Throat moving, she bit down on her lower lip. “People will recognize you.”
Shit. He wrenched his angry response under control. “I’ll make sure they don’t.” Reaching across the table, he ran his fingers down her cheek, and when she appeared uncertain, he pushed the advantage. “Show me a little of this city I’d never otherwise see.”
“All right.” A husky whisper that caused a fierce exultation inside him.
“But,” she added quickly, “you can’t stay tonight.”
Fox gritted his teeth, consciously dropping his voice to the edgy purr that always made her blush, melt. “Molly.” He’d happily seduce her back into bed if that was what it took to keep her in his arms through the dark hours of night. Because sleeping together was a whole different ball game than sex, and the woman he wanted as his own knew it. That was why her breathing was ragged, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. “It’s already late”—he slid his hand down to cup the side of her neck—“and you said we have to get up early for the market.”
Pushing back from the table in a jerking move, she broke contact and rose to her feet. “Stop,” she said when he got up and began to move toward her. “I want you gone. I’ll call you a cab.”
The flat rejection lit the fuse on Fox’s temper.
Chapter 8
“Don’t bother,” he growled, striding toward the bedroom to pull on the T-shirt she’d discarded. “I have a car.” It was a good thing he hadn’t ended up drinking more than half a glass of that damn wine.
His fury roared even more wildly when he emerged from the bedroom to see that she’d unlocked and opened the door, ready to throw him out. Fox wanted to slam that door shut, force her to face the reality of what pulsed between them, growing stronger with every second they spent together, but the small part of him that remained rational told him he’d lose her the instant he did.
Allowing her to simply shut the door on his back, however? Not ever going to happen. Fisting his hand in her hair, he kissed her startled taste into his own mouth. “I’m not the kind of man who likes to have the woman running the show. I made an exception for you, but it’s not working.”
She pushed at his chest, eyes glittering. “That’s the most arrogant thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Yeah? I’m not done.” Backing her up against the wall, he bent his knees so they were eye to eye. “The sex between us is mind-blowing, and I want to have a whole hell of a lot more, but I’m not letting you blow hot and cold.”
Even as he spoke, he knew he was f**king up his grand goddamn plan to slowly seduce Molly into his life and his world. It had been a pipe dream from the start—he wasn’t the kind to mess around when he made up his mind. “So decide.” He held the eye contact, made her see him. “You either want me in your bed and your life for the month, or you don’t. I won’t play your sex toy.”
Molly’s gasp followed him as he released her and, slinging his guitar on his back, walked out the door. His blood was a pounding rush in his ears, his jaw rigid. The sane part of him knew he was overreacting, but he couldn’t stop the response any more than he could stop playing music. The scar ran too deep.
Molly was the only lover who’d ever torn it open.
And she’d done it on their second night together. It slammed home the fact that he was already in far too deep for this to be any kind of a brief affair. Not that he’d needed the f**king reminder. He’d never, never, reacted to a woman this way. And her stubborn blindness to the truth of what burned between them aside, the more time he spent with Molly, the deeper he fell.
Honest and smart and with a sweet tenderness to her that cut him off at the knees, she pushed buttons he didn’t even know he had.
“Stop.” A breathless demand. “You’re the one who proposed a one-month stand.”
Turning, he stalked back to her doorway just as another door opened down the hall. “Molly?” said a heavyset man wearing black sweatpants and a navy tee. “You okay?”
Fox shifted instinctively to protect her from the view of the other man, her body clad only in that silly fluffy yellow robe that drove him crazy. She flushed and looked around his side. “Yes, I’m fine.”
The stranger gave Fox a long, suspicious look before saying, “Just yell if that changes,” and shutting his door.
Fox waited until Molly’s eyes were back on him to speak, his voice harsh and his arms braced on either side of the doorway. “I might have proposed a one-month stand,” he said, “but I didn’t expect to be used and shoved out as soon as I’d served my purpose.” It infuriated him. “Or should I say as soon as my c**k had served its purpose?”
Molly flinched, but she didn’t back down. “What? You expect me to let you move in for the month?” Her words came out in a furious whisper, her hands clenched to bloodless tightness even as her cheeks flared with hot spots of color. “I never did anything to make you believe I’d be fine with that. There are boundaries.”
Gripping her jaw, he said, “You don’t get to treat me as disposable.”
Shock rippled through the anger in the dark brown of her eyes. “No, I—”
“You can’t use me for sex,” he interrupted, too pissed to hold back the words, “then put me away until the next time. I will not be your f**king dirty little secret.” Not when it was brutally clear their relationship had already crossed the line from sex to a far more demanding, far more passionate bond. “Decide, Molly.”