Page 51 of The Stalker

“Okay, well, here’s the button to adjust the mirrors,” he showed her. “And to turn it on, you have to flip up this panel.”

He reached across Tatiana to flick up the orange panel in the center console. Tatiana swallowed heavily as his nearness assaulted her senses. The scent that she’d started to get used to hit her powerfully, and his stomach was pressed against her thigh as he leaned his torso across her to do it.

“See?” he asked as he turned his face to hers.

“See what?”

He frowned at her. “The start button. It’s hidden under the panel, see?”

Tatiana blinked at him. He was too close for her to focus. He looked at her and then down at his hand. She followed his gaze and could clearly see the button.

“Oh, yeah, of course. Very cool.”

“I thought you might have trouble finding it,” he smiled at her and finally pulled back out of the car so he was crouching next to her again.

“I probably would have,” she admitted.

“I don’t think there’s anything else you need to know. The lights and wipers are all automatic. You’re okay with paddle shifters?”

Tatiana nodded again.

“Cool,” Hayden said.

He stood up, closed her door, and walked around the car before getting in and shutting his own door.

You do realize, Tatiana Swanson, that you were completely oblivious to the world around you during that exchange. Don’t you?

Guilt flooded through her as she came to this realization. She couldn’t let him affect her like that again, or she would have no choice but to break their contract. She strapped herself in and pressed the button to turn the car on. It came to life, and she couldn’t wipe the grin off her face.

“Amazing,” she whispered, more to herself than Hayden.

He put the address for the tour bus company into the GPS as Tatiana backed the car carefully out of its space. She slowly edged it around the parking garage toward the exit.

“You can go a little faster,” Hayden laughed.

“Shh, don’t distract me,” she told him, feeling anxious, and kind of longing for the familiarity of the black SUV she’d been driving since she got to Chicago.

People literally stopped in their tracks and turned to watch them drive past as they made their way through downtown Chicago. She saw more than one person take a photo of the car, too.

“Do you get people taking pictures of the car a lot?” she asked Hayden.

“Yeah. The car. The me. Pictures are always being taken.” He shrugged his shoulders.

Tatiana laughed. “The ‘you,’ huh?”

“Yup. The me. The friends as well. God help me if the friends are with the me in the car.” He winked at her.

“Sounds like a recipe for trouble,” she teased him.

“Take one ridiculously hot car, one drummer, and one friend. Stir. Wait for panic to ensue.”

“You forgot that the drummer is ridiculously hot, too.”

Shit. The words were out of her mouth before she had time to think.

Well, that’s not professional, Tatiana.

She tried to equalize it in the hopes of covering her slip-up. “And the friend is no doubt ridiculously hot as well. I mean, I’ve seen all your friends, and you could all be on the cover of a magazine. Well, I guess you often are.”

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