Burn Out (7 page)

“He’s not my-” She
wanted to protest further, but the way he was devouring her with his eyes left
little doubt in anyone’s mind that they were lovers. “There we go,” she said,
offering the dog a small biscuit. “We’re all set, Finn. You were such a good
boy,” she said, stroking the dog’s head.

Mrs. Morrison
smiled. “I was so worried when I heard your father was retiring, but you have
his gift with animals.” She touched Erika’s hand. “It’s a beautiful thing.”

“Thank you,
ma’am,” Erika said, smiling as she tried to ignore the heat of Evan’s gaze
traveling over her body. “That’s sweet of you to say.”

“My my,” the old
woman said, fanning herself. “Is it getting hot in here or is it just me?”

Erika felt the
blush creep up her neck as she tried to pretend she didn’t know what she was
talking about. “Can I get you a glass of water?”

“No, I’ll be on my
way,” she said, nudging Erika’s elbow. “It looks like your young man is anxious
to get you alone.”

Erika crooked a finger
at the man in question, giving him little choice but to follow her down the
narrow hallway to her small private office. “What’re you doing here-”

Before she could
finish the sentence, he pinned her up against the door, kissing her breathless.
Her conscience screamed at her to stop him, but the arms circling his neck
pulled him closer.

He chuckled when
he was the one to break the kiss first. “Now that’s what I wanted when I woke
up this mornin’.” He dropped kisses along her cheek and jaw as he worked his
way to her ear.

“Stop,” she said,
trying to infuse some conviction in to her protest. It wasn’t fair. He
shouldn’t be able to reduce her to a quivering, witless mass with little more
than his mouth. “We can’t do this. You shouldn’t even be here. I’m busy. I have
a waiting room full of people and I’m already exhausted.” She glanced at the
wall clock over his shoulder. “Lord help me. It’s not even noon.”

“You have to eat
something. Why don’t I grab your favorite roast beef sandwich from the deli
down the street?”

“No, it’s okay,”
she said, even though her mouth watered at the thought. “I don’t have time to
eat anyways.”

He grinned as he
slid a finger under her chin. “I see nothin’ has changed. You still get so
caught up carin’ for these animals that you forget to take care of yourself.”

She didn’t want to
admit that she felt the loss as soon as he stepped back and began circling back
towards her desk. She winced when his eyes landed on the cluttered credenza.

“I’m surprised you
still have this,” he said, picking up a framed photograph of the two of them
waterskiing at a friend’s cottage. He stared at the photograph a long time
before he looked up at her and smiled.

Sometimes she let
herself forget how gorgeous the man was, but when he hit her with the full
force of that bright white smile and those clear blue eyes… How was a woman
supposed to resist the temptation to clear her desk and beg him to take her
right there?

As though he could
read her mind, he winked and chuckled before moving on to the next framed
photo. “You got a dog?”

Her Bichon Frise,
Chloe, was her constant companion. She would never admit it to him, but she’d
been desperately lonely and sad after they broke up. A canine buddy seemed the
only way to fill the void since she couldn’t bring herself to even consider
getting involved with another man.

“Yeah. Her name is
Chloe.” She smiled. “She’s a handful, but I love her.”

“We always talked
about gettin’ a dog, remember?” he asked, lowering his voice.

She stepped
forward to take the picture. “We talked about a lot of things back then. They
were just silly little fantasies. We were young, immature…”

“Don’t do that,”
he said, tucking a stray lock of her hair behind her ear. He brushed his thumb
across her cheek. “Don’t belittle what we had. It was incredible and you know
it.”

There was no point
denying it. They had been incredible together for a long time, until he decided
to take a mistress by the name of Titan Records. “I don’t want to talk about
the past,” she said, setting the framed photo of her dog in front of the
picture of the two of them.

“Fine, then let’s
talk about how amazing last night was.” He moved closer, crowding her between
his muscular body and the desk behind her. “You can’t deny it was every bit as
mind-blowing as you remember.” He traced a finger up her arm. “I can’t believe
I was your last lover, your
only
lover…” he whispered, grabbing her
hips. “I love knowin’ that I’m the only man you’ve ever been with.”

“Don’t flatter
yourself,” she said, wishing he didn’t wear his arrogance like a sexy second
skin. “I’ve been busy with work.”

He leaned down to
brush his lips over hers. “Say what you will, we both know the truth.”

She was almost
afraid to hear his version of the truth, but curiosity overcame common sense,
prompting her to ask, “Really? And what’s that?”

“You can’t imagine
sharin’ your body with another man any more than I can imagine lettin’ you.”

She gripped his
bulging biceps to push him away and demand some space, but as soon as she
touched him, she was reminded of the raw physical power he’d exhibited last
night, poised over her, thrusting into her… She closed her eyes against the
memory, praying he couldn’t guess what she was thinking.

“You’re thinkin’
about it too, aren’t you?” He nipped her bottom lip and she moaned, wanting,
needing more. “Are you countin’ down the hours until we can do it again? I know
I am.”

Yes.
“No.” Common sense reared its ugly head,
beating her raging libido into submission. “This can’t happen again.”

As though she
hadn’t uttered a protest, he continued grazing her neck with his lips, taunting
her with the promise of delivering what she wanted if only she found the
courage to admit he was the one thing she wanted most.

“I’m serious,
Evan.” She pushed against his shoulders and the look she saw in his eyes… that
raw hunger… rendered her legs useless. Leaning against the desk for support,
she damned the universe that had put him in her path again. Getting over him
the first time had been hard enough; she didn’t know if she had the strength to
do it a second time.

