Page 38 of Silver-Tongued Devil
“It’s not too bad at all. It’ll look better once you’re done with it, of course. And I was thinking the same as you, that the eagle should be downstairs. But I’ve decided I want it in here. I’m a greedy guy, I guess. I want to keep the best for myself. Besides, it’ll get me in the right frame of mind while I work.”
“Mm. Put it in the middle window, right here? It’d sure make a statement.” She took a sip from her beer and glanced at him. He was leaning up against the desk, the bottle held negligently in one big hand, one ankle crossed over the other, and he wasn’t looking out the windows. He was looking at her. “So the right frame of mind is ‘predatory’?”
“So often,” he said. “At least the way I do it.”
Was it warm in here? Or was it his eyes? “Sounds a little scary,” she said, going for breezy. Going for confident. “Do I really want to be doing business with you?”
His eyes were shining gold. His eyes made her weak in the knees. He said, “Oh, I think so. ‘Predatory’ might just mean that I know what I want, and then I go after it.”
“And do you always get it?”
“Usually. The secret is—you got to want it enough. And I do want it.”
She took another sip of beer, and he didn’t. He was just watching her. She said, “Well, I’ll hang the eagle here, then.”
“Dakota…” He said it like he liked saying it, and all she could do was look at him. He shoved off the desk, took a step closer, then reached out and brushed the back of his hand over her cheek. She was swaying into him, and just like that, his hand was holding her head, his eyes drinking her in. He took one more step, and she could barely breathe. And then he kissed her.
It was a bare brush of his lips over hers, but it sent a tingle of pleasure right down her body. His thumb was stroking her cheek, his lips returning to hers as if he needed them. Gentle, but so sure. And in another second, it wasn’t going to be gentle, because she could feel his urgency.
She realized she was dropping her beer bottle the second it happened. She grabbed for it, but she was too late. She jumped back as it hit the carpet, the frothy liquid spilling out in a soaking mess, splattering on her bare feet.
He was down before she even had a chance to react, scooping the bottle up, then standing and setting it on the desk.
“Sorry,” she said, trying to laugh it off. “That was smooth of me. I’ll just… ah, the eagle. I’ll wait to move it until after I paint in here.”
“Dakota…”
She didn’t listen to whatever he would have said. She was already talking. “I should get home. Russ will have dinner going. I need to go.”
He looked at her without saying anything. Two seconds, three, and she forced herself to shut up and meet his gaze. Finally, he asked, “Is it Evan, or is it me?”
“Evan?No. What? No. I just need to go. I’ll do your kitchen tomorrow. I’ll be here around eight, unless you’d rather I started later. Tell me when.”
She thought he was going to say something else, but all he said was, “Eight’s good. I’ll be gone.”
Blake stood in the front doorway and watched her haul on the steering wheel, turn that battered old truck around, and head up the drive.
Too much. Too fast. You pushed too hard. And in no possible universe was that “friends.”
The worst thing was, when he’d been looking into her eyes, feeling the pull in her, feeling her wanting to come to him, knowing how much he wanted that—no, how much heneededthat… he’d known something else, too. That she knew what Steve Sawyer had said about her. And that she knew Blake had heard it.
And that she thought he believed it.
This wasn’t what he’d wanted to do. This wasn’t it at all.
Then why did you do it?
Because he was a damn fool with no discipline, which was the whole entire problem. Next time, though, it was going to be different. Next time, he was going to do things right. Next time, he wasn’t going to be making her run away.
Stupid,Dakota told herself, punching the steering wheel with one hand and doing nothing but hurting her fist.Stupid, stupid, stupid.
She’d known she should pack up and leave, that there was nothing there for her. Instead, she’d stuck around, and sure enough, Blake had made a move on her, and she’d stood there and waited for him—wantedhim—to do it. It had been perfectly clear what it was all about, and it wasn’t true love.
He wasn’t the boy next door. He was an NFL player, a multimillionaire working his way up to the “billion” mark while he dated women like Beth Schaefer, women who met his standards, women with graduate degrees and family money andclass. And this was Wild Horse. She was no Beth Schaefer, and everybody in this town knew it. Blake wasn’t her hero riding in to save the day. He was another rich guy used to taking what he wanted. That’s exactly what he’d said.I know what I want, and then I go after it.
Predatory.It wasn’t on anybody’s list of love words.
The disappointment was right there, tightening her chest, constricting her breathing. Or maybe that was the shame.
