Behind Closed Doors (Behind Closed Doors #1)(21)

The instant we’re at my town house, I dig my keys from my purse and turn to him, offering what I should have from the beginning but wasn’t willing to. “I can’t just give you the unit without knowing more.”

He studies me a long moment. “I’ll pay you ten thousand dollars.”

I gasp. “What? No. I don’t want that. I just need to feel good about my decision to hand over the unit. But while you’re gone, I’ll look around inside for anything that might locate Stephanie.”

He leans on the door frame, caging me without touching me. “Whatever the case, I’m paying you ten thousand dollars. You expected a profit on the unit. I need you to know you didn’t get cheated. I don’t cheat.”

Any fear that this is about him overhearing my conversation with Ella is superseded by a fierceness in his voice that speaks almost as loudly as the fear in his eyes that I’m shocked he has let me see. Or maybe he hasn’t let me see it. Maybe he doesn’t even know it’s there—which for a poker player is a testament to how rattled he has to be.

“You have the blackmail notes,” I remind him. “You can prove you were set up if she makes good on her threats.”

“I can only prove she blackmailed me—not that I didn’t steal those chips. And there’s more than me on the line.”

His father. That is his true torment. He’s worried about how this will affect him and he cares about his family. I envy him that bond, one that I, too, would fight for if I were as blessed as he to have such a thing.

“It’s going to work out,” I promise him, and without a conscious decision to touch him, my hand finds its way to his chest. I see the slight narrowing of his eyes at the touch, feel the racing of his heart. This sexy, confident man, who has women lined up for him, needs me. Maybe it’s just the right time and the right place, but I’ve been there. I’ve needed someone who seemed to give a damn at times when no one did.

“You don’t know that,” he murmurs, his hand coming down on mine.

“Good always wins.” I almost choke on the words I don’t really believe, though somehow they came out of my mouth. Maybe because I want them to be true, just like I wanted there to be a Santa Claus when I was a kid.

“Good doesn’t always win.”

“It should,” I whisper.

“Yes,” he agrees, “it should.” His eyes darken, and seconds tick by before he murmurs, “And I shouldn’t have kissed you, just like I damn sure shouldn’t have tried to f*ck you in my office. But you know what?” He pulls me close, tangling his fingers in my hair. “I don’t care. I still want you.”

Heat surges through me at the declaration he seals with the touch of his lips to mine, his tongue caressing past my lips, delving deeply, and I feel the stroke that follows in every part of me, in the heaviness of my breasts and the ache between my thighs. The taste of him, the edge of his mood, his need to escape that he’s trying to sate, the burn for sanity in the midst of insanity, burns through me and calls to me on every level. I understand this. I’ve felt it, lived it all too well. It is this that draws me to this man. This knowing I have with him that defies being a stranger. And for a moment it is me who needs saving, me who is where I need to be in his arms. Me who is panting when, too soon, he pulls his mouth from mine to say, “Pack a bag and come to Vegas with me.”

I gasp with the unexpected question that is barely a question but more of a demand. He wants me. I believe that, but I am beyond fairy tales despite the desire this man has stirred in me. He doesn’t just want me; he wants inside that unit. What if he’s trying to lure me away to get access to it? What if that’s why he came after me when I left his house?

I press against the wall of his chest. “No. Let go. This isn’t okay.”

“What isn’t okay?”

“I can’t come with you. I don’t even know you, and—”

“We’ll fix that.”

“You have a million groupies—”

Molly’s door starts to open.

“I don’t have time to chitchat,” Jason says, reaching around me and opening the door, giving me no time to object as he walks me inside the town house, never letting me go.

He kicks the door shut, and any space his actions created in between us is removed as he drags me back against his abundance of muscles and hotness, making it really hard to think. “I don’t want groupies, Skye. I want you. Come with me.”

The very fact that I want him to mean those words has alarm bells ringing in my ears. “You want me, or you want to get inside that unit?” I ask, holding nothing back. I’ve lost everything, and once you do that, there’s no reason to play games. But he has every reason to do just the opposite.

“Both.”

I am stunned by the honesty that answer seems to hold, and it empowers me to return the same. “Sex won’t dictate my decision on what to do about any of this.”

“That doesn’t make me want you less.”

“We could have sex. Great sex. Lots of sex, and I’ll still want to feel right about all of this to let you in that unit.”

“Believe me, baby, I read people and read them well. I know.”

“You could have someone break into the unit while I’m gone.”