”
He caught her chin in his palm, lowering his face to within an inch of hers. “Let them see. I’m done playing games.”
Turning her cheek into his hand, she peered up at him and countered, “You never stop playing games.”
Chapter Eleven
WRAPPED in Nate’s dinner jacket, Payton stood before the vast expanse of glass staring out at the light bright cityscape surrounding the penthouse apartment. Waiting.
They’d left the event together, fingers twined, allowing a photographer the opportunity to snap a picture as they darted for the car, knowing a counterpart would be staked out at Nate’s building as well. Her heart had been racing, her stomach in tumult as she’d waited for him to make his move. But as the scenery blurred past the windows, Nate kept his distance, content to discuss the success of the night. He was confident there’d be a stack of messages from reporters the next morning looking for the scoop on the relationship with Payton Liss. She’d nodded and agreed, all the while contemplating the two roads before her. One smart. One reckless. One right. One wrong. There shouldn’t have been any question at all. Only as she’d watched Nate fall into that wide-legged, masculine sprawl, one arm draped across the leather seatback, all she could think was how tempting it would be to climb into his lap. Run her lips across the faint scrub of his jaw. His neck. His mouth…
Now they were back at his apartment, Nate stepped into the reflection in the dark glass as his hands settled over the slope of her shoulders. “What are you thinking?”
That she was crazy and he was dangerous, and if she wasn’t very careful she’d end up exactly where she wanted to be. “That your secret’s safe.”
“I think it is. In large part thanks to Clint.”
She stiffened. Looked past his image into the night where streetlights illuminated spots of scenery and the red streaks of taillights disappeared around the corner two blocks down. “I should have thought about how he’d react. Warned him. But I didn’t think of him at all.”
He squeezed gently over her muscles, drawing the tension out with slow strokes. “He’s jealous.” Not a question. “Wants you back.”
“Maybe. Yes.” At least he thought he did. Clint wanted the woman she’d pretended to be.
“Not quite the idiot I thought, then. But you don’t want him, do you?”
She shook her head. “No. I really don’t.”
“Good.” His breath came close to her ear. “Then that’s out of the way.”
A warning skittered over her skin and she turned out of his hold. Stepped back. Swallowed. “I should go. Tomorrow’s a school day. We both have to work.”
Nate dismissed her protest with a flick of his hand.
Nonsense. Inconsequential.
“I wouldn’t stop you if marrying Clint was what you wanted.” His gaze drifted to her mouth, to where she’d anxiously set her teeth into her lip. “Or maybe I would.”
He was flirting, playing as he always did.
Yeah, sure he was.
A nervous laugh escaped her and he took a step forward, one golden brow arched in question. “You think I wouldn’t?”
Okay, this was it. Her chance to talk sense. She shook her head and took another step back. Slowly. She wouldn’t stand a chance if this turned into a game of chase. “You might be cutthroat and relentless and everything else they say about you, but you’re also honest and honorable. You’ve been that way your whole life—it’s just not quite as obvious the way the papers paint you now.”
“You’re a Pollyanna,” he countered with that mischievous glint in his eyes. “But I like it. Did I mention I had a bridge to sell you?”
“No way, Nate,” she scoffed, her confidence returning with their banter. “You do the right thing. I trust you. It’s why you—your friendship means so much to me.” One of the reasons anyway.
He took another step forward. “I’m glad to hear honesty is important to you, because about that friendship thing—”
“Stop.” Before it was too late and she ended up losing everything because she couldn’t resist the sound of his voice and lure of his words. “Let’s think about this for a minute.”
“I’ve already thought about it,” he answered flatly.
“Listen,” she pleaded. “Imagine we have two roads before us. Friendship is like an interstate highway.”
Nate’s chin pulled back, amusement battling with distaste. “Remind me not to hire you for any marketing jobs.”
Ignoring the little boy who didn’t want anyone to make the rules but him, she went on. “The highway is long and constant. Scenic. Pleasant. We could travel it for years.”
Arms crossed, he nodded once. “Right.”
“Sex is like a blind path through a lush jungle.” At his slow-spreading grin, she cleared her throat and stared at her shoes. “Sure, it’s hot and wet and exciting—”
“You’re trying to talk me out of this?”
