At all times.
As if he knew she was thinking about him, Con paused at the door and looked directly at her. Kinsey raised a brow. With someone like Con, she couldn’t show a hint of fear. Otherwise, he would pounce.
While she shuddered a bit inside, outwardly, she exuded calm and arrogance. Something a man like Con would recognize and most likely respect.
One side of his mouth lifted in a quick if-you-blink-you-miss-it smile. But those chilling black eyes of his said something altogether different. There was a warning there.
When Ryder put his hand on her lower back, Kinsey didn’t step away. Whether Ryder knew it or not, he gave her the courage to continue following Con and Henry when all she wanted to do was run back to the computers where she felt safe.
“Ignore him,” Ryder whispered near her ear. “Con likes to make people uncomfortable.”
Kinsey turned her head slightly to Ryder and lowered her voice. “He does a bloody brilliant job.”
That’s when she made the mistake of looking in Ryder’s hazel eyes. Gold, blue, and green mixed together so it looked like one color bled into the other and then another. They were mesmerizing, compelling.
Hypnotic.
Kinsey should’ve known better than to be that close to Ryder after their near-kiss. She shivered when their fingers grazed, and she wished their fingers were entwined.
“Watch,” Ryder began as his gaze darted over her shoulder.
Kinsey realized what happened a heartbeat too late. Because she was so engrossed in Ryder, she didn’t pay attention to where she was walking and tripped over the raised threshold of the door.
She felt herself falling as everything slowed to a crawl. Henry turned and started back toward her while Con simply stood and watched her.
But it was powerful, familiar arms that wrapped around her, yanking her up before she could hit the ground.
Kinsey’s heart was beating double time. She lifted her face to thank Ryder, but words deserted her. His mouth was mere breaths from hers.
Her hands were splayed on his chest where she could feel his heart beneath her right palm. Without meaning to, she swayed against him.
One large hand was pressed against her back, right above her butt. The other held the back of her head. His wide lips were parted, and his gaze refused to release her.
She knew what it felt like to be kissed by Ryder. How with just a touch he could make the world fade away, how he could fill her mind with just one thought—him.
No one had kissed her like him since he’d left. And she had looked for such a man.
Just one more kiss. What could that hurt?
“Are you all right?” Henry asked as he reached them.
Kinsey hastily stepped out of Ryder’s arms. She felt him hesitate, as if he wanted to keep her there, but he released her.
Damn that was close. She was really going to have to watch herself, because to give in just a little to Ryder’s magnetism was to give him all of her again.
“Yes, thank you,” she told Henry before she turned and walked out the door.
Behind her, she heard Henry ask Ryder, “Did I interrupt something?”
She wasn’t able to hear Ryder’s response. A pity. She would’ve liked to know what he was thinking. Not that it mattered. She was over him.
Keep telling yourself that, honey. It might be true when you’re dead.
Kinsey felt like screaming. That hole in her chest that threatened to swallow her was back, as if she hadn’t spent the last three years doing her damnedest to fill it in.
The tragic and appalling part was that she really thought she had.
It only took being next to him again to remind Kinsey that she’d allowed herself to believe she was moving on when she hadn’t been.
Suddenly she was engulfed by depression and misery. She wasn’t the strong individual she’d thought. She was weak and exposed. And so tired of pretending.
Why did it take coming face-to-face with the man who’d torn her world apart to reveal the truth? She’d told the lie of being fine so many times that even she believed it.
But she wasn’t okay. She was torn, bloodied, and still bleeding. The wound was a trickle now, but it had yet to heal. Kinsey feared it never would.
Then to be tempted by what she couldn’t have was the worst sort of anguish. What had she done to deserve such torment?
The biting wind cut through her sweater, but Kinsey barely felt it. She was too caught up in her own misery and the bleak outlook for her future to care.
Something heavy and warm was placed over her shoulders. She instinctively reached up and felt the flannel inside the coat. Henry gave her a nod after he settled the coat on her shoulders and walked beside her.
“You look like the rug just got yanked from underneath you.”
She didn’t want to talk, but she couldn’t be rude either. “It did.”
“I’m an arse, Kinsey. I apologize for interrupting what was clearly something intimate,” he said.