Nevertheless, Ana deserved more than a quick coupling against the wall. She certainly deserved the truth.
He stepped away slowly, waiting until her feet were firmly back on the ground, before turning away and plowing a hand through his hair. Christ, how had he lost control so fast?
Squeezing his eyes shut, he finally admitted the truth. “I wasn’t avoiding you because I didn’t like you, I avoided you because of this.”
He looked back over his shoulder and took in the sight of her. She still stood with her back against the wall. Her br**sts were rising and falling with each labored breath she pulled into her lungs.
With her shirt hanging open to reveal her perfect br**sts encased in skimpy lace, she looked like his wildest fantasies come to life.
Her gaze still looked dazed and unfocused, proof that she didn’t yet comprehend what he was saying.
“I was afraid of this,” he admitted. “I knew the chemistry between us was palpable. I didn’t want to come on too strong. To ruin our working relationship.”
“Oh.” She seemed to realize suddenly that her shirt was still unbuttoned. Her fingers went to work fumbling on the problem, but her breath still came in rough drags and her normally quick mind seemed to be working at half speed, which was still faster than his tequila-addled one.
He was lucky he’d been able to stop at all.
He crossed back to the kitchen, emptied his tumbler into the sink and then got himself a fresh glass of ice water. Since she looked about as befuddled as he felt, he got her one, too.
She followed him into the galley kitchen and accepted the glass, shaking her head as if to clear it. “So you’ve been avoiding me because you like me?” Then she held up her hand to ward off some protest she imagined he was about to make. “Forget I said that. That presupposes that affection and lust are somehow tied together.”
“Ana—” he started to protest.
“No. It’s okay.” She smiled in a wobbly I’m-a-brave-little-trouper sort of way. Then she raised the water glass and drank it in quick, successive gulps. Like she needed to be doused with something icy. “So you want me, but you don’t want to want me. Do I have that right?”
“Let’s just say, yes, I want you. But sex complicates things. And I don’t want to hurt you.”
She set the glass down on the granite counter with a thud. “You’re assuming you could hurt me.”
Her naïveté was charming. “Yes, I am assuming that.” Maybe he should feign modesty, but in truth, he knew her emotions would have little to do with the man he really was. “I’ve been a celebrity a lot longer than you’ve been dealing with celebrities.”
“That’s not true,” she argued vehemently. “I dealt with all kinds of celebrities when I worked in Hollywood.”
“How many did you sleep with?”
Her cheeks turned a fiery red. “That’s none of your business!”
So the answer was either a lot, or none. He’d bet none. “My point is, celebrities are very easy to fall in love with, but very difficult to love.”
He wasn’t a particularly likable guy. He didn’t know if he ever had been, back before Cara got sick, but he certainly wasn’t now. It was a common malady among the famous. People fell in love with their fantasy rather than the person who was standing right in front of them, making their life miserable.
When she looked ready to protest again, he pressed his finger to her mouth to quiet her. “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want you falling in love with me and then one day waking up and realizing that I’m not the man you really wanted me to be. That wouldn’t be fair to you.”
She frowned, her gaze a little too insightful. “It sounds to me like that wouldn’t be fair to either of us.”
“You’re a sweet kid, Ana. I don’t want to hurt you.”
Her gaze narrowed at his use of the word kid. He’d known it would. She wasn’t a woman who took well to diminutives. There was more than one way to drive a woman away.
She jerked away from his touch, her gaze blazing and went to swipe her jacket off the floor. “So where does that leave us?” she asked, her tone tinged with defiance.
He shrugged. “We still have to work together for Hannah’s Hope. Right now, while we’re starting up, the board’s involvement is pretty heavy. I don’t see any way around that. But once things are underway, it’ll slow down. In a year or so, I can step aside and you can find a new board member.”
But her expression slowly darkened as he spoke and by the time he finished, he knew she was going to make this harder than it needed to be.
She shoved her arms back into the sleeves of her jacket, and slowly stalked toward him. “I meant, where does that leave us. Personally. You’re convinced I’m some kind of delicate flower who can’t handle being involved with you. But you’re wrong. I can handle anything I want to handle.”
He couldn’t help smiling at her bravado. And her choice of words. He should probably walk calmly away from that innuendo, but, damn it, he just couldn’t. “Am I to assume you want to handle me?”
