“I see a man who wants to kiss me.”
“I told you that,” he said.
“But you aren’t the kind of man who’d poach so you want to know if I’m taken.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing. It makes me like you a little bit more.”
That sounded like a good thing, but with Gabi he wasn’t sure. “Thanks.”
“Don’t sound scared. It is a good thing. You came into my office trying to get your own way instead of asking the way most people would. So why are you being so polite about this?” she asked.
Damn.
Of course she’d see what few others did. He rubbed the back of his neck and the feeling of freedom slipped away. The chains of the past were once again wrapped around his neck and ankles. Tying him to that one night, that one event. He didn’t want to tell her that it was the fact that Stacia had been raped that night that had also stayed with him. The DNA evidence had been inconclusive and he had no memory of sleeping with anyone other than Gabi, but he wanted to give no woman the chance to say he’d taken her against her will.
“Let’s just say consent is a biggie in my book,” he said.
“It is in mine, too. But one kiss, Kingsley—I wouldn’t begrudge that.”
“If I took it you might later,” he said.
She put her hand on his. “Do you know why I’m afraid to let go of common sense?”
He had a few thoughts on the matter—she might not want to kiss him, which, given the sexual attraction he felt around her, he hoped wasn’t the case. She might have a boyfriend, but he was beginning to think that wasn’t the case, either. But the real reason? Only Gabi knew that. She protected her secrets behind her pretty brown eyes like an armed security guard.
“Not really.”
“You make me forget all of the caution I carefully built into myself over the last ten years. You make me want to be the freshman girl who took a senior football player back to her dorm room. And that’s not smart. And this is the tricky part—I usually think of myself as a smart woman, so kissing you...well, that would be dumb.”
He realized she was talking and rationalizing to keep herself safe. Hell, he didn’t blame her, but every male instinct he had was saying she was his. He’d claimed her that night all those years ago and he wanted her back again.
But he had a son.
He had a mission in California.
He owed Hunter and himself a chance to clear their names.
Something he knew he couldn’t do if he took Gabi to his bed again. She cluttered his mind. She made him want things he had lived a long time without.
But one kiss?
Surely, one kiss wouldn’t do that much damage.
One kiss.
“One kiss,” he said.
“What?”
“One kiss. That’s all I’m asking for. What could it hurt? We are both wondering if our memories are right and if that fire between us was really as scorching hot as we remember.”
“Are we?” she asked, but she took her sunglasses off her head, set them on the table next to her plate and put her hands on the armrests of her chair as if she were about to stand.
“Yes. You know it and I do, too. Common sense isn’t going to withstand curiosity,” he said.
“You’re right,” she admitted, standing up and walking over to him.
He scooted his chair back and before he could stand, she sat on his lap, wrapping her arms around him and tangling her hands in the hair at the back of his neck. Last time she’d been in his arms she’d been a girl, scared and unsure. This time she was a woman and knew what she wanted.
“One kiss, Kingsley. Better make it count.”
He intended to.
* * *
Gabi knew she’d dared him to kiss her. Okay, so maybe she thought that way she’d be able to say he’d forced her into it later, though she knew that wasn’t true.
There weren’t many things she truly wanted for herself but Kingsley was one of them. There was no denying that despite the coldhearted way he’d dumped her at the police station she still wanted him. Still wanted this embrace.
She wanted to tell herself that he’d been so cruel that night because he’d been trying to protect her, but deep inside she had to admit that even if he hadn’t, he was still hot. Still the one man she looked at and felt the kind of sexual longing that made her forget common sense and reason. He made her want to act like...well, like this.
Sitting on his lap in the midafternoon California sun for the entire world to see. Except there wasn’t anyone else around. It was just the two of them.