“But we just got here,” he answered, and Nicole wondered why he was stalling. Surely he felt the pull between them every bit as much as she did. Trent glanced around the café, his gaze landing on Kaylea as she rapidly approached. Trent’s eyes widened with delight, as though he was waiting for her, and a foreign burst of jealousy whipped through Nicole’s blood in response.
When Kaylea caught Trent’s glance, she stopped midstride and clutched her stomach, her eyes widening in disbelief. As Nicole watched on, barely able to think straight through the onslaught of bizarre emotions, Kaylea anxiously called out for her husband, Brand.
Brand came out from behind the counter and rushed to her side, only to stop dead in his tracks when he spotted Trent.
Nicole blinked and tried to shake off the fog as she watched the exchange. Did they all know one another?
Nicole’s mind swirled, and coherent thought was damn near impossible to grasp through the haze of lust, greed, envy and what seemed like every other deadly sin skewing her emotions.
What the hell was going on?
Kaylea reached for her, then jerked her hand back as though stung by an invisible insect or burned by a nonexistent fire.
“Nicole,” Kaylea yelled out. “Back away.”
Nicole shook her head to clear it, and waved Kaylea and Brand closer. “Come meet Trent,” she said, her tongue suddenly too think to swallow. Nicole glanced at Trent. His white teeth flashed as he seductively smiled down at her, pulling her in deeper and deeper with his charm.
Brand stiffened, and positioned Kaylea behind him. With his body language tense, he fisted his hands. “Nicole, back away,” he said in a deceptively calm voice that seemed to belie his actions.
Why weren’t they coming closer?
Nicole heard Kaylea blurt out something about a spell, and a force field that prohibited them from coming closer, but Nicole couldn’t really rationalize any of that right now, not when all she could think about was climbing into bed with Trent and spending the night with him buried between her legs. Goodness, no man had ever aroused her to the point of distraction before.
Trent stood and tossed her friends a menacing smile. No. She had to have been mistaken, because there was nothing menacing about his man. When he held his hand out to her, Nicole blindly followed. She stood and moved toward him, willing and eager to follow him to the end of earth and back should he desire.
Out of her peripheral vision she could see Kaylea and Brand waving wildly, yelling and trying to coax her to their side, but she didn’t dare spare them a glance and pull her gaze away from Trent’s gripping eyes. Surely what they were trying to tell her could wait until tomorrow, when her brain was back to functioning properly. Spellbound, Nicole nearly withered to the floor in a mass of lust as Trent turned his full, passion-imbued eyes on her.
“Come with me, darling,” he murmured, his voice so smooth and enticing it was all she could do to put one foot in front of the other. As she glided toward him, it felt like she was having an out-of-body experience, like someone else was controlling her every movement.
With her arm locked in his, Trent maneuvered her around the tables, but before they could reach the door, some muscle-bound gorilla came bursting through the archway and catapulted himself forward. Before Nicole knew what was happening, this man—this intruder—threw her over one broad shoulder and whisked her away.
What the heck was going on?
The cold winter air spilled over her flesh like a bucket of ice water, and her body, inadequately dressed for the outdoor elements, shivered and snapped out of its lusty trance in response. She struggled and pounded her fists on her captor’s back, which proved to be nothing more than a thick wall of muscle.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she cried out, unable to discern his features, as the hood of his parka masked his identity.
“Saving you from hell.”
Saving her from hell? Was this guy for real?
She glanced up, expecting to see Kaylea, Brand and even Trent chasing after her, but met with only blank uninterested faces. Cripes, here she was being kidnapped in the middle of the day by some muscle-bound hooded gorilla and not one person on the street paid her hysterics any attention.
“Put me down or else—”
The gorilla opened the passenger door to a sporty Mustang and placed her inside. “Or else what?” he asked, his hands braced on the frame as he leaned his head into the car, his deep green eyes challenging hers.
Nicole swallowed and changed tactics, knowing she was no match for this guy. “What do you want with me?” she squeaked out. Jesus, everything was happening so fast her brain could barely keep up.
The worry in her voice seemed to soften his hard features, and the lines bracketing his mouth relaxed. “It’s okay, Nicole. Don’t worry. You’re with me now.”
With that he slammed the door and hastily circled the car. Nicole didn’t dare try to escape. Outrunning him in her heels was useless and she knew it. That, and there was something in his eyes when he looked at her. Something honest, trustworthy and oddly familiar. Something that told her he was a man of character, a man with integrity. She studied his aura, and instinctively knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this man—this stranger—yet not quite a stranger at all, would never harm her. But why would he whisk her away from Trent, and what did he want with her?
You’re with me now.
She played those four words over in her head, deciphering their significance, and inherently understanding their importance—now that she was with him, she’d never ever be with another.
He pulled the hood of his parka down, allowing her to study his strong profile and take in his mussed shoulder-length brown hair, deep green eyes the same
