In Seconds

Vivian was almost afraid to open it. When she did, she barely resisted the urge to drop it and run outside. “You brought…condoms?” Her voice went up on the last syllable; she couldn’t help it. There was other stuff in there, too. Lubricant. Lotion. A G-string. She could hardly breathe as she took the G-string out and held it up. “Really?”

A boyish grin curved his lips. “Put that on for me.”

He couldn’t be serious. When she merely gaped at him, he stood in front of her with one hand on the wall above her head. “This is what you wanted, right?” He ran a finger down the side of her face. “What you asked me to give you?”

Yes! But that was last night. She’d been drunk last night. Today she wasn’t so sure. “I—”

“Don’t worry.” His thumb caught on her bottom lip, drawing his attention to her mouth. “I accept your terms. You can have it your way.”

“My terms?” There was an air of mischief about him. This wasn’t what it seemed. And yet…

His eyes met hers again. “No repeats. No strings attached. Tomorrow, we’ll go our separate ways as if it never happened. But for now, you can have it as down and dirty as you want.”

Down and dirty. He was trying to intimidate her, make her nervous. And it was working. “What about my, um…what about the gun? I thought—”

“You have it with you?”

“You said to bring it.” She removed it from her waistband and he took it but only so he could put it on the table.

“We’ll deal with that another day.”

“Why not now?”

He grinned again. “You’re stalling.”

Breathing became as difficult as swallowing. “It’s important, don’t you think?”

“It can wait.”

She twisted to be able to see her Sig. “How long?”

Cocking his head to the side, he blocked her view of anything else and gave her a look that taunted her sudden terror. “What’s the matter, Vivian? You were sure talking tough last night. Been making promises you can’t keep?”

Frantically trying to gain control of the situation, or at least to stop panicking, she licked her lips. “You—you turned me down, remember?”

“You’d had too much to drink. I couldn’t take advantage of my beautiful neighbor.”

“That’s the only reason you refused?”

“No,” he said. “But you’re not going to hold that against me, are you?”

She didn’t know what to do. Shoving him out of the way so she could get to the door came to mind. She knew he’d let her go. But beautiful neighbor had her a bit entranced. And the way he was looking at her added to the paralysis caused by those words, made her feel as if she was melting from the inside out. “Your rejection was pretty humiliating.”

She was teasing—and stalling—and he knew it. He toyed with the hair above her ear. “Good. Now you know how it feels.”

“That’s why, when someone turns you down, you don’t ask again,” she said.

“Unless you can tell they don’t really want to turn you down.”

What could she say to that? She already knew he’d noticed her acute interest in him. He’d mentioned it last night.

“So here’s your chance to say yes,” he prompted.

His warm breath carried the scent of spearmint gum. She liked spearmint…?. “What if I stick with no?”

“Then you have to go out with me. Dinner in Libby. Once.”

So that was his game. But if they went to dinner, they’d talk. He’d ask her where she was from, if she had any family, where her family lived, why she had no contact with them. She’d have to dance around the truth, one question after another. He’d think he was getting to know her when, in reality, he’d only be coming to know the fictional character she’d created. What was the point?

She hated the lies. That was the reason she didn’t date, why she avoided social gatherings altogether, at least any that required conversation beyond the superficial, especially if she didn’t have the buffer of her children. “And if I say yes?”

His smile disappeared. “You know what you’ll get if you say yes.” He’d been setting her up, forcing her into a corner this whole time, hoping she’d capitulate and date him. But he was aroused. Maybe he’d crept a little too close to the fire. Because if she said yes, she had no doubt he’d deliver. There’d be no talk. Only sensation. Like the ride on his bike. She could completely escape her life, her precarious situation. For however long it lasted, she wouldn’t be touched by the fear that constantly plagued her. And then, after that, there’d be no contact.

“I’m not so bad to have dinner with,” he murmured. Obviously he’d rented this cabin, purchased sex aids and put her on the spot because he believed that with her normal inhibitions back in place she’d chicken out. He was calling her bluff, trapping her into finally accepting his dinner invitation.

But she wasn’t going to accept a date. She was going to call his bluff instead.

Standing on her tiptoes, she ran her tongue along his bottom lip. “Take off your clothes.”

Those four words hit Myles’s nervous system like a shot of heroin, or how he imagined a shot of heroin would feel. He’d heard druggies talk about the experience, heard them explain that first high was so spectacular it blew a person’s mind—which was why heroin was so addictive.

He had a feeling he could get addicted to this, to Vivian. Which made the self- preservation instinct that’d carried him away from her house last night kick in again. But he pushed his better judgment aside. Vivian wasn’t supposed to choose the way she had! He’d seen how skittish she was, how she’d hidden the sight of her braless chest from him earlier. She retreated from anything intimate, even from making close friends. He’d believed that, without the wine, she’d naturally refuse, and then…

Oh, hell. None of that mattered anymore. He was only human, and no single man he knew would be able to refuse Vivian, not with her hands up his shirt and her mouth on his. He was pretty sure he was harder than he’d ever been—

The memory of kissing Amber Rose for the first time suddenly rose up, and affected him almost like a physical shock. Surprised and shaken that such a vignette would appear in his mind now, he pulled back. Having sex with someone other than his late wife didn’t necessarily feel like a betrayal. He knew Amber Rose would want him to move on, to find someone else, to be happy. It’d been three years since she died. It was the amount of desire flooding through him that was the problem. He wanted Vivian with a desperation he’d never experienced before. She wasn’t just a stand-in because he couldn’t have Amber Rose, and that jolted everything he’d come to believe about himself and his marriage.

Vivian glared defiantly up at him. She knew, he realized. She’d felt him jerk, understood he was suffering from some kind of hesitancy or regret, but she had no idea why. And he wasn’t about to tell her. It gave her, basically an unknown entity and certainly an untrustworthy one with all her evasions and secrets, too much power over him. He wasn’t sure why his feelings were so disproportionate to what they should be, given how little he knew of her, but that was the reality. She appealed to him on such a basic level that logic had no control.

“Apparently you’re the one making promises you can’t keep.” Attempting to laugh off his withdrawal, she slipped out of his grasp and started for the door. He’d take her home if she insisted, but he caught her before she could leave the cabin.

“Don’t chicken out.”

She didn’t turn. “Myles, you don’t have to—”

Sliding his arms around her waist, he pulled her up against him and gently bit her neck. “I said don’t go.”

His voice sounded ragged even to his own ears. He pressed into her, making it obvious that he wanted her. But she didn’t relax and begin to respond to him again until he reached under her jacket and unsnapped her bra.