All I Want(39)

She crossed her arms. “Because . . . because it was a date,” she said. “I didn’t need to hang out with my brother on a date.”

Or you, were the unspoken words.

“How did it go with Joe?” he asked, wondering if he was a complete ass for hoping it had sucked.

She didn’t answer. Which meant it hadn’t gone well. He tried to feel bad about that but he didn’t. Not even a little bit. “We made it an early night,” she said.

“Because of your dress?”

“Oh my God,” she snapped and brushed past him, shoulder-checking him as she went through the living room ahead of him. “You’re impossible. I don’t know why I even try to have a conversation with you.”

He had no idea, either. He was a complete *.

“What was that in your hand when you opened the door?” she asked.

“My hand?”

“You tucked something into the back of your jeans,” she said. “Was it . . . a gun?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She rolled her eyes, pissed at the world and most definitely him, too. She stalked off.

Then suddenly she stopped short, stared down at her feet for a beat, and then turned back. She came toe to toe with him, hands on her hips, to stare at him.

He met her gaze. She was clearly seriously ticked, and since he had some strong self-preservation instincts, he held his silence.

Finally, she sighed. “Listen,” she said. “I need to do something. Like, to you.”

“Should I be worried?”

“Just go with it.” And she fisted her hands in his shirt, hauled him down to her level, and kissed him.

WTF, his brain said. Oh yeah, his body said, taking all of one nanosecond to get on board. Somehow he managed to hold himself perfectly still because this was her show. But Christ, she’d taken him straight to heaven, pressing her soft, beautiful body in close, murmuring something that sounded like, “Dammit, no man should smell so good, ever . . .” before deepening the connection and kissing the living daylights out of him.

He moved then; he couldn’t help it. His arms came around her, one of his palms sliding to the nape of her neck to hold her in place. The kiss detonated: a hot, intense tangle of tongues and teeth, one of those raw hot kisses that was so real, so in the moment that he lost every single thought in his head. Well, except one, which was Holy shit hotness, Batman. “Zoe,” he heard himself growl, and in response she shivered in his arms and tightened her grip on him before slowly pulling back. “What?” he managed to ask.

“Your phone’s ringing.”

He hadn’t even noticed. He was hard as a rock and yep, his phone was indeed ringing, although not as loudly as they were both breathing. Pulling back, he glanced down at the ID screen just as the phone stopped ringing. He’d missed a call from Amory. He blew out a breath and met Zoe’s gaze.

“You get a lot of calls,” she said. “From women.”

He could have told her Sharon was his boss and Amory his sister, but he didn’t. For one, his equilibrium was off and he never dealt with that well. And maybe it would be best if she thought he was a player. No way would she fall for a player.

His own personal insurance policy.

He always kept his worlds all carefully compartmentalized, each division in its own little box. His family and all that went with them in one box. Work in another.

He needed a whole new box for Zoe . . .

She took a step back from him. “Not that I’m keeping track or anything,” she said. “Your life’s your life. The three W’s and all that, right?”

He suddenly wished he’d kept his mouth shut about the three W’s. “Why did you kiss me?” he asked, his voice unintentionally thick and husky.

“I was trying to figure something out.”

“Yeah? And what was that?”

She stared at him and slowly shook her head. “Never mind. My fault. I muddied the waters.” She started to walk away and then turned back. “No, you know what? This is all your fault. You and your stupid sexy smile.”

“Wait— What’s all my fault?”

She blew out a breath. “Everything!”

“Perfect,” he said. “Thanks for clearing that up for me.”

“Hmph,” she said, and vanished upstairs.





Fifteen




Zoe lectured herself through her nighttime routine. That was stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid . . . Kissing him had been so stupid. Because she’d started out in perfect control but he’d wrenched that from her with ease as he’d taken over her kiss . . . God.

What had she been thinking?

Nope, scratch that. She knew exactly what she’d been thinking, that she’d needed to compare Joe’s perfectly nice—and very short—kiss to Parker’s perfectly not-nice kiss. Granted, Parker’s kisses were a lot of things—panty-melting, heart-attack-inducing, sensually charged among them—but “nice” wasn’t one of them.

And she’d been very glad for that.

She went straight to bed and lay there, absolutely refusing to relive the feeling of being in Parker’s arms or having his mouth on hers. She was over that and over him.

She was trying so hard to get that life she wanted, and it didn’t include falling for the likes of the mysterious Parker James—a man she couldn’t read, couldn’t boss around, couldn’t walk all over.