Burned

by Melody Anne

When he pulled back, Tyler wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting — if he’d been thinking the passion between them was nothing but a fluke or not. But it was so much more powerful than he remembered.

  He needed this woman.

  “I’ll start our lunch.”

  He left her on the back patio before going inside and gathering the steaks he’d had brought in. The next half hour stabilized him as he loved cooking. The routine of it eased the ever-pulsing need for her that was racking his body.

  He and Elena chatted while the steak cooked and he put together a salad and warmed bread. He’d prefer wine with their lunch, but he had a pretty good feeling they wouldn’t be staying the night – not yet, at least. And Tyler would never drink and drive.

  When they finished lunch, he didn’t fail to notice Elena looking at her watch. She was nervous being there alone with him. Good. She made him feel all sorts of inexplicable emotions. Throwing her off her game a little was justice in his book.

  He stood up and said, “Let’s go for a walk along the shore.”

  “We really should get back, Tyler. This has all been wonderful, but I have work to do”

  “A small walk to help the food digest. It’s a Saturday. Work can wait.”

  Tyler had to smile after saying that. Though he wasn’t quite the workaholic his brothers were, he didn’t count weekends as work-free time. There were always things that could be done. Sometimes progress was easier when the phone wasn’t ringing quite as much.

  “A walk actually sounds pretty good,” she told him.

  They moved down a trail that took them to the water’s edge, and then strolled along the small beach. The sun was shining, a nice breeze was blowing, and a few boats decorated the water with brilliant colors.

  “I think this is where I would live if I had a choice,” Elena told him with a happy sigh.

  “It’s too much of a commute,” Tyler said, “and not nearly as nice in the winter.”

  She’d managed to walk too far away from him so far, so he closed the gap between them and took her hand. Surprisingly he enjoyed the feel of her fingers in his. He found himself rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb, loving her soft skin, and the way she shivered next to him.

  “Yes, but even the commute would make it worth it,” she said.

  “Why don’t you live out this way then, or outside of the city?”

  She paused in her steps, almost not noticeably, and then she began walking easily next to him, but he didn’t miss the sudden tension in her.

  “How do you know I don’t? We don’t know anything about each other. I could have a house on each of these islands for all you know,” she said with a laugh.

  “We might be a mystery to each other, but I’m good at reading people. You love it here, but you don’t want to commute so you obviously don’t live on the islands. My guess is that you live pretty close to your work — walking distance, or at least a short bus ride.”

  She didn’t look at him as they moved forward, and she took so long answering that he wondered if she was just going to ignore his comment.

  “That’s a pretty good guess. Too bad you won’t find out. At least not today.”

  “Are you going to share anything about yourself?” Mystery was good. But this was getting a little ridiculous.

  As if she could sense him pulling from her, she turned and smiled at him. “Well, you know about my best friend, Piper. She’s the most important person in my life. I couldn’t live without her. So that’s knowing something.”

  “What about family?”

  “I don’t have any left.”

  “That’s pretty sad. I can’t imagine not having my brothers. We fight sometimes, but we’re always there for each other.”

  “I was an only child and I lost my dad when I was very young. He decided my mother and I weren’t good enough. Then my mom died several years ago. So now it’s Piper — only Piper.”

  She laughed as if this weren’t a big deal, but he could clearly hear the pain in her voice. She wasn’t as good an actress as she seemed to think she was.

  “Some parents just weren’t meant to procreate,” Tyler told her. It wasn’t as if he were the person to give her any advice on parents. They didn’t get worse than the ones he’d been given.

  “I fully agree with you there!”

  They fell into silence as they walked a while longer before he led her back to the cabin. He wanted to know more about her, wanted to ask a thousand questions, but at the same time, he wanted to respect her privacy.

  He was in uncharted territory with Elena.

  They stepped back up to the cabin deck and he brought her inside, then slowly backed her up against the wall.

  “I need to taste you again, Elena.”

  Before she even thought of uttering a protest, he leaned forward and captured her lips in a hungry kiss that showed her how much she affected him. She groaned into his mouth before winding her arms around him and giving back as much as she was getting.

  His fingers dug into her hair as he turned her head, needing, wanting, hoping this was going to lead them straight into the master bedroom.

  After several soft caresses of her sweet lips, those hands that had been gripping his shoulders shifted and she ran them across his chest and then pushed.

  Tyler was in a daze as he leaned back only the slightest bit. “What?” he asked, surprised at his hoarse voice.

  “It’s time to get me home, Tyler. I really do need to work.”

  Her eyes were filled with hunger, her body quivering in his embrace, but she was telling him no. Tyler felt it in his bones that he could change her mind. She wanted him, even if she felt she needed to wait. Maybe it was a three-date rule or something.

  Tyler normally didn’t date women who were prudish. He liked sex, didn’t like waiting, and didn’t want to have to stick around when he didn’t want to. He was breaking all sorts of rules with Elena.

  And it seemed to be worth it.

  Chapter Nine

  This woman is driving me insane!”

  Tyler looked down at his phone for the hundredth time in a thirty-minute span.

