©Megan Hart, may not be reproduced without permission

‘Leah!’ Mike’s voice turned heads, but not hers. She kept going, out of the bar, through the lobby, without looking back.

Brandon followed.

By the time they got halfway across the lobby, Mike had decided to come after her. He yelled her name again, and her footsteps faltered. Brandon caught up to her. He put a hand on her waist, just above her hip.

‘Want me to call the police?’

‘No.’ She shook her head without looking around. ‘He thinks he can make me do what he wants.’

She looked at him then, this tall, long man with the choir-boy smile. ‘He can’t.’

‘I can see that.’ Brandon looked over his shoulder, but Mike had apparently decided not to bother coming after them.

She wasn’t taking any chances, though. ‘Walk me to my room.’

He nodded, gave another glance over his shoulder and seemed satisfied by what he saw. ‘Absolutely.’

He let go of her waist when she looked down at his hand. He stepped back. Her guts tumbled and knotted and she tasted sweat when she ran her tongue along her lip. She’d been more afraid than she’d wanted to admit, but she didn’t want to show it.

‘Four,’ she said when they got in the elevator, and Brandon pushed the button.

He studied her as the elevator began its smooth ascent. Leah stared back. They didn’t speak, and she liked that about him. He wasn’t one of those guys who had to fill every space with words, or tried to impress a woman with stories. He looked at her, though, his stare intent and intense.

She felt naked under his gaze.

Leah leaned back against the elevator’s mirrored wall and gripped the brass handrail. Her knees were a little weak, but was it from the confrontation downstairs, or the unaccustomed alcohol…or the way Brandon smelled? She breathed in, deep. Fabric softener, that was the scent. Mixed with a bit of cigarette smoke and the fainter odor of the scented candles that had been on the tables in the bar, but mostly the soft, fresh scent of something clean and warm from the dryer. It was a smell she wanted to bury her face in.

The doors opened and she stepped out without waiting for him. She didn’t want to think too much about what she’d been thinking of, flirting with him downstairs. Or when she’d told him to come with her. It had all just sort of happened, even if there was no denying she wanted it to.

She pulled her key from her pocket and opened the door. Again, he followed a few steps behind. The door clicked shut after him, and Leah let out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. There was a door between her and the hall, and no way Mike could get in.

‘You okay?’ His voice had just the right pitch of concern.

She looked. His expression echoed his words. Nice guy.

‘Yeah. I just didn’t expect to see him tonight, that’s all.’ Her stomach was still twisting. She pulled a dollar out of her purse and handed it to him. ‘Would you get me a soda from the machine?’

It was a request, not a command. He took her dollar and looked at it, then at her. His smile made her feel anything but helpless.

‘Sure. I’ll be right back.’

He was, too, in record time. He handed her the dollar and the bottle. ‘My treat.’

He’d bought one for himself, too. She cracked open the top with a thank you and sipped greedily.

‘Have a seat.’ She indicated the couch, curious. Wanting to see if he’d do what she’d told him to do with the same lack of hesitation as he’d done everything else since she’d met him.

Brandon sat. He drank. He watched her.

Leah’s insides had started twisting for another reason. She was alone in her room with a man she’d just met, and there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that she wanted him. It didn’t matter that it was too soon, that it was wrong on so many levels, that she’d only be asking for trouble.

‘Recent breakup?’

His words surprised her into answering without holding back. ‘Yes. Today, as a matter of fact.’

Brandon took another drink. She watched his throat work as he swallowed. He screwed the cap back on his drink and set it on the side table.

‘You sure you don’t want me to call someone?’

She shook her head. ‘No. Just…wait a few minutes.’

Her breath lodged in her throat when he grinned. No matter what Kate said, this guy was neither a geek nor an innocent. He might not swagger around to show off his testosterone, but then she’d recently decided she didn’t really care for that, hadn’t she?

‘Part of the service,’ he said with hands spread.

He settled them on his knees and she noted with no small thrill how big they were. How big all of him was, really. ‘How tall are you?’

He tilted his head, thinking. ‘Six-four?’

‘You don’t know?’ She was surprised a laugh could escape the tightly knotted tangles inside her.

‘I….’ He ducked his head for a moment with an utterly charming shrug. ‘I keep growing.’

Jesus. Her cunt actually pulsed at that, the same as if he’d swiped his tongue along her skin. Leah masked her involuntary noise of pleasure by clearing her throat.

