She hesitated a moment but let it go before entering the room. His blood ran hot. Kara, alone in a hotel room. He wasn’t complaining. It wasn’t déjà vu. It was “take two” and one hundred percent on his terms.

Chapter Five

Kara trembled as she walked into the room and all the way to the ceiling-to-floor windows, aware of the bed to her right like she’d never been aware of a bed in her life. Feeling like a deer being stalked by a leopard, her chest was tight with a rush of adrenaline and emotion—fear, she realized. She didn’t often feel fear. Not until recently. Not until she’d realized how close she was to losing the only thing she had left in this world. But it wasn’t Blake that scared her tonight when it should be. It was how much she wanted him, how much she wanted him to be something other than she knew him to be. And it was that kind of thinking that tangled women up with men like him and got them killed.

The sound of the door closing behind her set her heart racing and she turned to find Blake flipping the lock. They were alone. She was locked in here with him. In Denver, she’d thought she’d never see him again when she’d decided to sleep with him. Everything had changed now.

He dropped his bag, and her briefcase, on the floor by the door, but held onto her purse. He paused by the bed to his right and unzipped it. “You do know a girl’s purse is sacred.”

“So are the next few hours of my life. I don’t intend to spend them hunched over a toilet from one of your cocktails.” He dumped the contents of her bag on the bed and Kara held her breath, waiting for what he would reveal. Her Glock .22 bounced onto the bed.

He arched a brow. “Anger issues?”

“I won’t apologize for carrying protection.”

He dug through the rest of the items in her purse and stuffed it all back inside. “I won’t ask you to apologize for the gun,” he finally surprised her by saying, and stuck the Glock back in her purse. “In fact, I’d be disappointed if you were foolish enough not to protect yourself, considering who you work for. That doesn’t mean I want to make it easy for you to use it on me.” He back-stepped to his bag and squatted down, punching in a combination on a lock connected to the zipper and then opened it. He snatched up her slim briefcase and didn’t bother to look through it before placing it inside his duffle along with her purse.

“If you want me to go over the restaurant operation, I need that,” she commented.

“I don’t. Not tonight. We have other things to deal with first.”

Okay then. They had other things to deal with. She did wonder why he’d bothered looking through her purse and not her briefcase, but it didn’t matter. The bottom line was the same. Her gun, her purse, and her car keys were now out of her reach, under his control. She was under his control. Trapped. At his mercy. Heat pooled low in her belly. Why, why, why was this man being in complete control so damn thrilling? She tried to tell herself it was a survival instinct, a way to get past being his captive, but it wasn’t. It so wasn’t. It was him. It was something he ignited in her she’d never felt before.

He straightened, big and broad, deliciously male, and shrugged out of his leather coat, tossing it on top of his bag. “Your turn,” he said, his voice a soft command. “Take off your jacket.”

In her mind, she knew she should decline, set the stage early that she wasn’t his willing slave. She should set ground rules for what was going to be more than this one night. But it was just a jacket and she was fully clothed underneath it. To decline seemed the wrong battle to fight.

Kara reached for the tie at her waist and pulled it loose. Blake leaned a shoulder on the wall to his left, watching her, those dark eyes hooded, impossible to read. But she didn’t have to. The heat simmering between them prickled at her skin, teasing her senses.

Slowly she slid the garment off her shoulders and set it on top of the chair in the corner to her right. Blake’s gaze raked down her body and back up again. Kara crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I assume you have questions. I’ve already given you answers.”

“Get undressed.”

Kara gaped at the unexpected demand, her arms dropping. “What?”

“You heard me. Get undressed.”

“No,” she said, exasperated, angry. “I’m not getting undressed.”

“For all I know you have drugs you intend to use on me, or worse, stashed in your clothes. Fool me once, sweetheart, but never again. So either you get rid of your clothes or I get rid of them for you.”

“I’m not getting undressed.”

He pushed off the wall and took a step toward her. Kara’s heart jackhammered and she held up a hand. “Don’t even think about it.”

“You do it or I’ll do it.”

“Forget it, Blake,” she said firmly. “You want to talk, then talk.”

“I talk better with you naked.”

“I don’t.”

“Too bad.”

They glared at one another, the air crackling with the tension between them, the distrust, the anger, and the desire. Kara swallowed hard. They were going to end up naked. She knew it. He knew it. Her mind raced. She wasn’t going to play a victim. That wasn’t who she’d created with this identity, nor was it who she’d been with him before now. It wasn’t even who she was as a person. No matter who he was or what he was, she couldn’t escape this moment in time with him, nor did she truly want to. Living in the moment was part of what she’d been trained to do. She wasn’t going to get emotionally attached, and letting herself enjoy this man physically might even save her life. It might be bad logic she’d question as sane later, but it worked for her now.