Page 212 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 5-8

She had never told anyone about Noah, not even the police.

And she especially couldn’t tell Tiger. He wasn’t her confidant.

He wasn’t even her friend.

He was the man who had offered her a way out of the fire into the frying pan. And he would walk her straight back into the fire without a qualm because nobody got as rich as Croesus by being soft andsimpatico. It didn’t matter that he had sat and shared a salad with her or that she had momentarily imagined feeling safe with him.

If she told him about Noah, then he would ask questions and any answers she gave would raise more questions. Only how could she answer those questions? To do so would mean revealing more than she was willing to share and she didn’t want to think about the person she had been back then. Didn’t want to show weakness when it felt as though they had reached some kind of equality.

‘What about your family? Are they strict?’

For a fraction of a second, she thought he wasn’t going to reply but then he did another of those infinitesimal shrugs.

‘I have no family.’

He glanced at the expensive watch on his wrist. ‘You should probably be able to sleep now.’

It was a dismissal, just as if they were back in the office. Except she was wearing a bathrobe.

‘Is there a dishwasher?’ She stood up, reaching for the plate—

‘You don’t need to.’

He moved at the same time, his chair scraping against the floor as he got to his feet, his hand covering hers.

Move,she told herself. But she couldn’t. It was as if the touch of his hand had stopped time. Stopped everything. There was nothing but the silence and the darkness and the heat of his skin and his nearness as the air grew thicker.

For a second they both stared at each other. Every single nerve ending in her body was flickering like a malfunctioning circuit board.

Only she didn’t feel broken.

She felt whole and right and sure, and she stepped forward and clasped his head between her hands and fitted her mouth against his.

And everything just stopped.

She felt a jolt of shock as if she hadn’t decided to kiss him. But then in a way she hadn’t. It had been more of an imperative, a challenge to be met, a need to be satisfied. Curiosity and desire in their most primitive and basic form.

She couldn’t remember any kiss feeling like this. It was a wildfire tearing through the darkened outback, torching everything in its path. A wall of flame that altered everything it touched. It was possessive and intoxicating. Devastating and reckless and so necessary.

And that was shocking in a different way. That she should want his mouth on hers. That there was no terror pulling her under at his closeness.

For the first time in six years, she wanted this, wanted him.

He was pulling her towards him now, his hand fumbling clumsily at her waist, anchoring her body against his so that she could feel the hard press of his chest and thighs.

The lights beneath the kitchen units spun and blurred behind them, bright and fast like a carousel, but the real world, the world of lawyers and contracts and threats and failure, was so far away.

There was only him.

Tiger.

Here. With his free hand sliding upwards through her hair in one smooth motion, fingers warm and strong, his mouth rough and tender. He parted her lips and deepened the kiss and the fierceness of him took her breath away and she heard herself moan. Then he was lifting her against him and her few remaining thoughts grew gauzy, weightless, unimportant.

Somewhere in the house a clock chimed loudly and she jerked backwards and her heart, which had stopped beating when he had touched her, started up again at twice the pace.

‘If you’ve changed your mind about where you want me to sleep—’ He sounded as shell-shocked as she felt. Nervous almost, although she must be imagining that.

She cleared her throat. ‘I haven’t,’ she said quickly.

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