SHE’S STUNNING. I STUDY HER as we travel down the interstate and leave her to her silence for the moment.
That familiar spark started zapping between us the second her eyes connected with mine. Hell, it started before then. When I watched her walk through the sliding doors and toward the vehicle I was forced to wait in, I felt it. Everything I had once again started to wonder if I made up with the hopefulness of finally finding someone who I felt was worth pursuing was confirmed the second she pulled her body into the truck. Her scent, sweet … peaches … wraps around me like a drug I feel in the tightening of my pants.
Exquisite.
And she has no clue.
“Willow?” I question, hoping I can get her eyes back on me.
I watch as her shoulders straighten and her gaze leaves its study of the busy traffic on I-85. She visibly collects herself before turning and finally giving me those eyes.
“Kane,” I tell her and hold my hand out toward her.
She jumps, looking back and forth between my hand and my face for a few beats before timidly placing her palm against mine with a small laugh.
“Will—” Pausing, she clears her throat before continuing. “Willow. As you obviously already know.” She offers a little sass I wasn’t expecting, betraying her unease.
“Yeah, that I do.” My fingers rub the inside of her wrist and a fire-like whisper burns up my arm just from that small contact. Not unaffected herself, I watch her body shudder slightly.
Nice, Kane.
We don’t speak, and I don’t make any moves to release her hand. It doesn’t take long for her pale cheeks to start turning pink and for those eyes to drift from mine. Embarrassing her again is the last thing I want to do, the very last. I release her hand, feeling the loss of her touch instantly.
“I apologize for not being able to meet you in the airport. It would have been a disaster had I stepped out of the truck.”
I get her eyes quickly before she looks down at her hands now resting in her lap. “I understand. It wouldn’t be good to be seen with me … I mean us,” she softly says.
What was that?
“I’m afraid you have the wrong impression of me, Willow. It’s me not wanting to start a madhouse when I’m recognized. It has nothing to do with being seen with anyone. Have no doubts that being seen with you wouldn’t cause me the least bit of unease. We should probably clear that up right now. You’re going to see a lot of me, Willow,” I tell her. Unwilling to be bereft of her touch, I reach out to pull one of her worrying hands from her lap and grasp it between mine again. I notice the difference as I turn her hand over to study how delicate her tiny hands look between my rough, long fingers. “I can tell you’re nervous, but at the risk of making you more uncomfortable, I’ll just lay it out there. I want you, Willow. And I intend to have you, so you should probably get the thought that I don’t want to be seen with you right out of your head. I will be seen with you.”
She gasps and moves to pull her hand from mine, but I don’t let go.
“I can tell you are either not used to men being so blunt or you are genuinely unaware of the spell you’ve cast on me. I know you feel it too, Willow. A connection that strong can’t be a fluke, nor can it be one-sided.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she evades.
“Your eyes,” I tell her.
“Excuse me?”
“Your eyes. They don’t lie. The last two times we’ve been in the same room, your pupils dilate until they almost completely cover all that deep brown color that’s haunted me since the first time I saw them years ago.” I watch shock color her face at my words. Choosing to ignore the question in her eyes at the mention I’ve seen her before, I continue. “You know that feeling you get that causes your skin to dance with goosebumps? You can’t sit here and tell me that feeling is a lie. The rush of pink to your skin, the way your breathing speeds up—all of it, Willow. I see it all now just as I did then and trust me when I tell you, I felt it too and it’s been on my mind since.”
“Years ago?” she questions.
“Yes.”
“When? I would have remembered that.”
“Perhaps,” I evade.
Her eyes narrow when I don’t answer. “You don’t even know me, Kane.”
“I don’t need to know you for my body to want yours. Getting to know who you are on the inside will just be the added bonus.”
Her expression hardens slightly and that light pink blush turns a shade darker. Anger? At me?
“So you just want sex?”
How did we get here? I decided going into this that honesty would be my best path with her. Well, as honest as I can be.