“—right up to where the ground falls away in a sheer drop and all the fun is over.” And her heart lay a hundred feet below, battered and crushed on some rocky riverbank.
“So what you’re saying is…you’ve got some kind of Tarzan fantasy you want to act out.”
The corners of her mouth twitched even as she tried to glower at him. “Nate!”
Unrepentant, he went on. “Because I’ve got one of those rainforest shower things in my bathroom. You could wear a ratty bikini with a few strategically placed rips. I’ll wear a shredded shirt and cargo shorts.”
She scrunched her eyes, trying hard not to let her imagination follow where his dirty mouth led…
“I’ll invite you back to my room. Show off my vine.”
She burst out laughing, the tension that threatened to overwhelm her dissipating under Nate’s juvenile antics.
He was joking. Well over the line of ridiculous—so why was she suddenly burning with the need to touch him? Tear the sleeves off his shirt and make him beat his chest and roar.
Darn it! He was working around her defenses. But she had more to fight for than a good time. She needed him. In the few days since they’d reconnected she’d discovered how incredible it was to have someone who really saw her. Let her laugh and joke. Have an opinion that didn’t follow everyday convention. Someone to talk with. She didn’t want to give it up. Couldn’t go back to the lonely isolation that had been so much a part of her life for too many years now. It didn’t matter the number of people surrounding her, there was only one who actually saw her.
“Nate, this is serious.” Her lips pressed together in a firm line as she sought for a means to make him understand. “I don’t have a lot of friends—”
“I do. I’ll share. And if they aren’t enough, we’ll start trolling the social clubs together.”
“You’re making jokes,” she shot back. “But the idea of risking something this important isn’t funny to me. You pick up pretty, shiny playthings at every turn, have your fun and toss them aside without a backward glance once you’ve lost interest. I don’t want to be another discarded toy in your wake.”
A muscle in Nate’s jaw ticked, his posture taking a subtle shift. “It wouldn’t be like that.”
“No? Why not? Is the press really so far off in what they say about you?”
“I don’t know, Payton, how accurate are they about you? Could they have predicted it would be like this between us?” He broke off and shoved a hand through his hair. Blew out a harsh breath and then seemed to pull inward for a count. And then he was back in control. Cool. Steady. Reasonable.
“It’s not that I don’t want to be friends, Payton. It’s that I don’t think we can be. Not with what’s between us…I know you feel it, too.”
She bowed her head with a stubborn shake, hiding the conflict warring in her eyes. Unwilling to reveal the power of his effect on her. How right he was.
She felt it. The connection that messed with her head and threw off her equilibrium, made her dizzy and hot and wanting to justify all kinds of things she knew she shouldn’t. Made her want a man more controlling than all the other men in her life put together. Insanity.
“You’re going to deny it?” he drawled, low and rough, ominously seductive. The change in tone and tack alerting her to the coming danger.
Clint had been right. Nate was a predator. And she was prey.
She swallowed hard and, shaking her fuddled head, answered, “Yes.”
“Hmm. You seem confused. Conflicted.” He leaned closer so the heat of him scorched her skin. “I can help with that.”
Panic burst to life. Her eyes bulged at her body’s betrayal and her own stupidity. He overwhelmed her. Dominated her senses in the realm of desire.
Get it together!
“No.” Some rebuke, all breathy and weak.
“Convincing,” he taunted, eyes gleaming. “So which is it, Payton? Yes. No. Do you even know yourself?”
“This isn’t fair, Nate.”
He leveled her with his gaze. “I think it is.” Then after a moment that cocky grin broke out across his lips. Trouble. “Here, how’s this for fair? We’ll put it to a test. I’ll kiss you.”
Her chin tucked, but he waved off her concern. “Don’t worry, in the interest of accuracy, I’ll give it my all. And when I’m done, you tell me if you still think we can be friends.”
This time her mouth and body worked in unison, her steps carrying her back in quick repetition as her hands flew up to ward him off. “No. That’s a very bad idea. You said the attraction would die off. It’s only Tuesday. A few days! We haven’t given it enough time.”