  “Well, then,” Blake said, “she’s obviously not the one for you if you’re getting this riled up so soon after you’ve met.”

  “Here’s the problem — I can’t get her off my mind. We sent texts back and forth for a week before I finally got her to go to lunch with me. We had a nice time, took a walk, then had a kiss that has left me hard all week, and now I can’t pin her down for another date.”

  “Then maybe she’s just messing with you,” Blake said, “and you’re better off to let this one go.”

  “I know that!” Tyler was beyond frustrated. Again he looked at his phone. Nothing. Zip. Zilch.

  “So why are you storming around your office and acting like a bear?”

  “Because I can’t stop thinking about her,” Tyler yelled.

  “Okay. Then do something about it,” Blake replied calmly.

  “What? Kidnap the woman? I don’t even know where she lives.”

  “Kidnapping might be a little extreme,” Blake told him. “But I’m sure you have ways of finding out where she is. Find out whether she’s playing games.”

  “Oh, believe me, I know she’s playing games,” Tyler said. “I just don’t know what the prize is.”

  “Then you’d best figure it out.”

  “I have no effing idea what she could be after,” Tyler said. “It’s not as if she’s going to get anything out of me.”

  “There are a lot of things a woman could get out of you,” Blake told him.

  “Only if I’m willing to give them.”

  Blake laughed. “It seems you’d be willing to give just about anything right now.”

  “Yeah, I know. And she has me so damn worked up, I’d just about sell my soul to take her to bed.”

  “Then she might just have you exactly where she wants you,” Blake told him.

  “That’s the thing that piss
es me off the most,” Tyler snapped.

  “Seriously, Tyler, you might want to let this one go.”

  “Don’t look at me like that, Blake.”

  “Like what, Tyler?”

  “Like I’m some pathetic sex-starved idiot.”

  “You’re sure as hell acting like it.”

  “Well, I’m not. I’m doing just fine,” Tyler insisted.

  And then he froze when his phone buzzed. He would not look. He would not look. He would not look!

  “Dammit!” He was practically shouting again as he lifted his phone up and looked.

  Blake said nothing.

  Tyler was close to having a mental breakdown, and he really should just delete this woman. She’d been trouble since the moment he’d approached her in the bar two weeks ago, and since then his world had been spinning off its axis. If he was this consumed with her before they even made it to bed, he’d most likely find himself in a hell of a lot more trouble once the deed was done.

  Sorry I took so long to reply. I’ve been working.

  “That’s it. She takes two hours to get back to me, and she hardly says anything,” Tyler muttered. Thankfully, Blake still remained silent.

  Are we on for dinner at the Pink Door? Hey, Tyler could keep it short and to the point as well.

  The clock ticked as he waited … and waited.

  Dinner sounds great. I’ll meet you there at seven.

  I will pick you up at six and take you to the restaurant. He wanted to know where she lived, dammit.

  Sorry, but I’m coming straight from work. I’ll just meet you there.

  Should he argue? Nah. Tyler knew it wouldn’t get him anywhere. This woman was more stubborn than he was — that was for sure. Maybe Blake was right. Maybe he really should just cancel.

  He tossed his phone down and walked out of his office without bothering to offer a word of explanation to his brother. What else could he say? At this point, he simply sounded like … a pouting baby. And that wasn’t who he was.

  Tyler left the Knight Construction offices and walked down to his favorite coffee stand. After grabbing a hot Americano, he made his way to the small park nearby and took a walk around one of the trails.

  He’d left his phone behind, and that was something he never did. But all week this woman had been playing him. She’d send him a message — usually steamy — then he’d reply, probably way too quickly, and then he wouldn’t hear from her for hours, or sometimes even until the next day.

  Tyler didn’t play games. He’d told her that in the bar. Okay, so he’d said, “Let the games begin,” but he hadn’t meant it. Not really. Not in that sense. What made the entire situation so damn awful was that he was allowing her to game him this way. He knew what she was doing and yet he wasn’t pulling back.

  By the time he made his way back to his office, he decided he was done. That was it. He was going to cancel dinner. It was decided. After all, he was Tyler freaking Knight. If she wasn’t going to respect him, then he wasn’t about to waste his precious time on cheap trash like her. The world was full of women who wouldn’t jerk him around, and who would make excellent bed companions.

  He felt good in his decision. Even forced a halfway decent smile to pop up on his lips.

  That was until he reached his office and picked up his phone. Once he saw the picture Elena had sent him while he was gone, his brain fried.

  Dinner was most certainly back on … and dessert was essential.

  Chapter Ten

  Tucked away in Pike Place Market, and definitely not an easy place to find, the Pink Door was a classic Seattle destination, and Elena had wanted to check it out for quite some time.

  That Tyler had chosen this location surprised her. She really hadn’t taken him for the dinner-and-cabaret type of guy. She stepped from her cab and walked down the alley toward the restaurant.

  Elena instantly spotted Tyler. He looked far too suave in his custom-tailored suit, which hugged his shoulders to perfection and cinched in at his waist to show how well-built he was. The man was tall, a few inches above six feet, and with his dark hair and blue eyes, and that come-and-get-me grin, he was doubtless a fantasy man come to life. For most women.

