“Amelia?”
She blinked, having missed whatever else had been said.
“Are you ready to go? You’re looking a little flushed.”
Oh, she was definitely feeling a little flushed. Otherwise she wouldn’t be running her hands over the skirt of her dress, smoothing the material over her thighs and then sliding out of her chair. Her legs practically wobbled beneath her.
“Yes.” She glanced around the table, but didn’t meet any of her colleagues’ eyes. “Thanks for a fun evening. I’m going to turn in so I’ll be fresh for sightseeing tomorrow.”
Not a single one of them were fooled by her and Cole’s dialogue. She knew that. Cole knew that. They all knew that. Still, she smiled, waved goodbye and kept her head high.
Until she stumbled.
Cole caught her elbow, steadied her.
“Oh, to hell with this,” he mumbled, wrapping his arm around her shoulder despite the fact they were still in the bar and in view of their friends and colleagues.
His arm felt too good to push away. Besides, now that she’d stood up she felt more than a little light-headed. She wasn’t sure she could walk out of the bar without falling flat on her face if Cole let her go.
So she leaned against him, letting him guide her out of the bar and into a taxi. When the door closed, she turned to him, looking up, waiting for him to do what they’d been working toward all evening.
But he didn’t.
Instead of kissing her, taking her back to that warm happy place she’d discovered on the deck of the USS Benjamin Franklin when he’d kissed her, he took her hands in his, clasped them tight and shook his head.
“Cole?” she asked, confused.
“I can’t,” he bit out between gritted teeth.
“You can’t?” She blinked. Didn’t he want to kiss her? Wasn’t that why he’d rushed them out of the bar? Wasn’t he going to take her back to her hotel room and fill this ache deep within her? Was he going to make her beg?
With the way she felt, she would.
“If I touch you, we’ll end up making out in the backseat of a taxi,” he explained, his expression pained. “As much as I want to kiss you, I want more than desperate gropes in the backseat of a car.”
“Desperate gropes in the backseat of a car aren’t so bad,” she muttered, both pleased and disappointed that he was restraining himself when she so desperately wanted to be kissed.
“It is when you want a lot more,” he clarified, giving her a look that seared to her very core, a look that said once he started touching her, he wouldn’t quit come hell or high water. “And have waited two years.”
Gulping in anticipation, she leaned forward, getting the taxi driver’s attention. “Could you drive faster, please?”
CHAPTER TEN
AMELIA woke with a bad taste in her mouth. A very bad taste.
Oh, God, had something crawled into her mouth and died?
Slowly she became aware of other body malfunctions. Like the steel drums playing inside her skull and the way her brain had swollen to three times its normal size. God, but she had a headache.
And what was that smell?
Not bad. Actually, quite wonderful. She breathed in deeper. Spicy. Musky. Yummy. Mmm, definitely male. Male?
Amelia prised a heavy eyelid open and didn’t know whether to wince or lick her lips.
Cole lay next to her, his bare chest easily qualifying as the most beautiful male flesh she’d ever laid eyes on. And not just her eyes were on him.
Oh, no, even in her sleep she’d reached out and touched him.