“What are you doing here?” she spits at me, color high and eyes narrowed dangerously.
“What do you think I’m doing here?” I counter as I gently ease her backward and push my way inside.
“Are we back to this? Answering a question with a question?”
“You tell me. It’s your modus operandi, after all.” I advance a few more steps, expecting her to back up a little. But she doesn’t retreat. Of course she doesn’t. Instead, she holds her ground, looking me straight in the eye until I’m forced to either stop or run her down.
I choose to stop, but not until I’m so close that a deep breath on either of our parts would have her nipples brushing against my chest. Just the thought turns me on.
And I’m not the only one. I watch, silently, as her skin flushes. As her pupils dilate. As her breathing becomes more and more rapid.
She doesn’t say anything, and neither do I. We’re locked in a battle of wills, one that can only have one winner. This time, I’m determined that it’s going to be me. And so we stare at each other for long seconds, the tension growing thicker and thicker with each moment that passes.
She leans back a little. I lean forward the same amount.
She bats her impossibly long eyelashes. I cock a brow.
She strokes a finger down the collar of my shirt. I slide a finger along her full lower lip.
And still neither of us speaks. Still the tension ratchets up another notch as we stare each other down.
There’s a part of me that wants to say to hell with it and just pull her into my arms, a part of me that wants to promise her I won’t write anything she doesn’t want me to write or say anything she doesn’t want me to say. But that won’t get through to her—she’s used to men she can walk all over, men she can bend to her will. If I give in now, I’m just one more.
So I wait, holding her gaze. Refusing to look way. Refusing to back down.
It takes a little while, but she breaks first. “Look, I’m sorry if—”
“No, you’re not.” I narrow my eyes warningly. “Try again.”
“Excuse me?” With those two words, the imperious queen is out in full force and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t glad to see her.
“You can tell me a lot of things right now that I would believe. You could tell me that you don’t want to talk to me. You could tell me that you’re going to call security if I don’t get the fuck out of your trailer. Hell, you could even tell me that you don’t want to want me. But to say that you’re sorry? I don’t believe for one second that you’re sorry—not about what happened between us and not about anything that happened after. So. Try again.”
“You need to leave.” She puts a hand on my chest, pushes firmly against me.
“Maybe I do.” I wrap my hand around her wrist, then twist so that I’m holding her fist against the small of her back. “But I think we both know that’s not going to happen.”
She gasps, wiggles against my hold. But that only brings her body into closer contact with mine and lets me feel just how hard her nipples are right now.
They’re really fucking hard.
I bring my free hand between us, flick my thumbnail across one hard little bud. She gasps and arches into it, so I do it again. And again. Then I squeeze her nipple between my fingers until she cries out, whether in pleasure or pain, I’m not sure. Both, I think, as I do it a second time and watch her pupils dilate until her eyes are nearly all black.
“Ian.” She gasps out my name, her free hand coming up to curl around my wrist. But I’m not having it—I’m in control here and the sooner she figures that out, the better off we’ll both be.
There’s a part of me that’s standing back and watching this whole thing, that’s wondering what the fuck I’m doing. I’m not this guy. I don’t play games with women. I don’t push at them and try to make them uncomfortable. I don’t try to control them. I sure as hell don’t get locked in a battle of wills with them.
And yet here I am, doing all of that and more with Veronica Romero. And though I know I should probably back off if I want to have any chance of getting the answers I so desperately need, I also know that there’s no chance that I’m going to do that. Not now, when heat and tension and sex pulse so overwhelmingly between us.
“I could scream,” she says as she tugs at the wrist she’s still holding on to. “Security would drag you out of here in a heartbeat.”
“So scream.” It’s a dare and she knows it.
I pause for several long seconds, waiting for her to make good on her threat. On my dare. But she doesn’t. Instead she just stands there, watching me watch her. It’s her own version of a dare, a giant fuck-you to me and everything I want from her.
I’m not having it, not after everything she’s already pulled.