The Wild Side (The Wild Side #1)(17)

How could I be this jealous, this possessive about a woman I’d only been on speaking terms with for a few days?  I didn’t know, but it was impossible to deny that it was happening.

“I’m sorry about my ex-wife yesterday,” I told her, when she’d moved close again.  It really was a miracle she hadn’t been scared off.

She just hitched up her shoulder in a little shrug that made her br**sts shift enough to draw my gaze.

“Did you see that dress she was wearing?  She was all sexed up for you.  I think she came there to seduce you.”

I winced, because she was likely right, and I really didn’t want her to know it.

I did the only thing a man could do with that.

I changed the subject.

“So if that dress was supposed to seduce me, what is that getup you’re wearing supposed to do?”

“Make you lose every ounce of good sense you ever had, and take a walk on the wild side.  Is it working?”

Of course it was.  I didn’t even need to answer, as I was pretty sure it was a rhetorical question.

“I’ve never seen you wear anything else,” I told her, my eyes on her taut belly.  I wanted badly to bury my face right there.

And lower.

She moved close, shamelessly close, digging a soft hand into my hair and gripping.

I was going to lose it.

“You’ve seen me wear nothing.  That’s something else.”

My vision glazed over.  I lost most of my brain function for a few long moments.

She kissed my jaw softly once and then moved away.

I was frozen, watching her again as she began to lift some light weights.  And after a time, I began to obsess about how many other men were watching her, and how they were watching her.  It was unsettling just how that made me feel.  I was not a man prone to physical rages of any kind, but seeing the way they looked at her made me feel violent.

“Why do you dress like that?” I asked her quietly the next time she moved close.  “You have a beautiful body, but do you have to show off every single inch of it?”

I wanted to take back the words the instant they left my mouth.  I didn’t want to come across like a jealous psychopath, or worse, a chauvinistic ass.

Or even, God forbid, unappreciative of the spectacular view she was giving me.

Luckily she seemed unfazed.  In fact, she smiled that sweet smile of hers.  It was mysterious and too perfect.  “You wouldn’t have looked twice at me if I wasn’t wearing this.”

That just blew my mind.  Could this Goddess actually suffer from self-esteem issues?

Impossible.  Blasphemous.

“Honey, I would have been drooling over you if you’d walked in here covered from the neck down in a paper bag.”

She shook her head, getting right up in my personal space, her hands going to the front of my shoulders and rubbing.  “Not true.  You may think it is, but it’s not.  You see, the first time I came in here, I noticed you, but you didn’t even glance at me.  I was wearing sweats, and I got nothing from you.  The next day, I came in dressed like this, and you couldn’t tear your eyes away.”

I blinked very slowly, at a loss.  Could that really have happened?  Had I been so oblivious, so locked up in my own head that she’d had to prance around almost na**d before I’d looked up?

The more I thought about it, that did sound like me.  I didn’t feel good about it, but I could see it happening.

“I’m an ass.  I’m sorry.  I do tend to block out everything around me when I go into deep thought mode.  Especially when I workout.  That’s brainstorming time for me.”

She kept smiling, moving close until her body was pressed up against mine.  “I’m not offended, and I’m not complaining.  I can see how I affect you, and I love it.  I only told you that because you asked me why I dress like this.”

My hands went to her hips.  I really was about a second away from doing something that would involve public indecency, at the very least.  “You’re saying that you only dress like this for me?  That you’ve had your eye on me from the first time you came here?”

She didn’t hesitate to nod, giving me really solid eye contact.  “Yes.  I saw you and I wanted you.  Is that so hard to believe?  Have you taken a good look at you?”

I groaned and started kissing her.

She was just too much.  Everything my bruised ego and trampled heart needed to start to mend themselves.

She pulled back after a few beats, her hands going to my chest in a failed attempt to keep me at a slight distance.

My hands were filled with her ass, and gripping close, I rubbed myself against her.

I hadn’t lost all concept of where we were; I’d just lost the ability to give a damn.

“Wait, stop,” she said breathlessly, and it was enough to make me take a step back.

No meant no, even my less thinking brain was aware.

“There’s a massage room in back.  I don’t know if it has a lock, but I’m pretty sure it’s empty right now.”

My breath was shuttering in and out, and I just looked at her.  She certainly knew how to catch me off guard.

Grabbing my hand, she began to tug me in that direction.