Page 57 of Silent Threat
OK, go, go, go.She nearly ran to get her sneakers. She pulled her sopping socks off before she shoved her feet into the shoes.
Cole was back in front of her before she tied the laces, holding two white towels out for her. “Dry yourself with one, cover yourself with the other.”
She was grateful that he didn’t offer his hand to help her up this time. She was in no shape to be touching him.
She stood on her own and grabbed one of the towels from him. “Thanks.” She dried herself with brisk movement, her brain cells playing ping-pong with the one question she didn’t want to be thinking.
What had just happened here?
OK, so Cole was into nipples. Likereallyinto them.God, the look in his eyes.A nipple fetish? It happened. It had nothing to do with her. Could have been worse. He could have focused on all her flabby spots revealed by her plastered-on clothes.
Maybe any nipple would have riveted his attention. According to his file, he’d been depressed for a while. By his own admission, he’d spent a month locked into his apartment with nothing but his weapons for company. Before that, he’d been in a hospital and rehab. The last time he’d seen nipples might have been a long while back. With hers right in his face, he was just remembering what they were.
She tossed the wet towel on a plastic chair.
He snapped the dry one open. “Arms out.”
When she obeyed, still bamboozled by the sight of so much naked male chest so close to her, he wrapped the towel around her gently, lopsided, the right side hanging lower than the left. His hands didn’t drop away from her body when he was finished.
His gaze slipped to her lips. The air between them thickened, charged with undisguised desire.
His fingers clenched on the terrycloth. His jaw tightened. His warm breath fanned her face. “I wasn’t going to do this, dammit.”
And then he kissed her.
She was no tough cookie. She capitulated the second his lips touched hers. Her body simply saidyesand went for it.
His firm, warm lips pressed against hers, and he nuzzled her, nibbled her, prompting her to submit. She did.
She let him draw her against his wide chest as he angled his head to deepen the kiss.
Her brain had to be somewhere on the bottom of the pool. Because no way was she kissing a patient, in the pool complex, where anyone could walk in.
And with that thought, she regained sanity at last, enough to tug away.
Leave. Now.But she couldn’t. All she could do was stare at him, at the heat in his eyes that threatened to blister her.
“I’m sorry,” she blurted, clutching her towel. Swallowed. Panicked. Took a quick step back. “That didn’t happen.”
He growled and advanced. “The hell it didn’t.”
Right.What was she thinking? What had Cole said about denial and hand grenades? Denial was not the way to go, and certainly not in a professional capacity.
“If you want to file a complaint, I completely understand.”
His head dipped forward like an angry bear’s. “What are you talking about? I kissed you.”
“I shouldn’t have let it happen.”
“You think you could have stopped me?”
“Anowould have stopped you. I didn’t say no.”
His lips flattened.
“I don’t think I can have sessions with you,” she said, and hated that she’d caused this. That her lack of judgment would take something away from Cole that he needed.
“No.”
