Tease

“I drove myself here. I can get myself home.” I circled around him and started walking in hard steps away from him and toward my car.

He followed fast on my heels. “What were you doing here?”

He wasn’t going to let it drop. “That’s none of your business.”

“This isn’t you.”

That only made me even angrier—if possible. My boots dug into the concrete with every step. I hit an icy patch and would have gone down. My arms flailed for balance, but he was there, grabbing me to stop me from falling. I struggled free from his hands and kept going until I reached my car. I whirled around at the door and jabbed a finger at him. “You don’t know me.” Emotion shook my voice, betraying me. I swallowed and inhaled a deep breath.

“I know you’ve tried really hard to keep me out, but it didn’t work. I’m in your blood. And you’re in mine. I know that.” He stared hard at me, letting the words sink in. “And I know you. I see you.”

I shook my head like a stubborn child, panic crawling up my throat.

He motioned back toward the house. “If you don’t know why you’re here, then I do. You’re running from me.”

I laughed and the sound rang brittle even to my own ears. “Oh, you’ve got ego.”

He didn’t care. Just kept talking. “I know that you’re not half as wild or experienced as you pretend to be.”

My laughter faded. I stared at him for a long moment, something that felt dangerously close to fear bubbling up in my chest. He couldn’t know that. He couldn’t see me. “I’m not pretending to be anything.”

His eyes glinted knowingly as his well-carved lips flattened into a grim line. He didn’t say the word but I heard it between us just the same. Liar.

“How?” I demanded. “How do you know anything about me?” I wasn’t admitting he was right, but I had to know. I had to know what I’d said or done that gave me away.

Why was he here? Lately every time I turned he was there. He wasn’t like any other hookup. If he was, he’d already be gone. Every guy I ever messed around with was happy to take what I gave and then move on. Why did he want more? Why did he have to be different?

He moved in then. Just three steps and he had me backed against the cold metal of my car.

“You know what they called me in the Marines?” I shook my head and he answered, his voice low and deep and raising goose bumps on my skin, “Hawk. And it was because I could read people, assess situations in an instant. Call it whatever you want. Street sense. Situational awareness. I have it.”

Hawk. It fit him. I swallowed back the golf-ball-size lump in my throat. His deep voice, his closeness . . . My skin shivered uncontrollably. I hated that I trembled but at least I could blame it on the cold. He didn’t know it was him and what he did to me.

Of course, he just claimed to be able to read a person. I gulped, worried even as I told myself he wasn’t a mind reader. He couldn’t be that perceptive. Even if he was a former Marine with a nickname like Hawk. He couldn’t see my secrets.

My gaze darted from his eyes to his mouth, both so close. Even in the near dark, with only the glow from the streetlamp halfway down the block, I could make out the tiny flecks of gold in his brown eyes. My hands fluttered between us as though looking for a place to land. His chest felt so warm and inviting, a solid wall pressing intimately against me, against br**sts that felt achy and swollen.

“Well, Hawk, you’re wrong.” I lifted my chin. I went for a mocking tone, but I missed the mark. My voice sounded breathless and affected in a way I was trying to pretend not to be. “I just did like four guys back in that house.”

His mouth curved almost cruelly at my lie. “Such a liar.”

Okay. Maybe I should have gone for a more believable number. Especially since Logan couldn’t have called him more than thirty minutes ago. He reached between us and plucked the keys from my hand.

“What are you doing?”

He reached around me, his arm brushing my hip as he lifted the door handle. “I’ll drive. Get in.” He motioned for me to circle around my car.

I watched in astonishment as he pulled open the door and settled himself behind the wheel of my car, adjusting the seat for his long legs. I glanced at him and looked around. “Where’s your truck?”

“I got dropped off.”

That explained how he got here so quickly. He must have been nearby. I cocked my head. “Who dropped you off?”

“I was with a friend when Reece texted.”

A friend.

I knew without him saying that it was a girl. Apparently he wasn’t so into me that he excluded other girls from his life. The pain that flared to life inside my chest was so unexpected that it infuriated me. I shouldn’t be feeling this way. I had no right to feel this way.

The familiar urge to storm off came over me. Unfortunately I had nowhere to storm. He was sitting inside my car.

I stalked around the car and dropped down into the passenger seat, sealing us in the cozy interior. There was some leftover heat from earlier. He started the engine and let it idle, the motor warming.

When I thought about the fact that I had just toyed with the idea of giving in to my urges, of just playing this thing out—whatever it was—between us, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“You didn’t need to end your date for me.”

He leaned his head back against the headrest and gave me a lazy look. “Jealous?”

“Why should I be jealous? I do what I like, with who I like. You’re entitled to the same.”

He smiled slowly and that grin made my stomach flip over. There was such knowledge and experience behind that smile. Of the world. Of life. Death. And, as unlikely as it seemed, me.

“You like me,” he announced. “You don’t want to, but you do.” He said this so easily, so matter-of-factly that I wanted to stomp my feet and yell no. I faced forward instead, looking out the windshield. “Let’s go. Drive.”

Chuckling, he put the car into drive. We traveled for several moments before he said, “I wasn’t on a date.”

“I don’t care.” Of course I snapped this off so fast that I sounded like I did care.

“Cara is a friend. We went to boot camp together. She was in town on leave for her nephew’s christening.”