Forbidden To Taste. JC Harroway

should move. Let go of her wrist. Tell her it was great to catch up after all these years and send her home in my car.

      But I’m frozen.

      Frozen in time, to our first meeting. Frozen in those heady seconds of possibility when all three of us—Kenzie, Sam and I—were strangers in a bar. Then, I planned to buy her a drink, invite her out, get to know if we had anything in common beyond attraction, which, for me, was pretty instantaneous.

      The medieval-torture device strapped to my chest cranks another notch tighter. Breath strangled. Without stepping back I release her wrist, waiting for the tension to snap, but if anything the air around us thins.

      She tilts her head. ‘I’m glad I came...’ A small sigh blows over her plump bottom lip, her gorgeous mouth perilous temptation. And closer than ever before.

      The urge to kiss her roars back to life, hijacking my brain, my body and my sanity. I’m steel-hard now, straining the fly of my trousers. Her eyes suck me in. Muscles primed to break the restraints, I’m about pull her close, to cover her mouth with mine, when she emits a nervous laugh.

      Steps back.

      Shakes her head.

      ‘I’m sorry.’ She covers her heated face with her hands.

      I’m doused head to toe with ice. I scrub a hand through my hair, a fist forming. What the fuck...? I must have imagined the last few seconds—that look on her face, her rapid breaths and dilated pupils. There’s only regret in her eyes now.

      My mouth opens and then closes. Do I play the gentleman, breeze over what my body is desperate to interpret as...a moment? Our first.

      She drops her hands from her face and looks away with a snort of embarrassment. ‘Clearly I need more help than a job.’ She’s bright red now, braving it out with a flash of humour and a roll of those expressive eyes. ‘If you want to help me out beyond giving me a chance in the kitchen,’ she looks at her shuffling feet, ‘perhaps you could help me over my dry spell.’

      My brain impulses blink in and out like static. WTF...? She made light of those momentous words, which have hurled us into a forbidden, previously uncharted no-man’s-land.

      ‘I...’ I’m gaping, synapses firing so hard I’m surprised my head doesn’t explode. Surely she doesn’t mean what my brain and dick have concluded?

      ‘What are you saying?’ I croak out, too dazed by testosterone for subtlety. Does she mean for me to help, personally—hell, yes—or is she asking me to set her up with some other dickhead? Over my dead body. But, even if my libido has made the correct interpretation, nothing can happen between us.

      Can it?

      Kenzie looks down and buttons her coat. The amusement leaches from her face, leaving only the pallor of earlier. ‘I’m sorry, Drake—that was unfair.’ She raises her wide, vulnerable stare from the carpet and takes in a shuddering breath, eyes full of remorse.

      Unfair? Nothing about our circumstances is fair.

      ‘God, I’m such a desperate idiot. Forget I ever came here.’ She yanks at the door handle, the metal slipping from her frantic fingers in her haste to flee.

      ‘No... Wait.’ I want to rewind the last minute. Have a rerun. Hold her captive until she clarifies exactly what she meant.

      A metallic click warns me she’s succeeded with the door.

      I snap to attention.

      ‘Kenzie, wait—’

      ‘I’m sorry.’ She’s off out of the door and halfway down the corridor before I’ve pumped enough blood back into my head for my nervous system to work.

      ‘Wait.’ I yank my phone from my pocket, everything I want to say locked in that secret place I’ve guarded for so long, it’s like a fucking panic room. ‘I’ll call my driver to see you home.’

      She turns, her breathing still fast, shakes her head. ‘I’ll be fine.’ She trots down the corridor like she can’t get away from me quick enough.

      I take off at a run, skidding to a halt just as the lift doors close.

      I wedge my arm into the closing space. ‘He’s waiting at the main entrance. Please—it’s late.’ She can run—she should run—but I won’t have her in danger.

      She nods, eyes wide.

      I lock my knees, balanced on a knife-edge. One step and I’d be inside with her. One word and I’d know to hope or to try to rein in the fantasy her comment unleashed.

      Static clears. Restraint returns.

      I think of Sam. Remove my hand. Wait for tense seconds.

      Kenzie’s emotions mirror mine, the doors closing on the regret on her face.