hitting her. It was already as if nothing had happened, the scene reverting to what it had been previously: busy morning traffic in an international airport.
So, what to do now with enough leftover adrenaline to power her for a month? How to stop it from turning on her, making her legs dough and her nerves exposed wires?
Sit down before you collapse.
Though that wasn’t such a bad idea right now. It might bring him back, then he would...would...
For heaven’s sake! Would what? What was wrong with her? She’d never reacted this way to a man before. Not since...
Her thoughts screeched to a halt again. So did her racing heart.
He was coming back.
His eager stride was eating up the space between them, as if a tape had rewound, snipping out the footage of the last explosive half-hour, resuming time at the moment before they’d heard that scream.
Now it was exclusively personal again, the fierceness of that silver gaze was too much to take head on. Heat surged in her head, cascaded all over her body. Her face had to be radiating a red as deep as her hair by now. Her eyes escaped his, only to stray over the rest of him, and— Wow!
She’d definitely missed a lot during the crisis. Everywhere she looked, every detail of his striking features and awesome physique—and the thoughts they provoked—were even more blush-worthy.
This was getting surreal. After Steve and Daniel, not to mention Rick, she wanted a man and a man’s attention like she wanted incurable acne. Anyway, they were passing ships in the night—or planes in the morning—and when it came to looking and fantasizing, she was all for handsome men. And this man wasn’t...
No. It would almost be an insult, calling him that. He was...one of a kind. Unadulterated power and maleness in human form. And now she knew the package housed as formidable a brain, his appeal shot to an all-new high. Appeal? Ha! What a lame word to label the jarring response he was wringing from her.
But something was wrong here. Very wrong. Besides feeling like a derailed train, she felt as if she knew him, as if she should know him.
Then it struck her. Hard, then harder. With the force of a jackhammer right inside her head.
No wonder she’d felt she’d known him all her life.
She had.
He was Vidal! Despicable, mercenary, cold-blooded, self-serving Vidal Arroyo Martinez. The man whose very name had been anathema to her for the past fourteen years. The user, the deserter. And that was just for starters.
He was really here. This was really him. Of all coincidences, of all places. When just an hour ago she’d been cursing her luck that she had a boss with the same first name, memories of him had come back to disturb her more than they had in years. Had the intensity of her antipathy summoned him or something?
Whatever, he was here. And he was now no more than a foot away, coming to tower over her, almost touching her. Then touching her. His thigh against her hip, his hand going to her arm, smoothing it up and down. Familiar, forward. Then his mouth was against her ear, his whisper penetrating her brain, turning it to mush.
“Miss me?”
Her heart kicked, turned. Recognizing him wasn’t making any difference, was it? His virility was overwhelming her senses, overriding her mental aversion. She should make some comeback. Cutting and condescending.
He talked first, his eyes sweeping her face, her body, until she felt he’d touched her all over. “I missed you.”
The exaggeration hit all her indignant spots. “How could you miss me? Apart from handling the emergency together, we practically haven’t met yet!”
“Oh, we’ve met all right!”
So he remembered her?
“We don’t need formalities. Even without sharing the emergency, which can’t be topped as introductions go, we met the moment our eyes did.”
Oh, boy. So this was the legendary Vidal in action. The world had turned so much, the day had come when she was on the receiving end of his devastating seduction technique. It shouldn’t be having any effect. She knew all about him, was onto his every heartless trick.
What should be and what was had nothing in common.
Oh, why did he have to sound like that? Had he always sounded like that? Opened his mouth and poured out those deepest, darkest vocal caresses?
She didn’t remember. He’d barely ever talked to her, if at all. The silent type he’d been. Not any more, it seemed.
He was going on. “Sorry I had to leave you like that. Had to discuss the little boy’s continuing care with Miguel, my assistant, about his oral burn, arrange for his follow-up and future corrective surgery. He thought it was incredible for both of us to be here, just in time to help. I think it’s more than incredible.”
“You think so? I bet you there are dozens of doctors floating around the airport. If it hadn’t been us, it would have been another couple of people.”
“Maybe, but what about us—before the emergency?”
She was already busy groping for theories to explain her shocking reaction to him, for why he’d singled her out.
He wasn’t giving her time to think. “Come on, let’s go somewhere where we can...talk.” He tugged gently on her arm, his arm going around her shoulders until he had her in the curve of his body, steering her away from the crowds.
In a minute she found herself towed into a VIP lounge, two security men holding the door open for them. Inside there were just three other people, very distinguished-looking men in thousand-dollar suits.
So the man had clout. Didn’t hesitate to throw his weight around. It figured. From his more than shady beginnings, he’d always been an opportunist, bent on climbing up as high as he could reach in the world. Over anyone. Years ago, when she’d finally stopped following his progress, and had made sure no one told her any more about him, he’d already reached the top.
He turned from closing the door and bore down on her. “I came back running, though I knew...” Those long, strong fingers, his precise surgeon’s tools, went to her hair, tucking it behind her ear, the motion intimate. Penetrating. As if he’d touched her in all her secret places. Blood whooshed in her brain, amplified by the sudden change from the hubbub of the open airport to the lounge’s soundproofed serenity. “I knew you’d wait for me.”
She sat down on the plush couch before she fell, and looked up at him as he came to stand above her.
He’d changed. As a young man he’d been incredible. Now...now he was a fully matured force of nature.
No wonder she hadn’t recognized him.
Broader, leaner. Tougher. Harsher. And those eyes—no wonder she hadn’t recognized them. She’d never really seen them behind the obscuring glasses he’d never taken off. Those were now gone. As was the raven, unruly mane, the sallow tinge of years of study and sun deprivation and the yucky facial hair of the last six years of their...relationship. Now he was all silver-laced uncompromising crop, deep bronze and clean-shaven slashed lines.
He’d changed all right, for the best. Only on the surface, no doubt. She’d bet good money the inside changes were for the worse.
If that was possible.
Another thing had changed: the way he looked at her. At their last meeting, he’d looked at her as if she’d been a human-sized parasite. Now the look in his eyes said...plenty.
It also said he still didn’t recognize her.
The Vidal Arroyo Martinez she had known would have rather been skinned alive than be within a five-mile radius of her. Let alone hit on her.
Ooh, but this was just too delicious!