ANDRE

She’s planning something.

For the last hour and a half since we hit the road, Zoe has been fidgeting restlessly in the passenger’s seat. Which, in turn, makes me feel restless.

Although, in full honesty, I’ve been feeling that way for seven days now. Having Zoe back in my life is both a blessing and a curse. I missed her spitfire attitude, and, if our last few interactions have shown anything, I still get my rocks off on driving her up a wall just so I can see the heat darken her brown eyes and warm her cheeks with color.

Maybe that makes me an asshole, but damn it, it’s fun to tease her.

But that’s also the problem—when I’m knee-deep in our banter, I forget that I’m supposed to be making her want nothing to do with me. That’s the goal, that’s the mission, and I’m pretty sure that I’m failing seventy-percent of the time.

I cast my eyes over her slim body. She’s decked out in comfortable attire, and, for once, isn’t wearing stilettos. She looks exactly like the Zoe I remember from our movie nights, when she rested her feet in my lap and cradled a massive popcorn bowl against her stomach. And that Zoe is dangerous.

Who am I kidding? Zoe Mackenzie is dangerous to me in every way that matters.

The sound of her nails tapping against her cell phone leads me off the edge. “Do you need to piss?”

Out of my periphery, I see her shoulders jerk. “What? No.”

Don’t look at her, man. “Do you have to change your pad or something?”

“Oh, my God, Andre. Why would you even ask that?”

This time, I do cut a glance in her direction. Her pink lips are parted in shock, and, fuck me, but I want to kiss them. Of course I do—because when have I ever found Zoe unattractive? The answer to that is never; everything about her shines like a beacon only I can see. The thought of pounding my forehead into the steering wheel sounds like a blast right about now. “Because,” I mutter, unclenching my jaw, “you keep moving around. My sister does the same thing when she’s on her . . . thing.”

“Thing, Andre?” Her laughter echoes in my car, the sound so fucking sweet it almost hurts. “How old are you?”

I palm the steering wheel, following the curvy Connecticut highway. “Old enough.”

“Then say it with me now,” she says, poking me in the arm with her perfectly manicured finger. “Period. One more time, slower now so you can really work on it . . . perriooddd.”

Is it wrong that I simultaneously want to toss her into the backseat and kiss her silent, as much as I want to keep egging her on? I go with the latter, because, fuck it, the kissing thing is strictly off-limits.

Because you made it off-limits, like an idiot.

I reach for the car’s radio, only for Zoe to swat at my hand at the last second.

“Jesus, Zo!”

At the sound of my displeasure, she leans back in the passenger’s seat smugly. Instinctively my hand leaves the steering wheel, heading for ground zero.

“Don’t touch the radio, Beaumont.”

I jerk my chin toward her. “Are you kidding me? This is my car.”

“Well, yes, but we could have taken my car, but you wanted to be all high-and-mighty and—”

“You drive like shit,” I mutter with a shake of my head.

“Hey! That’s not true.”

Hell yes, it is. I bite down on my lower lip, debating on whether I should just go for broke. What’s that saying again? If you can’t handle the heat then stay out of the kitchen? Something like that. If Zoe wants to join the trash-talk train, then she needs to kick it with the best of us. “Let me rephrase that,” I tell her. “You drive worse than every senior citizen in the state of Massachusetts combined.”

I sense her watching me. Her nails tap the cell phone impatiently. Then, “I think you’re just jealous.”

A burst of laughter escapes me. “Of your driving skills? Nah, honey. You must have me confused with somebody else.”

“Who in the world would I have you confused with? No one else has ever accused me of driving poorly.” She trails off with a little gasp, and, damn it, but the sound has me looking at her again. The gasp is sexy, the way her eyes narrow is sexy, the way she thrusts her finger at me in an air-jab is sexy. “You’re still mad at me, aren’t you,” she adds, “because of the time I backed your car into a fire hydrant.”

Fingers flexing over the steering wheel, I grunt, “No.”

She doesn’t look away, and I shift uncomfortably in the driver’s seat. Flick the air vents toward me, then fiddle with my ball cap. I’m not mad per se . . . but, Jesus, it’d been a nice car. Then again, seeing her shocked expression when she’d realized what she’d done had immediately soaked up the anger. Zoe had looked so damn cute, with her mouth pursed in an O and her brows nearly touching her hairline as she sputtered inarticulately.

Not that I’d ever offer for her to pull a repeat, but the price tag for fixing the damn thing had been well worth having her fawn all over me for weeks.

“You are,” she whispers now. “You’re totally still mad. It’s been almost two years!”

“Zoe, I’m not mad.”

I tug on my left earlobe, and she points at me. “You are! You’re doing the earlobe-y thing.”