He closed in on her again, confident and sure. Overwhelming in ways beyond his powerful build. “Has it? Only been a few days for you?”
God, that look in his eyes. He knew. A few days plus thirteen years.
This was a disaster. “Nate, we’re talking about more than just this next moment—”
“Damn straight we are. I thought I’d proved I could last more than a minute Saturday night.”
Suddenly the wall rose up behind her, ending her retreat. Heat burst out over her chest, neck and cheeks. “You know what I mean. I want us to be friends.”
His gaze turned serious and for an instant she thought he might walk away, but then he shook his head in response to the hope lighting her eyes. “I do, too, Payton. But it’s not going to happen if we can’t handle the attraction. Put it in its place.”
“We can!” She flicked her hands out in a frantic motion to sweep him away. “We start by putting some distance between us, that’s all, and we’ll handle this fine.”
But instead of stepping back, Nate braced one hand at the wall above her head and caught her wrist in the other. “You seem so sure. But what happens if we touch…accidentally?”
There was nothing accidental about the stroke of his thumb across the sensitive skin of her wrist or the way he leaned close enough that the air around her went thick and a current of need coursed through her.
His grip was loose, the barricade of his powerful arm limited to one side. She could have pulled away, should have fled, but even when he released his hold to draw the tip of one finger down the length of her neck, the only escape she could manage was to shut her eyes.
“Are you going to go up in flames at the DVD store? Melt all the ice cream in the frozen-food aisle when we hit the market some night?” His breath at her ear sent a jolt through her nervous system, accelerating her pulse and pushing heat to lick at the surface of her skin.
“You know I want you,” she whispered on a shaky breath. “But I want something else more.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” The single word hitched free, begging for something more than what she claimed.
He was so close she could almost feel the light rasp of his jaw, the strength of his body against her, the too-confident smile at his lips. “Then put your money where your mouth is and show me.”
“What’s a kiss going to prove?” she asked, wanting to kick herself for the husky quality of her question. Only if she dared move her leg an inch, she had no doubt she’d find it wrapped around Nate’s hip and all her resistance would be for naught.
Nate straightened, taking the warmth and promise of his body away. “Simple. If we can stop, then we’ve got a shot at being friends.”
It was all too easy to let herself believe the kiss was inevitable. That Nate had decided this was the way to handle the dilemma of their attraction…and so it would be done. But she knew it wasn’t true. Somewhere along his line of reasoning the pure masculine scent of him had slipped beneath her skin, making her ache and want. Wonder. Was he right? Was it even possible to have the friendship knowing the fuel of desire burned so hot between them?
Her body trembled. Maybe she had to know, too.
She searched his eyes for understanding, for mercy. “And if we can’t stop?”
Nate’s features pulled taut, his nostrils flaring with a forced intake of breath. The arm he’d braced against the wall gave at the elbow, slowly bringing him into her space. “Then we don’t.”
It was one kiss. And all she had to do was stop there. Her gaze fixed on his mouth as memories of what he’d done with it only a few nights before bombarded her.
Her vision hazed. Lips parted.
Simple. As he said. Just stop after one. “Okay. A test.”
Bowing his head close, he brushed his lips against her ear so she shivered with delicious chills. “You know what used to drive your brother absolutely insane?”
Brandt? The fog of rising lust thinned as she wondered what in the world—and then her breath caught at the memory of a long-ago afternoon. Her brother storming through the door bellowing about his exam—and how Nate Evans always blew the curve.
Her eyes flew wide as Nate murmured his final warning. “I test very well.”
Chapter Twelve
HE COULDN’T just kiss her. Not Nate. No. He had to make a point as he did it. Eyes locked with Payton’s—forcing her to watch as he whittled the distance between them, covered her mouth with his and sank into his task with a slow, deliberate pressure. She couldn’t close her eyes or look away. But even as panic licked amongst the flames engulfing her, she held strong. Stoically taking what he gave her, she told herself to enjoy it—that it would be the last. If she could maintain her control here, then she’d have had her cake and eaten it, too—one night with Nate and a lifetime of friendship to follow.
She watched him, watching her.
