Page 73 of A Shot at Love
“Any luck?”
“None. I don’t know whether to be happy or mad that I can’t. It makes no sense. I know all these men. I vetted them.” His gaze lit on her face. “But you didn’t come in here to ask me about this.”
Because it wasn’t a question, she didn’t respond.
“Gemma, come on. Tell me what’s wrong, what’s bothering you.”
The Gemma Laine she showed the world, the confident, snarky, assertive one never at a loss for words and always able to state what she wanted in no uncertain terms, wanted to tell him, “What’s bothering me is that you’re not inside me right now.”
The real Gemma, the shy, uncertain, untrusting one, couldn’t bring herself to be the aggressor this time. The kiss they’d shared should have been proof enough he wanted her, but she just wasn’t totally sure, a fact that unnerved her.
“I want to know why you kissed me,” she blurted. “Before. You know? In the kitchen.”
His face could have been a virgin slab of stone. He held her stare a few seconds, then his shoulders relaxed and he closed the laptop. He stretched across the bed to place it on the night table.
Gemma’s pulse kicked up at the length of long, toned, and wickedly hard muscles rippling across his back. Her fingers actually itched to reach out and run across them.
“I want to apologize for that.” He sat back again. “I shouldn’t have. It wasn’t very…professional.”
Deflated, she said, “Oh. I thought…”
“What?”
“That, you know.” She waved a hand in the air. “You, well, wanted to…” She blew out a breath and closed her eyes. “This was so much easier when I was talking about it in my head.”
A movement on the bed had her opening her eyes. Ky had shifted toward her, enough that she could see he wore black silk boxers, the sound of the material as it whispered across the sheets intoxicatingly soft and supple. And if she wasn’t mistaken, a very large, very solid, very pulsing erection was barely hidden under them.
“The simple truth is I did it because I wanted to,” he told her.
“Really?”
Jesus, Gemma, do you have to sound so hopeful and needy?
“Yes, really. You were upset and emotional—”
“I was not emotional!”
“—and I felt bad for you.”
The hope sailed away in a heartbeat. “You kissed me because you felt bad for me?”
“Yes-NO!” He scrubbed his hands down his face again and took another breath. “That’s not what I meant.”
“That’s what you said.”
“Gemma, please.” His eyes lasered on hers. “I kissed you for several reasons, but mostly because I wanted to and couldn’t convince myself right then why I shouldn’t.”
Okay, that shot some hope back into her. “Why would you need to convince yourself you shouldn’t? It’s not like I was fighting you. Or not kissing you back.”
“Do you really need me to lay all the reasons out for you?”
She shrugged.
“First,” he ticked one index finger with other, “you’re under my care. It’s my job to keep you safe and secure, and I take my responsibilities very seriously. Two, it’s frowned on for agents to get involved with civilians in cases like this no matter how attracted to them they are. Emotions and physical desires have a way of shifting focus off the main objective. And three, you can barely tolerate being in the same room with me. I was staggered when you didn’t drop-kick me in the balls afterward.”
She cocked her head at him and wrinkled her nose. Okay, this might not be as hard as she thought it would.
“One,” she ticked her own fingers together now, mimicking him, “It may be your job to keep me safe and secure, but I’m no slouch. I can take care of myself if I have to. I’ve proven that.”
“But—”
“Two, no one in the FBI is here right now, watching and evaluating what you’re doing or how you’re acting toward me—”
“—I know how I’m acting.”
“And number three is just too stupid to even really comment on. We’ve been constantly together for almost a week. Living, eating, running from maniacs together, so forget that excuse. It doesn’t hold water. Let’s remember, I did kiss you back.”
