“You can’t do this,” Nolan said, looking down at her.
“I’ve been doing this.” She shook off his hand. “You’re the one who shouldn’t be here.”
He took her arm again and shuffled her to the alley that ran alongside the Cat. He set her against the side of the building and put a hand on either side of her head. His face was only inches away, his body close enough to touch, close enough to embrace if she just lifted her arms and wrapped them around him.
She had the overwhelming desire to do it, to press her body against his, to let her hands roam his muscled arms, his sculpted chest, all too visible under his formfitting T-shirt. She would reach for his zipper. He could be inside of her in seconds.
“You’re going to get yourself thrown in jail — or worse,” he said.
She spoke around the lust sweeping her body. “That’s my business. And if it’s so dangerous what are you doing here?”
“Believe it or not, I’m trying to protect you,” he said through his teeth.
“I don’t need your protection,” she said. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been doing just fine without you.”
It was a lie, one she was practiced at telling herself.
His mouth drew into a straight line, his expression tightening into one she remembered — one that said he was treading the line between reason and rage, that he was on the verge of throwing it all to the wind and giving into the fury blowing through his body.
“I have noticed, Bridge. But thanks for reminding me.”
Shame heated her face. She’d ended it with him, not the other way around. It was mean to hold their breakup over his head because she was thrown by his presence.
She glared up at him. She wasn’t going to apologize. This was her territory now. He had no right to be here. No right to appoint himself her protector when she’d told the worst kind of lies to get him to stay away.
“I don’t want you here,” she said.
It was the truth, although not for the reasons he probably suspected. She had no idea why Seamus was pushing the envelope with his operation, taking risks he didn’t need to take, but she and Will were doing what they had to do. Nolan had a choice.
“I don’t fucking care,” Nolan said. “You’re doing what you have to do. So am I.”
“You don’t have to do anything!” she said. “You’re sticking your nose into my business.”
His eyes flashed. “Why do you have to be so fucking stubborn?”
“Why do you have to be so fucking controlling?” she shouted back at him.
His eyes bore into hers, both of them breathing hard. She could see it in the rise and fall of his chest, could feel it in the rise and fall of her own. The moment grew heavy with meaning in the moment before he crushed her mouth beneath his.
Her arms came up around his neck involuntarily, her mouth opening under his, their tongues sparring hungrily as the Cat’s brick wall bit into her back. He explored her mouth like a starving man finally given bread, his lips hard and unyielding on hers, the kiss so urgent it was almost punishing.
She swept his mouth frantically, some distant part of her mind knowing it wouldn’t last, knowing it couldn’t last. The heat spread from her mouth to her breasts, her nipples painful with arousal. Desire raced through her belly to her center, her core swelling, her sex immediately wet with need.
He broke the kiss all at once, leaving them both gasping. The pain in his eyes was a gut punch. She wanted to hold his face in her hands, look into his eyes, tell him how much she still loved him.
How much she’d always loved him.
She flinched when he brought his fist down against the brick wall. He bowed his head, hiding from her behind the hair that fell in his face.
She was frozen in place, her feet rooted to the ground. She could have left. He wouldn’t have stopped her. But she didn’t trust herself to move. Didn’t trust herself not to wrap her arms around him and tell him everything.
When he lifted his head to look at her, his eyes were lit with something fierce and determined.
“Protecting you is my business.” His voice was low and hoarse. “Send me away. Tell me again how you don’t love me. It won’t change a thing.”
He straightened and walked away.
She stood in the alley, trying to catch her breath, trying to calm the hunger that had roared to life in her body, trying to tell herself Nolan was right.