Page 46 of Dating the Rebel
“Why did you go to all this trouble of getting me here if you’re not going to talk to me?” she asked.
“Didn’t your sister tell you?” he asked as he finally stepped out of the shadows.
Tabitha. Damn her. “She was in on it with you!”
“I’m not sure she even knew it was me,” he said. “I told her that I’m a potential client.”
“No, you’re not,” she said. “Just like you’re not a prince either.” But what was he really?
“I have a throne,” he said. He tugged her inside the dark room with him. After flipping on a switch, a lone light illuminated a throne-like chair carved of highly polished wood with jeweled accents and a purple velvet cushion.
“Did you win it in a poker game?” she asked. Was that where he’d been the last few days that even his sister hadn’t known where he’d gone?
He chuckled. “Not for keeps, just for a bit.”
“So you’ve been playing poker the past few days?” she asked.
His lips curved into a slight grin as he stared down at her. “You missed me?”
She had missed him. Too damn much. But she didn’t want him to know that, didn’t want him to know he was getting to her. She shook her head. “No, it was a welcome reprieve.”
“Really?” he asked. “You’re the one who sought me out last, coming to that poker game.”
She had, but she wasn’t about to admit it. “Blair and Teo talked me into it. I just did it for them.”
He snorted. “Like Blair has ever talked you into anything. It’s always been the other way around.” His grin slipped away then as his forehead creased with concern.
“Blair is not a child,” she said. “She is a strong-willed woman with a mind of her own. I haven’t ever talked her into anything she didn’t really want to do.”
He sighed. “She is strong or she wouldn’t have made it through our childhood let alone her career as a fighter pilot.”
“Exactly.” She knew how hard it had been for Blair growing up with her disinterested parents. But she hadn’t realized then that it might have been hard for Grant, too. He’d always seemed so unaffected by it all. So unaffected by everything...
But her.
She had affected him. He’d always lost his cool with her, warning her away from his sister. He was so protective of Blair.
“So why have you always given me such a hard time about her?” she wondered.
He drew in a shaky breath before grinning again. But it seemed forced, like it didn’t quite reach his dark blue eyes. They didn’t crinkle at the corners like they did when he was really happy. “I just like giving you a hard time...”
Her pulse quickened at the double entendre. She had missed him. So much...
And she’d worked so hard today, listening to so many complaints that she just wanted to forget about the business and lose herself in pleasure only. Lose herself in Grant...
Fear licked through her for a moment. She didn’t want to lose herself—ever—in any man. She didn’t want to become her mother.
“Are you okay?” Grant asked, his voice deep with concern.
She nodded. “Of course...” She was more self-aware than her mother. And she was more aware of Grant as well. She couldn’t lose herself in a man who wasn’t going to stick around anyway. “Let’s not talk about Blair,” she said. “Hell, let’s not talk at all.” She pulled his head down to hers and kissed him.
His breath shuddered out against her lips, but then he kissed her back—just as passionately as she was kissing him. Their lips nibbled. Tongues tangled.
She could have kissed him for hours. But he pulled back and trailed his lips down her throat, and the tension wound inside her as her body demanded more. Demanded the release that he could give her.
She reached for the buttons on his shirt, tugging them free, so that she could push the navy silk from his shoulders. But as she did, she noticed wounds on his muscular body—bruises and scrapes. “What the hell...” she murmured. “What happened to you?”
“I thought we weren’t talking,” he reminded her. Then he lifted her from her feet, swinging her up in his arms. But a grimace crossed his face as he carried her, and she knew he was hurt.
