Kayla eagerly picked up her purse to leave, too, but her best friend stopped her. “Kayla, why don’t you and Matt stay on for a while? Maybe the band will get better.”
“Oh,” she said, shaking her head, “I don’t think—”
“We’ll be happy to,” Matt interrupted her, laying one hand on her forearm to hold her in place.
She tried desperately to ignore the sizzle of heat that shot up her arm to burn in the center of her chest. One touch, Kayla thought. One touch from him and she was on fire. How was that fair? Hadn’t her body learned the hard lesson her brain had over the past nine months? That she couldn’t let herself care? That she couldn’t trust what she felt for him because he so clearly wasn’t interested?
“That’s great.” Evan said, taking Angie’s hand. “We’ll see you guys later.”
“Right.” Matt had already shifted his gaze from their friends to Kayla and she couldn’t hide from the intensity in his eyes.
When they were alone again, Kayla picked up her glass of wine, took a long sip, and then set it down again before speaking. “Okay, why don’t you say whatever it is you have to say and get it over with.”
Four
“Good to see you again, too.”
Kayla took a breath and huffed it out. “I think we’re past the whole ‘polite’ thing, don’t you?”
“Fine.” He reached out, covered her hand with his and held on when she would have pulled away. “Let’s talk about that night.”
She flushed, the heat inside her bursting into an inferno of fire that raced through her system like an out of control blaze. “I’d rather not.”
“Too bad.”
Her gaze snapped to his. His grip on her hand tightened further.
“Let me go, Matt.” She said the words through gritted teeth.
“If I do, you’ll run away.”
“You’ve got that wrong, don’t you? You’re the one who ran all the way to California, remember.”
He frowned. “I remember. Do you remember I was taking a promotion?”
“I remember you not bothering to call before you left.”
Not much he could say to that.
“Besides,” she continued, “why would I run? You don’t scare me.”
“Liar,” he whispered, a soft smile curving his mouth.
Well that was enough to stiffen her spine and strengthen her weakening will. She wasn’t afraid of him, but she was afraid of what she felt for him. Naturally, admitting that to Matt was completely out of the question. She wouldn’t give him any more ammunition to use against her. She was still too vulnerable to him, whether she liked acknowledging it or not, and there was just no way that she was going to line up for more pain.
He had flattened her when he left without a word. And the past nine months had been long and cold and lonely. She was done.
All around them, couples sat at small tables, leaning toward each other, smiling, laughing, talking. Waitresses moved through the room serving up orders of bar food and drinks. The clink of glassware and the ripples of conversation became a white noise that hummed in the background.
Kayla stared into Matt’s brilliant green eyes and resisted the urge to reach out and brush a lock of soft brown hair off his forehead.
His fingers slid across her skin and she fought desperately to hold on to the control and the willpower she had developed over the past several months. It wasn’t easy.
“I didn’t call.” The three words caught her attention and held it.
“Yeah, that much I know,” she said shortly. The memory was thick and rich and so clear it could still jab at her heart, reawakening the ridiculous fantasies that had resulted from that one amazing night she and Matt had had together. The two months building up to it had been filled with tension, a delicious tugging and pulling between them that had finally exploded into a moment in time that still had the ability to wake her up in the middle of the night with a hunger that couldn’t be assuaged.
“I was going to,” he was saying, and Kayla bristled.
So much for memory lane. Mentally, she paved right over it.
“Really? What stopped you? Abducted by aliens?”