The driver hooked a sharp right onto a cross street, and Ty used the change in momentum to his advantage. A shiver zinged down her spine as his arm slipped from the seat to her shoulders. He curled one hand around her upper arm and pulled her closer as he slid across the soft leather seat. She looked up to find him lowering his head.
“Don’t.” She pulled back, making it clear she wasn’t being coy. Darting a glance at the front seat, she ignored the persistent ache low in her belly and forced a tremulous smile. “The driver.”
“I don’t give a damn.”
“He might recognize you,” she insisted in a low whisper.
“You really overestimate my public appeal.”
Millie was about to say she could write a press release highlighting all the ways she found him appealing, but he pulled away. A pout threatened. Her upper arm tingled, demanding she take back whatever she’d said to deprive it of his warm caress. Her libido was working itself up to rage level when he leaned forward between the headrests.
“Hey. How’re things going…Manny?” he asked the driver.
For a split second, she wondered how he knew the guy’s name, but then she saw he had his credentials prominently displayed on the dash.
The man barely flicked a peek at the rearview mirror. “Going better up here than back there, buddy.”
Ty chuckled and hung his head in mock shame. “I’m trying, Manny. I’m trying.”
Clearly, the driver had seen such situations before. Heaving a sigh, he craned his neck and eyeballed the traffic ahead of them. As usual, cars sat bumper to bumper as they waited for the light to change. Anywhere else in the world, this would be called gridlock. In Manhattan, this was the usual flow.
“You’ve only got about six blocks. Try harder,” the man said gruffly.
Ty leaned forward. “Do you know who I am?”
“No.” The answer came swiftly enough to be the truth, but Manny gazed long and hard into the mirror, his eyes narrowing. “Should I? What are you, some kind of big deal?”
Ty shook his head. “Not at all.”
“Then why are you askin’?”
“My girl—” Ty shrugged as he cast a sidelong glance at Millie, then stared out the windshield. “She’s kind of shy.” The descriptor made Millie snort, but Ty seemed to gain confidence from her disbelief. “So I’m gonna kiss her and stuff for the next six blocks, and you’re gonna keep your eyes on the road. We get her to the hotel happy and in one piece, I’ll make it worth your while.”
“You’ve got a deal.” Eyes forward, the driver lifted his hand from the wheel and held it over his shoulder for Ty to shake. “Not too much of the ‘and stuff’ stuff, okay? I’m not one of those voyeur people or anything.”
“Gotcha.”
Negotiations concluded, Ty fell back, planting one hand on her door and the other on the back of the seat beside her head. “We struck a deal.”
“So I heard.” Her smile faded as she planted a hand on his chest, needing to establish at least a minimal barrier between them. “Ty, I don’t think—”
“Good. Don’t think.”
“I want to,” she whispered, her lips hovering over his. “But now—”
“Is the perfect time,” he finished for her. “Just one kiss, Mil. It’s going to be a long six weeks.”
And God help her, he was right. “Okay. One,” she said, knowing they had a snowball’s chance in hell of stopping at one kiss, but too far beyond temptation to care.
He captured her protest with a long, sweet kiss. Her teeth ached with the sweetness. Her toes curled in her shoes—no easy feat in a pair of extra-pointy Louboutins. She slid her hand under his jacket and clutched the front of his shirt. She didn’t have to worry about wrinkles now. She wanted to muss him. Muss him badly. Muss him so hard, he’d be a marked man. He must have picked up on the tenor of her thoughts, or perhaps she’d pulled a handful of chest hair, but either way, Ty angled his head and added a smidge more pressure to the kiss. Parting her lips, she encouraged him to take what they both wanted.
She slipped her tongue out to meet his, and he groaned deep in his throat. The car lurched and surged as Manny urged them toward their destination. Ty’s hand slid down her side, his thumb grazing the side of her breast in the time-honored tradition learned by teenage boys everywhere.
“Nice move,” she panted when they broke for air.
He stared deep into her eyes. “I have more.”
Wiping a smear of lipstick from his mouth with the pad of her thumb, she held his gaze and gave his ethics a nice, hard prod. “You’ve got an hour or two before you have to be at the airport. Come up to my room.” A slow smile overtook her as she fell back on her usual blunt-force seduction gambit. “I’m sure we can find a way to pass the time.”
He gave his head a gratifyingly slow shake. “You’re the devil.”
“I don’t have a blue dress on,” she pointed out.
“If you had a dress on, Manny’d be giving me hell right now, because I’d be in it too.”
“So sure of yourself,” she chided.
“You’re the one trying to tempt me to come up to your room.” He kissed her again, a lingering kiss packed with promise but lacking the sharp licks of heat she craved.
Before she could bend him to her will, he broke away, his breath coming fast and shallow as he pressed his forehead to hers. “I won’t. And I hope to God I don’t have to tell you it’s not you, it’s totally me. I don’t want to be that guy, Millie.”
“I understand.”
“I’ve resisted this…us in my head for so long. I’m not sure I can resist the reality of us, you know…”
“In the flesh?” she offered with a helpful smile.
He groaned
