“Come on, honey. Let’s go back to my place.” I thought this was the most reasonable request. We had two choices here, as far as I could see. Either go to my car, or get arrested for finishing right here.

“I wish I could, but I have to go soon.”

I pulled back to look at her face, hands back to her shoulders.

“Excuse me? Go where?”

“It’s not important. What’s important is that I have to go. It can’t be helped.”

“So why did you come here? Just to tease me?”

“To see you. I thought that a little time was better than none. Was I wrong? Would you rather not see me at all?”

I took a few deep breaths. The answer was sad but easy to find. I’d missed her. I’d take her any way I could get her, whether it was for minutes or hours, for torture or satisfaction.

“I’d always rather see you. But, you need to tell me what’s going on. Why do you have to leave?”

CHAPTER FOUR

Her attention was caught by something behind me.

I turned to look.

A silver Jaguar pulled up to the curb, and stopped, idling there.

I glanced at Iris, and didn’t like one bit the way she looked at that car.

“I need to go,” she said woodenly, just looking at the Jaguar. “That’s my ride.”

There was a man behind the wheel.

I couldn’t make out a lot beyond his profile, since he didn’t so much as turn his head to glance in my direction, and he was wearing dark shades, but I saw enough.

He was young, big, muscular, blond, and certainly, by my estimation, better looking than me. And going by his car, he wasn’t lacking funds either.

I’d been replaced, if I’d ever been placed.

I felt ill.

Ill and furious, and completely wretched.

“Who is that?” I asked through my clenched jaw.

I heard her take an unsteady breath. “It’s a long story, and I can’t talk about it right now. I have to go.”

She pulled away, moving towards the car.

I grabbed her hand, pulling her back to me. I was past caring about making a scene. I wanted the guy to see that I was more than just a friend to her.

I saw his chiseled jaw, with its five o’clock scruff, clench hard, his nostrils flaring, his face turning far to the left, away from the sight of us.

I could feel the hostility pouring off him. The rage.

This bothered him. Good.

I wanted to bother the f**ker.

I wanted to hurt him, actually. And I certainly hoped he could feel the hostility, the unadulterated rage, that was pouring off me.

I looked away from him and down to a troubled Iris. I bent and took her mouth, lashing my tongue inside to stroke hers.

She pulled away, and my hands shot down to her hips, sliding around to cup her ass as I ground into her.

Her palms went to my chest, and she pushed away, though not hard, as though her heart wasn’t in it.

“Don’t, Dair. Please. Not now. I’ll call you later.”

I ignored that, kissing her again, my hand holding the back of her head, not letting her draw back until she began to respond, letting out a soft little grunt and starting to kiss me back.

I kissed along her jaw until my mouth was at her ear. “Don’t go with him. Please. Come with me.”

Lips trembling, body trembling, br**sts shivering with her deep, unsteady br**sts, she was putty in my hands. I could have taken her against that wall in broad daylight, ass**le in the Jag watching on, the police officer somewhere close enough to arrest us, if I’d been so inclined.

I very nearly was.

I’d half-convinced myself I’d made up the way she responded to me, but here it was, the proof in my arms, un-fakeable to my adoring gaze.

I kissed her breathless, then breathed my own into her.

“Come with me,” I panted. It was a plea.

“I can’t. I’ll call you soon though, okay?”

“No. I don’t believe you.” My hands were at her back rubbing, rubbing, molding her hard against me.

“I’ll come see you as soon as I can. Tonight, if I can. I promise.”

“If you’re promising me things, promise me you won’t sleep with this guy, whoever the f**k he is.”

She stiffened, then drew in a deep, heavy breath. She put her lips to my ear, and said very, very softly. “I love you, and I’ll come see you. Later.”

That stunned me into letting her loose.

She moved away, and slid into the passenger seat of that f**ker’s Jag before I could stop her.

I watched his big hand move to stroke over her hair as the car began to move.

She shot me one brief, worried glance, and then she was gone.

I was in a hell of a mood after that.

I tried to follow them, but that f**ker lost me before I made it to my car and out of the parking lot.

I went for a drive, aimless really, no goal in mind, before going back home, to wait for a call that I was certain wasn’t coming.

I was pretty miserable.

In fact, I was sick with jealousy, obsessed with the familiar way that man’s hand had stroked over her hair.

Mine, I thought. How dare he touch what was mine?

And when had I started to think of that wild creature as mine?

And, strangely, the most unbearable thought of all, had she meant that I love you, or was she just finding new ways to toy with me?

I got in an amazing workout that day and still felt like shit.

She didn’t call.

She didn’t show up.