“Don’tFlome!” she fired back. “Graham will keep you safe.”
“But you know—” I broke off into silence, feeling my cheeks heat. I’d never been more aware of Graham listening to my every word than I was in that instant. “You know I can’t— You know I don’t—”
Don’t sleep in anyone’s bed but my own, I finished inside my head, unable to voice the embarrassing confession aloud. I could feel Graham looking at me, could feel his curiosity thickening the air between us, but I kept my eyes on the center console.
“Oh, Gwennie…” Flo sighed in sympathy. She knew all about my insomnia issues. She also knew I’d never spent the night with anyone. Not a date, not a boyfriend, not a slumber party. I didn’t crash on friend’s couches after late-night benders, didn’t doze off during movies or boring conversations, never climbed into someone else’s bed — at least, not with the intention to go to sleep. I couldn’t get my eyes to close with someone lying next to me, couldn’t get my body to relax enough to drift into dreamland if I wasn’t completely on my own.
Solo.
Safe.
“Flo,” I said a little desperately.
“I know, honey. And I sympathize, I do… but at the same time, I don’t want you to be on your own after what you’ve been through tonight.”
“I said I’m fine!”
“Yeah, but I know you well enough to know when you’renotfine,” she said gently. “Even if you insist otherwise.”
My scowl deepened.
“One night won’t kill you,” she assured me. “Rules are meant to be broken. Or, at least, bent a bit.”
“But—”
“Seems like you’re in good hands. I’ll let you go. We’ll check in tomorrow.”
“Flo!”
“Sleep well!”
“FLO!”
The speakers chimed as the call disconnected. I collapsed back against the leather seat and sank my teeth into my bottom lip, trying to quiet my jagged breaths. Anger and frustration were pooling in my gut, bubbling up my throat with the urge to scream and cry like a kid having a tantrum. I balled my hands into fists in my lap and swallowed down the gathering emotion, determined not to let Graham see me shaken.
He swung the Bronco sharply to the left, down a narrow side street that looped onto Pickering Wharf. We pulled up outside a brick building a stone’s throw from Salem Harbor. Graham hit a button on his visor, triggering an automatic door, and drove into a triple-bay garage. The other two spots were occupied by a sleek motorcycle and a not-so-sleek SUV with windows tinted so dark, it was impossible to see inside. Like the Bronco, both vehicles were black.
I guessed Graham had a favorite color.
The door shut behind us with a smooth clunk, enclosing us in the garage. Graham jabbed the ignition button and the engine rumbled into silence, leaving us in startling quiet. My eyes drifted — with considerable reluctance — over to the man in the driver’s seat. He’d already removed his seatbelt and sat there silently, half-turned to face me with one arm slung over the gap between our seats. His hand was planted on my leather headrest, mere inches from my face.
I sucked in a sharp breath, trying not to squirm as his fingers pressed into the leather — five small indentations. He wasn’t even touching me, he was touching my freakingseat, yet for some unfathomable reason, that touch felt more erotic than anything I’d experienced in my entire romantic history. A shot of pure, undeniable arousal shot through me like a bolt of lightning.
“Please,” I half-whispered, not above begging if it meant getting away from him — and the unwelcome feelings he was stirring inside me. “Just take me home.”
“No.”
“I don’t understand why you’re so insistent on me staying here.”
“Beginning to realize there’s a lot about me you don’t understand.”
My eyes narrowed. He was so damn arrogant. And rude. And… alarmingly attractive.
Hellfire.
It wasn’t fair. It made no sense at all. I couldn’t stand this man. I loathed him to my core and always would. Right? So… why was I sitting in his passenger seat, torn equally between the impulse to wrap my hands around his throat and strangle the life out of him, and the urge to wind my arms around his neck and press my mouth against his?
No, Gwen.