“There is no us.” She took another gulp of wine as if it was giving her much needed courage.

“Isn’t there? Come on, Josie, get real. It’s just you and me now. We’re here alone. Don’t you think we should at least talk about it?”

“What’s there to talk about?” She struggled to remain resolutely indifferent. The wine was definitely helping. She was starting to feel brave. And maybe a little light-headed but Josie couldn’t blame the wine entirely for that.

“This.” He stepped up, removed the glass from her unresistant fingers to catch her hand in his. She could feel his thumb tracing a lazy circle in her palm, a slow caress that rippled, hot and tingling up her arm. “And this.”
Closer now, his other hand catching her free hand, both pulled gently behind her so that she pulled tight up against his body. Crazily, she could actually see his heart beating beneath the damp, bronzed skin. She forced herself not to look up.
“And this,” he said, lowering his head so that his lips barely touched her shoulder, trailed upwards along the side of her neck. A tremor slid through her, the evidence of the agonized longing for the actual contact of his lips on her skin.
Then, suddenly, he stopped and let her go. His stepping away left her feeling lost, aching, confused. It had to be completely crazy and she knew it. But he’d started something, hit the on button big time, and she had no idea how to turn it off, or even if she really wanted to. And that thought had to be even crazier.
“Still nothing to talk about?”

Josie looked away. The intensity of his eyes frightened her, because she knew it exactly mirrored her own. She struggled hard to find sanity.

“Okay, so there’s a... a bit of...  well, heat, between us. I won’t deny that I find you attractive.” Attractive? Lord, he definitely had been the only man ever to make her feel like this. “But there’s still nothing to talk about, because nothing’s going to happen.”

“Nothing’s going to happen?” Cade gawked at her, his face incredulous as if he couldn’t decide whether she’d gone utterly delusional or he had suddenly developed a chronic hearing problem “You know as well as I do that a minute ago anything could have happened. No, everything could have happened. It’s as plain as a pikestaff that this thing is way more than just a bit of heat. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I do know that it’s a mighty powerful something. For both of us.”

“Even if that’s true—and I’m not saying it is—nothing will happen. Nothing can happen, for a whole lot of very good reasons.”

“Care to share?” A little sarcasm echoed in there this time, evidence of his growing exasperation. “Because for the life of me I can’t think of a single one.”

“That’s because you don’t want to,” she snapped back. Then, taking a deep breath, hanging on to reason and logic with a mixture of desperation and difficulty, she tried again. “For starters, it’s not appropriate. You’re my employer.”

“Wrong. Technically, anyway. You work for my father. That’s one down.”

“Then there’s Matt and Emmy.” He looked at her blankly, like he didn’t get it at all so she rushed on to clarify. “How confusing would it be for them? Think about it. No parents, a new home, a new family, and already they’re getting ideas. And then you and I—” She broke off, couldn’t bring herself to actually say the words because they conjured a dangerously tempting picture. She plunged on. “And then, when it’s all over, what then? How will that affect them?”

“Okay,” he conceded reluctantly. “You have a point there.  If, of course, it got to the all over point which it might not.  But we’re adults, for heaven’s sake. Whatever happens, we can make sure they aren’t hurt in any way.” He paused, ran a hand through his still damp hair in a gesture of enormous frustration. “Look—don’t you think we owe it to ourselves to at least explore this?”

Josie shook her head. “That’s not even an option, because I’m not prepared to go there.” This was the hard part, the last and highest hurdle. “I have plans for my life. Plans that don’t, can’t, include you. Or any other man, for that matter. Soon the twins won’t need me any more, and I’ll have to move on. I don’t need extra complications to make that harder than it’s going to be already. You’ll just have to trust me on this.”

“Maybe if you told me a little more—”

“No.” She hauled back her dark and shuttered look with supreme effort, deliberately closing him out like a garage door clanging shut. She could read the flare of anger in his eyes, but there was an odd undercurrent beneath it that spoke of desperation.

“Dammit, Josie. Don’t do that. I need to know, to understand.”

“No, Cade  All you need to understand is that I’m not the sort of girl you want to be with. Not even for a while.  Things have happened in my life, things I’m not proud of. But I can’t rewrite history.” A rush of immeasurable sadness swept through her.  From his shocked look she realised that the deep, aching emptiness that chilled her to the bone had somehow manifested itself in her eyes for him to see.

He made one last, desperate, appeal. “What could possibly—”

“Shhh.” Josie put a small finger to his lips, silencing him. “Don’t. Let it be, Cade. Just, for God’s sake, let it be. It’s for the best.”

She set her face deliberately into a determined expression so that Cade could see that he wouldn’t get anywhere. She saw the anger and frustration flare briefly in his eyes, then settle into a kind of grim obstinacy that told her that he wasn’t going to give up.
Josie gasped as his lips descended on hers, instinctively pulling away. But he held her close in the steel-tight band of his arms, crushing the distance between them as if it was the only way he knew how to reach her.
She struggled at first, but the outward fight really only reflected the battle raging within. His kiss seemed hard, almost brutal, a bruising, punishing intimacy that persisted, was as relentless as the fears crowding her mind.
Then he groaned, a low sound against her lips, as a hand slipped up her spine to twist itself in her hair. He pulled her head back gently and eased the pressure of his mouth, so that his kiss turned soft and teasing, but persistent in its demands.
Josie felt the change, sensed the rising need in him, and her traitorous body softened even as her mind raged in protest.  A throaty, almost animal, moan escaped her, and her lips parted for him, willingly, invitingly, drawing him deeper. She felt herself drowning, her resistance sliding away as the need engulfed her, hot and strong, melting her against him. She was lost in that moment. Every caution, every warning, burned itself out and she wondered if she would ever find herself again.

Then it ended. Cade pulled away a little, his eyes still smouldering with the intensity of his need. “Run, Josie Tate.” The words tumbled out, thick and slow. “Run if you must. But take that with you. And when you think of this moment—and you know you will—remember that it’s not over yet. Not by a long shot. Now run, before I change my mind.”

Wordlessly, breathlessly, her heart pounding out a wild tattoo against her ribcage, Josie ran.

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