Any day now she was going to meet someone.
‘That’s a lie.’
‘You think you need my permission to date?’
He was silent for a moment and when he spoke his voice had lost all traces of humour. ‘There’s only one woman I intend to date and I’m looking at her.’
For a few, frantic beats her heart suddenly lost its natural rhythm. ‘You can’t be serious.’
‘I’m perfectly serious. And if you’re about to pretend that there’s nothing between us, I ought to warn you that you’re wasting your time. It’s been there from the moment we met and it will always be there.’
She stood up so abruptly that the chair scraped on the floor. ‘Just in case you need reminding, we’ve been here before, Tom, and it didn’t work. And now I need to get back to work.’
‘I know I hurt you badly,’ he said softly, ‘but it was a long time ago and we’ve both changed, Sally.’
‘That’s right,’ she said hoarsely. ‘Fortunately we have both changed. I’m no longer stupid enough to fall in love with a man who doesn’t want that love. I’m not making that mistake again.’
He flinched and rose to his feet, walking round the table towards her. ‘The only mistake was mine. But at the time I thought I was making the right decision. You were so young, Sally—’
‘No!’ She raised a hand to keep him at a distance. ‘I don’t want to hear your excuses when the truth is that I just didn’t fit into your agenda at the time.’
He looked at her, a tiny muscle flickering in his jaw. ‘So you’re truly pretending that there’s nothing between us?’
‘I don’t need to pretend. I know.’
He took a step closer to her, his voice low and husky. ‘You don’t feel anything when I walk into a room?’
Her heart was thumping so hard she was surprised he couldn’t see it. ‘Nothing at all.’
‘Right.’
She had a brief glimpse of burning blue eyes and a devil’s smile and then his hand slid round the back of her neck and his mouth came down on hers.
Her soft gasp of shock turned to a moan as he took what he wanted. His kiss was all fire and heat and he held her head still with one strong hand as his mouth stole and plundered. With the erotic probe of his tongue he robbed her of breath and willpower, and with the brush of his lips he took her power of speech.
White heat exploded through her body and she placed a hand on his chest, feeling the hardness of muscle and the throb of his heart. Her body was screaming for more and she gave a tiny sob of protest as he dragged his mouth from hers, his breathing unsteady.
For a long, sexually charged moment neither of them spoke.
Neither of them was able to speak.
And then his hand dropped from her head, thick dark lashes shielding the expression in his blue eyes as he looked down at her. ‘Seven years ago I made a mistake, Sally. But I’m not making that same mistake a second time. I’m coming after you.’ His voice was very male and very sexy. ‘And no matter how fast you run, I’m going to catch you. And once I’ve caught you, I’m never letting you go.’
CHAPTER SIX
THE call out came in the middle of the night but Sally hadn’t slept.
She’d lain awake, staring into the darkness, thinking of that kiss.
It wasn’t fair.
Nature had it all wrong. It shouldn’t be possible to respond to someone who had caused such emotional trauma.
The body should have some inbuilt self-preservation mechanism that prevented it from feeling passion for the wrong person.
And Tom Hunter was definitely the wrong person.
She lifted the receiver on the second ring, her voice gruff with tiredness. ‘Hello?’