Glowing, she grabbed his hand and tugged him for ward. “Come on. I’m taking you to a public place where I can actually control you.”
“Don’t count on it.” Damn, her backside looked perky and cute in that skirt.
A few minutes later, they sat at a small corner table, nice and close.
“I’ll get a rental car, so you don’t have to pick me up tonight,” she offered, and sipped her caramel macchiato. “I’m meeting Calista for lunch today, too.”
“Ah,” he said, surprised at this new information. “Politics just keeps calling. Before you know it, you’ll be back in New York, writing for the Prime.”
Surprise flickered in her face. “You think I’m going back to New York?” She narrowed her gaze on him and seemed to get that he did. “Ryan. I’m not. I like Calista. She called me yesterday and invited me, and I’m glad. I think she and I can be friends. That’s part of building a life here. I didn’t make the decision to pick up and move here lightly.”
“You know she’ll try and talk you into speaking at that event again,” he warned.
“Because she’s passionate about what she does. But that’s part of what I like about her.” Sabrina’s expression darkened, and he could feel her emotionally withdrawing; it was as if the air was being sucked out of the room. Her legs slid away from his.
He reached for her, trying to lean in close. “Whoa. What just happened? Why’d you pull away?”
“Is this… Are you with me because you think I won’t be around long? Because I’m temporary? Because, I thought I could do that, I thought I could be that girl, that maybe I wanted to be that girl, but now—” She shook her head. “No, I can’t.” Resolve thickened her words. “I need to know if you think I’m that girl. If she’s who you’re after. Because if it is, we need to end this right now.”
He’d said to hell with discretion when he’d kissed her on the dance floor, and now he was saying to hell with holding back. He’d never held back in his life. He went for what he wanted. And what he wanted was Sabrina. “The only way this is temporary is if you make it temporary.”
The air thickened with awareness, with emotion. “You scare me, Ryan,” she said, her hand covering his.
“You scare me, too, sweetheart,” he admitted.
“You think that’s normal?”
“Nothing about us is normal,” he said. “But maybe that’s why it’s so good.”
“I’m not leaving,” she said. “I like it here. But you…you’re in that hotel, and it feels like you’re one step from rejoining the Army any day.”
“Not a chance,” he said. “I’m a Hotzone Ace now.”
“Then why won’t you buy a house?” she said. “And don’t tell me you aren’t resisting. I’ve been house-hunting with you.”
Ryan had already put himself out there. He was on a roll, and he wasn’t going to stop now. “I keep waiting for that feeling of being home I’ve always imagined I’d feel. And you know the only time I feel it?” His fingers caressed her jaw. “When I’m with you, Sabrina.”
She sucked in a breath, her teeth scraping her lip. “You’re going to be staying with me the next few days, right?”
“Am I?”
“A good bodyguard would stay with me,” she said, “until he was sure the danger had passed.”
The danger she didn’t think existed. “I believe you make a valid point,” he agreed. “I should keep you close. Very close.”
“Since we don’t know how long this danger might last,” she continued, “it would make sense that you let your hotel go. Save a few dollars while you’re staying at my place.” She paused and added pointedly, “Until the danger is over.”
For just a moment, Ryan went completely, utterly still. Something raw and tender, yet darkly turbulent, spread its fingers inside him. Old memories of the foster home that would be home, but wasn’t.
“I need you to call your parents,” he said. Her phone sat on the table, next to her purse, and Ryan reached for it.
The tiny smile playing on her lips faded into confusion. “What? Why?”
He settled his head against hers. He’d come this far, he wasn’t pulling back. “You say you know what you want,” he explained. “Yet you won’t talk to your parents, no matter how worried they are. You sent your mother an email. There’s something making you avoid them. Something you think they’ll trigger. Whatever that may be—if it’s going to pull you away from me—as you said, I want to know now.”
18
SABRINA STARED AT THE PHONE, before picking it up from the coffee shop’s table and slipping it into her purse. “I emailed,” she said, making a case to bypass the call. He sat there, his expression indiscernible, and she added, “I’ll call. Later.” He continued to stare at her, and she continued her excuses. “The car-rental place is about to open. I have to get to work.”