“You said you wanted to sell it. You need to sell it. I understand that, so I was trying to do everything I could to make it happen.”
“You defended me. Fought for me. You stepped in front.” He stroked his fingers across the line of her jaw. “You do that with people you care about. I’ve seen you do it with Daniel and with Harriet.”
There was a long silence, disturbed only by the call of a seagull and the rush of the ocean.
“I care about you.” She spoke softly. “I’ve always cared about you.”
There was so much he wanted to say, but he knew he had to take it slowly. “I always cared about you, too. Right from that first day when I saw you watching over Harriet on the beach. There was a girl teasing her about her stammer.”
“That happened a lot. And the teasing made poor Harriet worse. I don’t have much patience with bullies.”
“Or men who are addicted to their mobile phones, it seems.”
“Todd was a dumbass. I wanted to take his damn phone and shove it up his—”
“I think I can imagine where you wanted to shove it.” He tugged her against him. “Let’s go back to my place. I can pay your commission with dinner.”
“What if Todd doesn’t buy it?”
“Then you owe me. And I’ll be calling in the debt.”
She peeped at him from under her lashes. “I can think of a different way for you to pay me.”
“Felicity Knight, are you making an indecent suggestion?”
“Maybe. I’m trouble, didn’t you know?”
“I might have heard that about you. Why do you think I’m here?” He slid his hand behind her neck and lowered his head.
Their mouths collided, and he groaned and sank his fingers into her hair. It spilled over his hands, and he stroked his thumbs over the smooth lines of her jaw. He wanted to explore every delicate inch of her. He wanted to unpeel her shorts and that provocative tank top and discover all the things that had changed since the last time he’d touched her.
He felt her hands on his shirt, tugging, and then felt her palms slide up his spine.
Heat shot through him. He tasted the excitement on her lips and felt her press against him.
Another minute of this and they’d both be naked.
He eased away, wondering if he was crazy.
She was obviously wondering the same thing because she steadied herself and looked at him dizzily. “You’re stopping?”
“That’s right.”
“Why?” She slowly withdrew her hands, tugging his shirt down and taking a step back. “You’re still worried that my brain will stop working once we’re naked?”
“It’s a factor.” Although it was his brain he was worried about.
“You have too much willpower, Seth Carlyle. How did I ever manage to corrupt you the first time?”
“I wasn’t doing much thinking back then.” But he was doing plenty of thinking now.
He wanted her, right there and then, in this house that held a lifetime of memories, but he knew that was only the start of what he wanted. And he realized that what Vanessa didn’t understand was that he couldn’t fall in love with Fliss again, because he’d never fallen out of love.
He’d given her his heart at the age of twenty-two and he’d never taken it back.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SHE WAS SILENT on the drive back to his house. Silent and desperately conscious of every movement he made. His hands on the wheel, the muscular length of his thigh close to hers. He was big and handsome, and keeping her hands to herself was proving as difficult as it had when she was a teenager.