It was tiny.
Delicate.
Sexy.
Cotton-candy-pink for crying out loud, and if he knew anything about Claire, it had at least one matching partner in crime buried beneath the clothes she’d shoveled into the case.
“Ryan?”
Hooking the slight scrap over his index finger, he held it up. “Escapee.”
Claire shook her head in confusion. Escapee? What was he—and then she saw. Pink lace and silk, shimmering against the golden hue of his hand. Embarrassed heat rushed her cheeks at the sight of Ryan dangling her panties in a wicked taunt.
“Jumped right into my hands,” he claimed, totally unrepentant. “What’s a man to do?”
Another man might pass the garment off, or at least avert his eyes. Not Ryan though. No, he stood blatantly fingering the delicate trim with that nefarious curve to his lips.
The things she forgot. Like his admiration for lingerie … and high heels. Together.
Wear this for me …
A frisson of nerves rippled through her, spurring an odd clench low in her belly. The seductive echo from another time teased through her mind, spurring a hundred memories to life. Each flash of skin and heat more vivid, more dangerous than the one before—
Ryan taking her in the hall when they hadn’t been able to make it to the bedroom three feet away … In the kitchen … the closet … the car …
Powerful memories that stole her breath and shocked her body into a state of desire it hadn’t known in altogether too long. Yearning heat slid through her, winding a disturbing channel of waking awareness down through the very center of her.
No! Not now. Not after all this time.
Not Ryan.
She’d given him up. Let him go. She’d just filed for divorce! Of all the men in the world, he was the dead last one she could look to.
It would be crazy. Futile. Utter stupidity.
Ryan flipped the renegade lingerie in his palm, offering it to her as the deep brown of his eyes held her captive. “Pretty.” It was a single, simple word. And yet, the rough midnight sound of it sent a shiver coursing through her. And the certainty … It would be hot. Intense. Utterly incredible.
What was the matter with her? An hour ago she’d been ready to go toe to toe with this man, and now … now she was ready go—No! She needed to look away, get off the path of destruction on which she’d suddenly found herself—and before it led them both to a place that couldn’t end in anything but embarrassment, the inevitable frustration she knew all too well and more of the guilt neither of them needed.
Fortunately for both of them, if there was one thing Claire had plenty of experience with, it was breaking a mood. “Sorry, they don’t come in men’s sizes.”
Ryan gave in to a bark of laughter. Pulled the garment just beyond reach as she grabbed, then caught her wrist. She shuddered at the heat of his hand winding up her arm, snaking through her system and pushing her heart into a staccato beat that pulsed … everywhere.
The amused smile died on his lips and the stillness of the room hovered around them. The fingers circling her wrist tightened, held firm, pulling her closer until only an inch of charged air separated their bodies. His brow drew down and a harsh question darkened his stare.
There was nothing she could do. No place to hide.
No more playful banter between them, quick comebacks or easy laughter. Just the stretch of silence. Building tension. And Ryan’s eyes trailing a hot path to her mouth.
Everything slowed. Went warm. Heavy.
Her lips parted.
Good God, this was Ryan. This was her life. The one she’d struggled and scraped and so slowly, painstakingly rebuilt. A life too precious to risk on rash or impetuous.
“Sorry,” she managed to say on a shaky breath. “No souvenirs.”
Ryan blinked, his hand jerking loose from her wrist as if he’d been burned.
Well, he had. They’d both been burned. Years ago. An ocean away. A lifetime before. And neither of them were fool enough to play with that kind of fire again.
CHAPTER FOUR
CLAIRE stared out the back window of Ryan’s chauffeured car, following the cut of highway through the Southern California valleys. At either side land swelled in green hills dotted with homes, palms, brush and the frequent sandy scar of sheered-off earth. It was beautiful even with the gray wash of inclement weather darkening the landscape and early-evening sky.
Somehow the gloomy weather seemed fitting. As if it held a sullen, quiet kind of ache in the air. No stormy, tumultuous hurricane or even weepy rain. This was simply a touch of melancholy, an apropos backdrop to the conclusion of a marriage that had, for all intents and purposes, ceased to be years ago.
The sound of a clearing throat drew her attention back to the man seated across from her in the car. Ryan reclined in a long-limbed sprawl. Tie loose and slightly askew, top button open at his neck, shirt sleeves rolled to mid forearm where they folded behind his head. His laptop was still open beside him—an array of files cluttering the seat beyond—giving the impression that his break from work was intended to be as brief as hers. “So, what do you say we give the conversation thing another go?”
Leave it to Ryan to lay it out on the table.
The communication between them had been limited to a few stilted exchanges following that one charged moment in her hotel room. The one she was working overtime to put out of her head, but, defying her efforts with the tenacity of a garden weed, had given root to a thousand questions Ryan was the absolute wrong man to help her answer. By unspoken mutual agreement they’d taken refuge in work during the long hours of the flight. Though, somewhere over the Atlantic those questions had spread through her consciousness, seeding thoughts of repercussions and what-ifs and no-ways until they’d tangled to the point that business became impossible to focus on … and she’d found her gaze drifting across the buttery leather and walnut interior of the luxury cabin, her gaze roving over the details of Ryan’s powerful physique. Wondering again, why Ryan? How, after so many years?
More than once he’d caught her staring. Their eyes would hold as if in quiet challenge. Each testing the strength of a disconcerting connection lingering between them, and their ability to withstand the spatial intimacy that was the ironic prelude to the dissolution of their marriage. And then he would look away, or she would. Without a word they’d return to the solace of their work.
Only spending the next week in silence wouldn’t get the divorce finalized. So here Ryan was, making the communication happen.
Who was she to stand in his way? “What do you have in mind?”
His head rocked from one side to the other as he let out a rush of breath, considering. “Let’s take it slow. Weather seems safe.”
Claire swallowed, fighting to keep the twitch at the corner of her mouth from giving in to a grin. “Polite.”
“Superficial.”
“Benign,” she offered with a little wave of her hand, amused by the preliminaries of selecting a suitable topic for discussion.
“Mundane. But what the hell …” He yawned with an indifferent gesture toward the window.
“It’s a shame you’re seeing the place like this. Two days ago it was gorgeous. Sun shining, temps up about seventy-five. This time of year the weather can change on a dime.”
Mundane