‘Thank you for coming with me, Brandon.’

He looked straight at her then, without a smile. ‘My pleasure.’

Downstairs, bolstered by the booze or the crowd, this had been easier. Flirting had come as a matter of long-forgotten habit and she’d been relieved to learn she could still do it. Here, in the intimacy of her room, innuendo couldn’t be misconstrued. What she said, she’d have to mean.

‘He shouldn’t have talked to you like that,’ Brandon said suddenly.

‘It’s the way he always talked to me.’ She sat next to him to curb her impulse to pace.

The couch was large enough for three, but when he turned to face her his legs were so long their knees brushed. Leah didn’t jump. She looked at the spot where the dark fabric of his trousers touched the soft peach of her dress, and she wondered what it would be like if his fingers touched her there, instead.

She looked into his face to keep from focusing on their bodies touching.

‘He was always the one in charge,’ she told him, the second person in a day to whom she’d revealed this when she’d said nothing to anyone about it for the entire time she and Mike were together. ‘Always.’

Would he get it? Did he understand? His brow furrowed a little. He bit down on his lower lip. He wore the evidence of thinking all over his face, open and easy to read. Leah envied him that confidence to show what he was feeling. When he looked into her eyes with a small shrug, she felt like she could read his every thought. She couldn’t, of course. He wasn’t nearly that transparent.

‘Well. Not any more, right?’

It was exactly the right thing for him to say. She didn’t want sympathy. She didn’t particularly even want his understanding.

‘Not any more,’ she agreed.

The air got thicker between them. His mouth would taste sweet. Her fingers would sink into his hair. And he’d make a sound when she pulled it.

Leah got up with one smooth motion on unsteady legs. What was going on with her? First the men in the bar, now this? She’d known there’d be some sort of reaction to her breakup with Mike, but this…this was just ridiculous.

‘You sure you’re okay?’ The concern in his voice tried to crack her open, but she wouldn’t let it.

Without looking at him, she grabbed up the glass near the ice bucket on the small table and tossed a few mostly-melted cubes into it. It gave her hands something to do.

‘So, how did you get into hotel management?’ she asked, keeping the question innocuous.

He laughed. ‘Oh, I didn’t, really. I’m not the hotel manager, I was just filling in for him.’

She turned, finally sort-of-kind-of calming down. ‘Oh?’

‘Yeah. I’m actually the conference services assistant manager. I just took over for my boss because she went on maternity leave.’

Her mouth opened but all that came out was a tiny hiss of air. Brandon. The clerk had said his name was Brandon, the man she was going to deal with. She hadn’t even thought about it.

The glass slipped from her hand and hit the carpet where it bounced and splattered icy water on her ankles. Leah looked down, blinking, glad she hadn’t poured it full of soda.

She hadn’t made more than the barest gesture toward picking up the glass. She didn’t have to. Brandon had moved off the couch immediately to grab it. He knelt at her feet, his fingers sliding around the slippery ice and plunking the cubes back into the glass.

At her feet.

Kneeling.

A tiny, strangled sound escaped her, and he looked up. He looked as though he meant to say something, but didn’t. She hadn’t moved. His face was so close to the hem of her dress his breath ruffled the wispy, fringy hem. His hands stilled, full of melting ice.

‘I think you’d better go,’ she said. ‘Now.’

For a second he hesitated, the first time he’d done so. His dark eyes blinked, fast, and he took in a breath. She heard the intake of air and saw his shoulders lift with it. She saw his lips part, as though he meant to speak.

In her mind she backed away, but her body didn’t move.

‘Now,’ she repeated, no less firmly than she had before. Only now she heard herself, really heard it, and that note of command scared her.

Brandon got to his feet, all seventy thousand square feet of him. He towered over her, yet unlike Mike who’d always made her feel small, Brandon didn’t overpower her. All she had to do was recall how easy it had been for him to settle himself at her feet.

She gave a pointed look toward the door, and his gaze followed hers. He gave a last look at her, but she shook her head. She said nothing. In silence he put the glass with its clanking contents on the table, and in silence he left the room. The click of the door was very loud behind him.

She’d always been the one on her knees. Always. She’d always thought it was what she wanted, to give up and give in. Not to be powerless, never that. But not to be the one in control, the one in charge, the one giving the orders.

That was not her.

Except maybe Kate was right.

Maybe it was.