He framed her face
with both hands. “I know I hurt you. I was a fool for not seein’ what we had
until I’d lost you. But I get it now. I’ll never make that mistake again. I
swear to you.”

She would give
anything to believe him, but she’d heard dozens of empty promises from him over
the last year of their relationship. He kept promising he would work less, he’d
hire someone to share the burden, he’d make more time for her, but their time
ran out long before she walked out on him.

“I can’t do this
again,” she said, grabbing his wrists as she tried to pry his hands off of her.
“I refuse to do this again. What happened last night never should have
happened. I had too much to drink and-”

“Don’t say that,”
he said, rage infusing his voice. “Don’t pretend I was some drunken mistake. We
both know you made love to me last night because you needed me as much as I
needed you.”

He was right, the
alcohol had nothing to do with her decision to go home with him. “Fine, I
wanted you. Are you satisfied?”

“No,” he said,
letting his hands fall to his sides. “But I will be when you admit you’ve never
stopped wantin’ me.”

There was no way
she intended to feed his ego with the words he wanted to hear. She still had
her pride, and the past year had helped her to become a stronger, more
independent woman than she ever was when they were together. She cringed when
she thought about the girl who cried herself to sleep because she thought
losing him would kill her. It didn’t kill her. She’d survived and she would
again. They’d only shared one night, and she would force herself to forget it
just like she’d forced herself to forget every other time they’d made love.

“You need to leave
now. I have a waiting room filled with people waiting to see me.”

“Let me pick you
up after work. I’ll take you out for dinner. We can talk about what happened
last night, about where we go from here.”

She thrust her
hands into her hair in frustration. “You’re not listening to me. We don’t go
anywhere from here. You go back to your life and I go back to mine.”

“My life is empty
without you,” he said quietly, looking her in the eye. “What do I have to do to
make you see that?”

His words hit her
like a sucker punch, rendering her speechless. The Evan she knew was rarely
weak or vulnerable. He was like a force of nature, brutal in his intensity,
terrifying and unstoppable once he’d set his course.

“I’m sorry.” She
truly was sorry. She loved him more than she’d ever loved anyone and his pain
still felt like her own. “I never wanted to hurt you. Last night should never
have happened.”

He touched a
finger to her mouth, tracing a line over her full bottom lip. “I’m glad it did
happen, ‘cause you almost had me convinced.”

She frowned.
“Convinced of what?”

“That you’d
stopped lovin’ me.”

She sucked in a
breath. She’d said that to him shortly after their break-up to force him to
back off, but as soon as the words left her lips, she wished she could take
them back. The pain she saw in his eyes had haunted her for months afterward.
“Evan, please…”

“It’s okay,” he
said, smiling. “You don’t have to say anything. After last night, I know how
you feel about me.”

The truth had been
in the way she’d kissed him, the way she responded when he made love to her.
“You may think-”

“We didn’t use
protection.”

She closed her
eyes when she realized she hadn’t taken her pill last night. She’d been in such
a hurry when she went home to shower and change that she’d forgotten all about
it. “Damn it,” she whispered.

His face lit up as
he pulled her close. “You have nothin’ to worry about,” he whispered in her
ear. “I’ll always take care of you… and our baby.”

“Stop!” she said,
trying to pretend she wasn’t affected by the conviction in his voice. “I can
take care of myself and any children I may or may not have, with you or anyone
else.”

He glared at her
as he pulled back to look her in the eye. “I’ll always look after what’s mine,
and you don’t even have to entertain the idea of havin’ a baby with another man
‘cause it’s never gonna happen.”

That was the Evan
she remembered: jealous, possessive, a little crazy when he felt he might risk
losing her. It was that lethal combination that kept her from breaking up with
him half a dozen times.

“You need to go!
Now!” She pointed to the door, half-expecting him to laugh in her face. Evan
Spencer didn’t take orders from anyone.

He took a step
back and looked her up and down before he smirked. “I’m leavin’, but I can
promise you this isn’t over.”

By the time she
was finally able to put her feet up, they were throbbing and she was so tired
she could have wept with relief that the day was finally over. She groaned
aloud when someone tapped on her door. “Go away,” she muttered.

Jeff peeked his
head in the door. “You want me to go get Chloe for you?”

“Thanks, but I’ll
pick her up in just a minute,” Erika said, hoping he would take the hint and
leave.
No such luck.

He stepped inside
and closed the door behind him. “Are you gonna tell me what the hell happened
between you and Spencer last night?”

Erika was tired,
hungry, confused, and concerned about the pill she’d forgotten to take. She was
planning to call her doctor’s office before she remembered it was Saturday and
they wouldn’t be in until Monday. By then it may be too late. She would simply
go to the drug store and ask her pharmacist whether she thought the morning
after pill would be her best course of action. She knew that missing one pill
wasn’t supposed to be a problem, but she didn’t want to take any chances.

“I’d rather not
talk about this right now, Jeff,” she said, reaching in the desk drawer for her
purse.

“Too bad.”

His sharp tone
surprised her. He was always so even-tempered, unlike Evan. That was one of the
reasons she liked him. “I don’t owe you an explanation,” she said, gripping her
purse strap. “We’re both free to see other people, remember?”

“Your choice, not
mine,” he said, crossing his arms and glaring at her.

“Nevertheless, it
is what it is.”

“Does that mean
he’ll be escorting you to the wedding?”

“I didn’t say
that.” The wedding was only a few days away. Seven days in paradise with Evan
in full-on pursuit would be hell… or heaven, depending on whether she
surrendered. No! She couldn’t give in to him again. “Evan and I are not getting
back together.”

Jeff’s features
softened and he smiled. “I’m glad to hear that. So you’d still like me to go
with you?”