Men are pigs, thought Embry, struggling to keep the flirty smile from turning into a scowl as the elevator climbed slowly to the ninth floor. Cade stood beside her, thumbs hooked in the front pockets of his jeans.
He didn’t have to agree so damned fast to this proposal.
Never mind that this was the role she was playing, that this was exactly where she wanted him.
He probably has women throwing themselves at him all the time, she thought with disgust. The sexy, successful fighter. Probably gets all the tail he could want. Neanderthal. Flavor of the week, my ass.
She felt a growl vibrate in the back of her throat.
“Did you say something?” he asked.
“Just clearing my throat,” she said, pasting the smile back on as she met his eyes. There isn’t enough air in here.
The doors slid open with a soft ding and he offered her his arm. Embry thought it was a foolishly gallant gesture given what he thought they were going to do, but she slid her hand in the crook of his elbow anyway and led him down the hall.
At the door to her room, she fumbled through her purse for the room key. She couldn’t help herself. “I guess you do this all the time, huh?” Jealous idiot, she told herself.
He smiled a trifle sheepishly. “Meet insanely attractive, audacious women with a killer sense of humor? No, not so much.”
Clearly your tastes more often run to brainless bimbos. But she smiled anyway and slid the keycard into the door.
She paused just inside the doorway, doing a quick sweep of the room with her senses. But the spells she’d put in place when she left hadn’t been disturbed. She loosed a little breath of relief.
Cade’s hands settled lightly on her shoulders and began to knead. “You seem a bit tense.”
It wasn’t the first time he’d touched her tonight. He was a casually affectionate sort of guy. But they’d been in public before, surrounded by people she had to constantly scan and assess. With no other threat to distract her, Embry was fully aware of the strength in his hands, the feel of his fingers on her bare shoulders. Heat radiated off him in the too cold air, a solid reminder that he was very much alive. He leaned in, as if to catch a too quiet response, and his breath trailed over her skin. Lust and need tangled in her belly.
As she wracked her brain for a glib reply, he circled around in front of her. “Hey, I don’t expect anything. You get uncomfortable or want me to go, you just say the word. No harm, no foul.”
“Always the gentleman,” she murmured. “Someone raised you right.”
Something flickered in his eyes before he smiled and took both her hands in his. “C’mon.”
He started tugging her further into the room. Her heart stumbled and so did her feet as her gaze strayed to the sprawling king-sized bed. But he bypassed it, nudging her instead onto the sofa. Then he sat on the floor.
“What are you doing?”
Cade lifted her foot and did a reverse Cinderella, slipping the stiletto heel off and setting it aside. “I can see how these would be uncomfortable, but they totally accomplish their mission.”
“And what’s that?” Embry asked as he began to slowly flex her foot.
“They draw attention to your truly superb legs.” He dug his thumbs into the ball and dragged them to the arch.
Embry made an involuntary groan of pleasure and let her head drop back against the sofa. “That’s it. This is your fallback career when you can’t fight anymore. Women would line up for miles for a foot massage like this.”
Chuckling, Cade continued to knead, loosening the knots and strain in her abused feet.
He’s not seducing me, Embry told herself. I’m just letting him think he is. But she couldn’t resist imagining those magic hands elsewhere on her body. Then she couldn’t stop the memory of them from flashing to life in her mind. She wanted him. She had always wanted him. But she’d be damned if she was going to let history repeat itself. This was a mission, nothing more. It couldn’t be anything more.
Because she was desperate to touch him, Embry curled her fingers into the cushions and called herself a liar.
“Hey, where did your head go just now?”
She opened her eyes to look down at him as he shifted over to the other foot. God he was beautiful. And completely out of bounds.
“You look sad.”
I found out that the man I love is still alive, and it doesn’t matter because however things turn out, I can’t be with him. Yeah, that makes me pretty fucking heartbroken.