All the time. “Rarely.”
He smiled. “Yeah, right.”
“Arrogance isn’t attractive.”
“Neither is pigheadedness. Want me to remind you what happened? Who cracked first last time?”
Her heart was pounding. “I didn’t crack.”
“Honey, half of that shirt I was wearing is still lying somewhere in the forest. We never did find it. Maybe next time we shouldn’t let it build up.”
“It’s not building up. I make that sort of decision with my head, not my hormones.”
“Really?” His eyes were back on her mouth. “In that case your head was in one hell of a hurry to get me naked.”
“Having made the decision, I didn’t see the point in hanging around.”
“A decision I supported wholeheartedly. And would again.”
The heat was intense. Suffocating.
There were people working around her, members of her team, no doubt trying to lip-read and probably reading too much into the fact that their boss was currently up close and very personal with the dangerously attractive Sean O’Neil.
“More than one night with the same woman, Sean? That doesn’t sound like you. You should be running.”
“Normally I would be.” His mouth curved into a sinfully sexy smile. “But you don’t want a relationship any more than I do, which makes you my perfect woman.”
The words managed to snap the spell in a way that her fading willpower hadn’t.
“I’m not anyone’s perfect woman, Sean.”
She wasn’t the person he thought she was. She was deeply damaged, with secrets even Jackson didn’t know. She’d put herself back together, piece by piece, and now she protected herself carefully.
Aware that her staff were probably watching and speculating, she extracted her wrist from his grip.
“Put the shirt on. That way there will be something to rip off should I ever decide to go down that route again.”
* * *
TWO DAYS LATER, Sean drove Walter home from the hospital. His grandfather clutched the car seat and stared straight ahead.
“This car should be on a racetrack.”
Sean drov
e gently, nursing the Porsche around the bends so that his grandfather didn’t even shift in his seat. The car purred like a tame lion. “It’s engineering perfection. There is no such thing as a bad day when you’re driving this.”
His grandfather grunted. “You could have bought a Corvette.”
“I didn’t want a Corvette.”
“It doesn’t even have cupholders.”
Sean tried to imagine what would happen to a cup of coffee as he accelerated away and waltzed around corners. “But it does have a super sharp throttle response. You can’t drive this car and not smile. If you ever want to give it a try, let me know.”
“If I want to kill myself I’ll just stand in the middle of the road.”
Sean slowed down as he took a right and drove past the sign for Snow Crystal Resort and Spa.