  It was a good thing she wasn’t most women.

  She would have to tell herself this continuously if she spent more time with the man. It hadn’t been easy for her to keep stringing him along, to maintain this game of hers as long as she had, and she’d been doing it at a distance for days. Now, they were getting up close and personal again. She’d had to remind herself that he was a cold, ruthless businessman who didn’t care how many people he ruined on his mission to become the best of the best.

  Screw him! squaring her shoulders, the small amount of guilt she’d been feeling over her impromptu game fled and she decided she was going to go through with this. Men like Tyler never felt pain. Even if the pain she inflicted was minuscule, she hoped to do some damage to his monumental ego.

  All of the Knight brothers lived by their own rules and took whatever they wanted whenever they wanted it. Obviously. They took and took until there was nothing else to take and then they walked away without ever looking back. Like everyone in the worthless .01 percent.

  Elena wasn’t a fool. She didn’t believe that anything she could do would make a huge impact on this insensitive man. But if she got just a hint of revenge, she could go to sleep knowing she’d done something for the lower classes. And we were all lower classes nowadays, or almost all of us. Us versus them.

  He spun toward her when she was only a few feet away, and the power of his look made her stop in her tracks. Her stomach tightened as they engaged in a stare-off, and then he came forward, quickly closing the gap between them.

  “I wasn’t sure you would show up,” he said, his voice a low rumble that made her body react in a way she absolutely didn’t want it to do.

  “I wasn’t sure I would come.” She couldn’t stop those words.

  “I like your honesty. Shall we?” He held out his arm, but she didn’t move.

  He raised an eyebrow in question, and she took a fortifying breath before placing her arm in his. Though she was expecting the electrical shock, it still sucked out the last remaining oxygen in her when it came. How was she going to carry through with her plan when she couldn’t control her body’s reaction to his?

  “I have to do this.”

  Before she knew what he meant or what was happening, he backed her up against the brick wall and pressed his body against hers. And then his head descended and his lips were on hers. She told herself not to give in to him, but her body betrayed her again. Her hands reached up and gripped his arms and her lips fell open.

  What started as a tingling in her body flared up into a supernova, and she forgot all about her plans of revenge, all about making this man sweat. He was the one making her sweat, making her forget where she was — who she was.

  “That was just a taste of what it will be like between us,” Tyler said.

  It took a moment for her to realize that he’d stopped kissing her, that he was now leaning back. She opened her eyes and tried to focus on his face. When she did, her temper quickly quenched the fire that had been burning inside her.

  His smug expression told her more about the man than any of his smarmy words could. He knew he was gorgeous, knew he was a fantastic lover, knew he could get or have anything he wanted. Well, this poor little rich boy wouldn’t have her – at least not again. But he sure as hell would want to.

  She said nothing as she turned toward the famous pink door and opened it herself. She wasn’t giving him the satisfaction of acting like the gentleman he was pretending to be. They stepped inside, the ambience of the restaurant warm and inviting, with candles offering soft lighting and the tables set in a charming way.

  They were escorted to an elevated table with an excellent view of the stage, and soon their waiter brought them appetizers and drinks. The food placed before them — oysters, pasta, breads and cheeses �
�� was too much for anyone to consume, unless you were a football player or an underpaid newspaper reporter. Of course when you never went without, the thought of wasting food didn’t even cross your mind. And she was sure that it wasn’t crossing his.

  When the jazz band began to play and its soft music drifted around them, Elena knew why Tyler had chosen this restaurant. The entire scene was nothing more than foreplay, a place to prepare a date for a romantic night with sex on the menu for dessert. Romantic? She was old-fashioned enough to think that romance wasn’t quite so calculating or so cold.

  He was good, very good. Smooth. But he couldn’t fool her so easily — she wouldn’t let him entrap her with all the moves she was sure he’d used a thousand times before.

  “I can’t figure you out, Elena. One moment you laugh with me, flirt with me, open up, even. The next, you’re ducking your head, apparently thinking up a storm but showing nothing of what those thoughts are. What are you up to?”

  Tyler picked up his wine glass and took a sip. She shifted in her seat. If he was this observant already, she would never be able to pull this off. She took a drink of her own wine before carefully choosing her response.

  “I don’t date a whole lot,” she said. “To tell you the truth, it scares me a bit. I’m sorry if it appears that I’m not interested.” She hoped that her reply would throw him off the scent.

  “I have no doubt that you’re interested,” he told her, making her want to smack him. “I can just see that you aren’t too happy about feeling that way.”

  “What makes you think that you know me so well after we’ve seen each other only a few times?”

  “I don’t know what it is about you, but there’s something familiar. Have we met before?”

  That hit a way too close to home. She didn’t want him to know they’d been childhood friends, and she really didn’t want him to know about the men’s club. Not yet, she didn’t, maybe not ever. It was too humiliating.

  “No. I would certainly remember meeting you, Tyler,” she told him with what she hoped was a saucy laugh.

  “Still, I don’t know …” He trailed off, finally breaking their eye contact.