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She squared her shoulders. “Thank you for lunch,” the words were stiff. “But now, you should go. Your fifteen minutes are definitely up.”
He made no attempt to move, however. “You have to work,” he said.
It wasn’t a question, but she nodded, wishing her body would stop trembling, and that the knots in the bottom of her stomach would soften.
“Where do you work?”
Her eyes widened. “Why? Do you want to buy that, too?”
His smirk shouldn’t have been sexy but damn it, it was. The way a dimple dug deep into the groove of his cheek, to the impish glint in his eyes, it all pulled at something in the region of her heart and made her want something she’d been denying herself a very long time.
Pleasure.
To simply enjoy heat and desire, to feel without thinking, without worrying, without anticipating, at all times, the worst in a person.
Brock’s legacy was hard to shake though.
“Actually, I was going to offer you a lift.”
“That’s fine. I ride my bike.”
He glanced outside. “Rain is forecast for later today.”
“I don’t mind rain.”
His eyes ran over her face. “Let me drive you; it will give us longer to talk.”
The problem was that Maddie didn’t want to talk. She wanted things she shouldn’t, and certainly not with this man.
She shook her head quickly.
“One car trip,” he rebutted, before she could voice yet another objection. “I’ll even let you abuse me the whole way, if you’d like.”
“Well now,” she bit back a smile. “That is almost too good to refuse.”
To her surprise, and unfortunately not her chagrin, he put his hands on her hips and lifted her with ease from the edge of the counter, so that her feet were on solid ground once more. Except, while the ground might have been solid, nothing about Maddie’s body was. Her knees were still knocking together, and she was almost certain he must have been able to tell how he’d affected her.
His car was everything she’d have expected—big, dark, and expensive looking, outside and in. The windows were darkly tinted, the seats were a sumptuous dark brown leather, and it smelled like wealth and luxury. Of course.
She buckled her seatbelt with hands that were slightly uneasy.
“Where to?”
“Turn left at the end of the street,” she said. “Then keep going.”
The engine started with the press of a button and a soft-throttled purr. When Rocco pulled onto the road, something in Maddie’s chest lurched. He was so right behind the wheel of this car. Though it was simply a vehicle, it was also an extension of him, in a way that made her all the more aware of his power. Being close to him like this honed her awareness of him as a man, so her heart was racing, and she found it hard to speak.
“So?” he prompted. “Where is the abuse I was promised?”
She angled him a tart smile when words continued to fail her.
“Aren’t you going to yell at me for kissing you?”
She opened her mouth to do just that, then closed it again. “I didn’t hate being kissed by you,” she admitted, because why bother lying? She had no doubt Rocco could read her like a book. It was bad enough to desire him—worse to be caught out in such an obvious denial.
“Didn’t hate it, huh?” He took his eyes off the road for a brief moment, so he could scan her face with those intelligent, considered eyes. Her pulse throbbed. “But didn’t love it?”
She forced her attention straight ahead. “Turn right at the intersection.”
