Shielded In The Shadows
He was no fool. Or...maybe he was.
Chapter 7
They drove separately—her call—and she was going to ask for separate checks, too. All the way to the restaurant—a pub she’d suggested close to the new hospital, not some romantic place on or by the beach—she reprimanded herself for having made the invitation.
Unless...
The idea hit her as she pulled into the parking lot. She wasn’t planning to live her entire life without sex. Without men. She just wasn’t going to have a committed relationship. Once the baby came, she’d have to reconsider the casual sex idea. But for now...
Could it be that she could let her dark side out to play for a bit without anyone getting hurt? Could she have fun with the risk-taker in her path, without undue consequences?
Lori, one of her three study partners from law school, had done it. And swore by it. Sex was healthy, she said. She was right, of course, but it was more than just a physical activity.
The point was to take control of your life, not to let urges and temptations take control of you. She was already in the process of starting the next phase of her life. All those years, growing up with Anna, she’d told herself that “when she had a child of her own...”
She would not let herself be controlled by urges, by drama inducing emotions...
Hot shards of desire shot through her anyway, her entire system on high alert, flooding her with adrenaline. Could she do this?
Was it possible to allow all parts of herself to live and breathe a little bit?
Parking, she got out of her car and, satchel over her shoulder, met up with Jayden at the door of the restaurant. She looked at him, her nerve endings sizzling with awareness.
He requested a table for two, sounding so...professional, she was embarrassed as hell by her earlier thoughts. Just because she had the hots for the guy didn’t mean he’d want to have meaningless sex with her.
How could she even have thought that?
Been about to do that?
How had Ms. Shadow fully escaped without Emma knowing? She could generally shut her down.
Life wasn’t going to be good if she couldn’t trust herself to remain in control.
Longing for the single glass of wine she allowed herself when she was driving—most particularly after coming off weeks of no alcohol while she waited for the insemination results—Emma chose iced tea. Jayden did, too.
They decided to share a veggie appetizer while waiting for their dinner to arrive; that made split checks awkward and she told herself that if he grabbed up the check, she’d just pay him her half when the bill came.
At a high-top table, they’d sat perpendicular to each other. When her knee bumped his, the wave of heat jolted inside her again.
What was it about this man?
“Why did you need a second chance?” What about him was she reacting to so strongly? She couldn’t control what she didn’t know. She justified asking while Ms. Shadow popped up eagerly to listen.
“Why aren’t you seeing anybody?” he shot back quickly.
“How long has it been since you’ve been in a relationship?” she countered.
“You want to have sex?”
Her entire body burned. Head to toe, bone to skin. She was the first to look away. “You said you have that location app on your phone?”
“I figure the clients who allow me to track them, when they aren’t required to do so, are asking for my help. I keep a pretty close watch.”
He was looking her in the eye again. Not flirting. Not coming on at all. She turned on anyway. His open intelligence, the way he made her feel like she was the only person in the world when he talked to her...
She was lonely. That had to be it. She’d been battling it for months. Needed the family she was in the process of starting.
“Then maybe we should look at it. Did you bring in the list of dates I gave you?” Had she seen him carry in a file? “Forget that, sorry. I have them here, in my email...” She grabbed her phone out of the satchel she’d hung on the back of her chair. There were files in there, too, just not Bill Heber’s. She hadn’t planned to work on the Heber case tonight.