She arched an eyebrow, opened her mouth as if to speak, then seemed to think better of it. After giving him an assessing stare, she admitted, “I don’t know.”
That careful consideration made him nervous. A quick yes, he could have easily dismissed. That need to pull her into his arms and devour her still pounded through him, but the cadence of it had slowed a little. It was controllable now. Gazing deep into her inky eyes, he could read nothing in them except the lingering traces of her passion.
She pressed her fingertips to her temples and squeezed her eyes shut for a second. Like she was trying to block out the chatter of her internal debate.
A second later, she opened her eyes, her expression just as confused. “I know I don’t want to walk away from this. I don’t want to walk away from you.”
“Hey,” he said trying to keep his tone playful. “It’s not every day a celebrity saunters into your life, right?”
The hard edge in his voice surprised him. He’d long ago gotten over any annoyance over the nail-a-celebrity scorecard some women seemed to keep. And he didn’t really think Ana was that kind of woman. But apparently, he still needed to hear that straight from her.
“It’s not that.” Annoyance flickered across her face. “Which you know.”
And to be fair, he did know. It wasn’t about that for her. Obviously. She’d worked in Hollywood. Met plenty of stars bigger than him in her life before Hannah’s Hope. He didn’t know how she’d managed to escape male attention in Hollywood. Thank God her figure was lush and curvaceous. Maybe in the land of skinny starlets the men there were all too stupid to appreciate Ana’s figure. Though it was the spark of passion that really spoke to him. Her devotion to Hannah’s Hope. He was less confident about what attracted her to him.
“Then what is it?” he pressed, surprised by his desperate need to hear her voice her attraction. He wasn’t generally the kind of guy who needed to have his ego stroked.
She shrugged. “I’m not sure. But would it be so bad if we let it run its course? If we waited to find out?”
He let out a low grumble of displeasure. Again, he shook his head. “I’m not going to risk your heart out of curiosity.”
“It’s not your heart to decide.”
He cupped her cheek in his palm. “Here’s the thing. Celebrities are very easy to fall in love with. But we’re almost impossible to love.”
Sadness flickered across her face. For an instant, he thought it was because she thought he was blowing her off. But then her lips curved in an almost smile and he realized he’d mistaken sympathy for sorrow.
“Yes. You said that already.” She bumped up her chin and met his gaze boldly. “But I’m not going to fall in love with you.”
Despite his grim mood, he found himself smiling. “You’re not?”
“No. Not even a little bit.”
“You promise?”
Her smile turned a little mischievous. “Cross my heart and lock it with a padlock.”
He still knew he should say no. He should push her out the door. Shut it behind her. Put her on a plane back to San Diego and never see her again.
This instinct he had to possess her, to keep her with him…it wasn’t good for her. And he was a selfish bastard for giving in to it.
But what could he say. He wanted her, plain and simple. And it had been too long since he’d wanted anything. He’d grown greedy during his emotional abstinence and if she didn’t have the good sense to leave, he didn’t have the strength to make her.
“Okay,” he agreed.
She smiled broadly, as if she’d won some kind of prize. Like she was the lucky one here, when in reality he was the one who would walk away the winner. He would inevitably disappoint her and she’d be lucky if she didn’t get crushed.
She rose up on her toes, her hand sneaking around his neck, but he carefully dodged her grasp.
“But we take it slowly,” he explained. “I may want to take you to bed and do all kinds of sinful things to your body. But we’re not going to do that now.”
“Oh.” Her eyes widened. And then a blush streamed up her cheeks.
Either he’d shocked her with his bluntness—which was entirely possible—or she genuinely hadn’t considered the possibility that if he started kissing her again, he might not be able to stop.
She went rapidly from confusion to surprise to embarrassed satisfaction. She didn’t quite meet his gaze as she nodded. “Okay. So where do we go from here?”
“We go to dinner.”
“Dinner?”
“Yeah.” He grabbed her hand and tugged her toward the door. He snagged a set of keys from the console. “Neither of us has eaten. Public is much better. I don’t trust myself alone with you.”
Ward let her drive to dinner. Though he’d only had two shots, it had been on an empty stomach since he hadn’t yet dug into the take-out leftovers. And she’d only had a sip of her drink. His sensibility on the subject impressed her. A lot of men viewed asking someone else to drive as an affront to their masculinity. Not Ward.