He reached out and cupped her cheek with his hand. “You can.” Somehow he was closer now. His knees touched hers, a small gesture in a small space. “I’ll help you.”
“I don’t need your help. Just give me some room to process all of this.” Crowding her would only make things worse.
But he didn’t back off. His fingers slid around one of her calves and inched her pant leg upward; his callused fingers brushed below her knee. Tiny darts of anticipation shot straight to her core. And considering her current state of anxiety, that shouldn’t be possible, but yet, he was proving it was. Maybe she didn’t need space. Maybe she needed him. She focused on the sizzling sensations he was creating in her, focused on his face so she wouldn’t look at the enclosure of the walls. His gaze swept her mouth. “I’m not sure I’m capable of giving you room right now,” he said. “I want you too badly, Nicole.”
She swallowed at the directness of his words, finding herself mesmerized, lost in those chocolate-colored eyes of his. Desire pooled in her limbs, driving away the fear once again.
Slowly Constantine began to inch the zipper on her boot downward, his fingers trailing her bare skin in its wake. Nicole suppressed a shiver, not willing to let him see how easily he affected her. The man even made removing a boot sexy.
“I didn’t want to leave you that first night,” he murmured.
The unexpected comment drew a hint of anger from her. Instinctively, she reached forward and covered his hand with hers, stilling his action. In the process, their lips drew close. After hours in the woods, he shouldn’t smell good but he did. Spicy and male.
“But you did leave, didn’t you?” she questioned, thinking of how he’d snuck under her guard and then left her sitting at that table, feeling a fool. It stung and the memory stiffened her spine.
“If I had stayed, I would have taken you up to a hotel room and made love to you in as many ways as you would have let me.” His fingers slid around her other calf, and she couldn’t find the will to stop him. “But then, morning would have come, and you would have hated me.”
“I should hate you,” she whispered, torn between her desire to embrace her attraction to this man and her fear of what doing so might mean. The fear that he might wake a part of her that needed to stay dormant. “What you did was wrong.”
His gaze lifted from her mouth. “Do you?” he asked, staring at her. “Do you hate me, Nicole?”
She raised her chin slightly. If he thought lust and admiration, or even like, were the same, he was wrong. Her ex had taught her well—sex could be just sex. “I haven’t decided yet.”
His mouth quirked ever so slightly. “Good. Then I still have a chance to affect the decision.”
Leaning into her, Constantine brushed his lips over hers in a seductive caress that left her wanting more. “Anger can be a powerful aphrodisiac,” he murmured softly. “Perhaps you can think of some ways to even the score.”
And so the challenge was issued. Play or fold?
Should she hover in this cave and let her phobia get the best of her or show Agent Constantine Vega just how out of his league sexually he really was?
She gave him a sly, sensual smile a second before she nipped his bottom lip with her teeth. “Let’s get started, shall we?”
She quickly slid out of his reach and rested against the wall. “Stand up and take off your clothes.”
Chapter Seven
“STAND UP AND take off your clothes.” Nicole repeated her words, letting them linger in the air, a challenge issued. She knew Constantine wasn’t a man who easily gave away control, the exact reason why convincing him to do so now held so much excitement. “If you dare,” she added, her words meant to provoke a reaction.
But Constantine wasn’t one to be lured into an emotional response. He appeared frozen, no discernible expression on his handsome face. Ah, but she could sense the calculation in him, the struggle within his soul.
Finally he spoke, his voice low, taut. “Once we’re even, we’re even. The game starts all over again.”
“This isn’t a negotiation,” she said with defiance.
Constantine merely crossed his arms in front of his big, brawny chest and cocked an eyebrow. Without words, he was demanding she concede.
Stubborn man. She had to find a way to steal some of the power. “Fine,” she replied. “But I say when we’re even.”
And yet his expression said he wasn’t biting. She made a frustrated sound. “What do you suggest then?”
The corners of his full mouth hinted at a smile, the look on his face now crystal clear. It was hungry, aroused, downright full of sexual heat.