Page 70 of Her Wild Coast Promise

Cora lowers to the bed while I slip on my tie. I keep my eyes fixed on the window across the room. What if I told her to get undressed, then used this tie on her wrists so I could tease her senseless?

“I just received the debate questions,” she says. “I thought maybe I’d drive you to your meeting so we could talk about them.”

“You’re my chauffeur now too?”

She’s crossed her legs, but because she’s shoeless and perched on the edge of my bed where weeks ago I devoured her in every possible way, the circuits in my brain are jammed.

“If that’s what it takes to get you alone.” The instant she says it, she looks away and her cheeks flush.

I whip the tie around. “You can get me alone anytime. All you have to do is ask.”

She presses her lips together, eyes steady, and exhales slowly through her nose. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

“What if I did?”

She stands and gives me a tight nod. “I’ll wait for you on the porch.”

When she hurries from the room, I finish with my tie and slide on my jacket, my thoughts racing.

Shit. Now is not the time for me to open my heart, but keeping my cravings locked inside is tearing me up inside. Not only am I not sleeping, I’m preoccupied by thoughts of her when I’m not. Then I have Hunter’slove and risk are a package dealrattling around in my brain.

I slip through the door and lock it behind me. The rain on the porch roof sounds like nails falling on copper.

Cora is waiting, a black umbrella in her grasp. Beyond her, the thick rain blurs the forest and turns my yard to a sea of pale green.

As soon as I join her, she pops open the umbrella, and side by side we descend the stairs to the path. I have to crouch slightly to fit under the fabric, but it brings me closer to Cora. Once inside the garage, I take the umbrella and shake it out, then tuck it behind the seat.

Cora hikes up the hem of her dress to climb behind the wheel, and I give her my hand to help. With a wary glance to me, she accepts. Once she’s settled, I walk around to the passenger side and climb in.

While she rolls out of the garage, she nods at the printout resting on the console. I skim it but I’m not really focusing on the words. My chest feels tight and the rain pounding down might as well be buckshot to my skull.

“I think we should work on questions two and five.” Cora pauses at the base of my driveway to look both ways before turning right.

I give question two another pass. “I won’t be able to talk about active investigations.”

“Fair enough,” Cora replies. “Tell me what you’d say to the audience.”

“I’d say that investigations take time.”

She shakes her head. “That’s opening the door for a discussion about your department’s use of time.”

“So I’m supposed to lie?”

She gives me a concerned look. “Of course not. Okay, if you weren’t censored in regard to the investigations, what would you say?”

I focus on the rainy landscape whizzing by, my jaw so tight my molars ache.

“Seth, I would never reveal information,” she says in a patient voice. “I promise you can trust me.”

I try to read her, but the look she gives me is tense but solid.

“It’s not that I don’t,” I say. “It’s to protect you.”

She releases a deep sigh. “Understood, but to help you win this election, I need the truth.”

Heat rises up my throat like a balloon on fire.The truth is I’m falling for you and I don’t know what to do.I shut my eyes to silence what my heart is screaming.

Not. Now.

---