“‘Earlobe-y’ is not a word,” I say, struggling to keep my gaze locked on the road when all I want to do is look at her. Damn it, but I’ve missed this between us. The banter, the laughter, the reminder that one glance at Zoe is enough to make my day feel complete.

“You’re sidestepping the issue,” she tells me, folding her arms over her chest. “I can’t believe you’re still holding a grudge.”

“Of all the things I could be holding a grudge against you for, the fucking fire hydrant isn’t—” I cut off with a curse. Then again, this is what I was worried about. This constant banter, for me at least, sidelines as foreplay.

Not with any other woman, mind you—but with Zoe? Hell yeah. Put me in a room with her. Don’t even let me touch her, and I’ll be harder than a rock within minutes just thanks to our conversations.

Zoe casually taps the bill of my Blades baseball hat. “So, you’re holding grudges against me?”

No. Zoe’s not the one to blame here—I am. But there’s no way for me to explain that to her without giving up details, and the details aren’t something I’m willing to share. Not even with her or for her. She’s better off not knowing . . . or maybe it’s that I’m better off pretending that parts of my past don’t exist. My heart clenches with the memories, and for the millionth time in three years I wish that I was as emotionless as the public perceives me to be.

Hell, if I was a block of ice, Zoe wouldn’t be getting under my skin right now. I wouldn’t notice the strip of skin above her waistband or the way she smells delicious like fresh citrus. I wouldn’t be tempted to slip my hand around to the back of her neck and drag her over for a kiss. I wouldn’t want to hear all about her year after we went our separate ways.

“Nothing to say to that?” she prompts dryly.

Maybe it’s because I’m so worked up already, but her question reminds me that we need boundaries. Concrete boundaries. Stop thinking about all the ways you want her in bed.

I make a show of whipping off my hat and tossing it on top of the dashboard. With a sigh of frustration, I drag my hand through my hair and say the words I know will have her wanting to flip me off. “Are you going to talk the rest of the way to New York City?”

She freezes, and I count the seconds as she meticulously crosses one leg over the other and folds her hands in her lap. Her knuckles are white from gripping her phone.

Guilt punches me in the gut.

“Zo—”

She cuts me off with a raised palm. “You’re right. I do want to talk the rest of the way to New York. Is that so bad?”

“Is this a trick question?” I ask her, easing the car along a curve in the road. “One of those times where it starts out all fun and games and ends with one of us crying?”

“No.” From her defensive tone, I gather that she actually means yes.

Don’t let her see how much she gets to you. In a rough voice, I say, “What if I have nothing to say?”

She shrugs. “I guess we could sit in silence for the next two hours. I mean, if that’s what you want.”

“I want to listen to the radio.” Scratch that—I want to know if she tastes as good as I remember. Seeing as though that definitely isn’t an option for more reasons than I can name, I’ll settle on listening to the radio and picturing my grandmother in a bikini. Anything to stop thinking about Zoe up against the wall in that damned laundry room.

“Well,” she says pleasantly, “I’d rather be in my brand-new office, but you blackmailed me into this trip. Now you have to deal with the consequences.”

I tug on my earlobe again, something I’ve done since I was kid whenever I’ve felt uncomfortable in a situation. And right now . . . yup, definitely feeling uncomfortable. She’s goading me into doing exactly what she wants. There’s a reason why her clients in Detroit (including myself) called her the “barracuda.” The woman knows what buttons to push and how to push them, and I’m convinced she wouldn’t get away with nearly half of it if she wasn’t so nice.

And, damn it, she knows how to push my buttons, too, because the next thing I know I’m snapping, “Fuck, all right, Zoe.”

She clears her throat. “Is that a yes to talking?”

“It’s a yes to us getting this over with,” I growl, threading my fingers through my hair before clapping my hand back on the wheel again. “Say what you want to say.”

She doesn’t even hesitate. “Why is this your last season?”

My shoulders flinch. “That’s off-topic.”

With a little snort, she murmurs, “No surprise there—everything is off-topic with you.”

“I like it that way.” I accelerate the car as we leave the highway-in-the-woods for flatter pastures with gray cement, and walls of rocks on either side of the road. Needing to redirect the conversation, I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. “You have a boyfriend, Zoe?”

Honestly, I’m not sure which one of us is more surprised by the question. She chokes on air, reaching for the water bottle in the console. “I’m not answering that.”

Unfamiliar jealousy pools in my stomach. Yeah, not exactly the answer I was hoping for. And, yeah, I know that makes me a hypocrite because it’s not as though I’ve spent the last year living like a monk. Even so, one-night stands aren’t nearly the same thing as relationships. For what it’s worth, the only woman I’ve considered asking out in years is Zoe.

The need to push for more information grows. “So, I’m assuming you aren’t dating anyone?”

She’s quiet, shifting around again, and the thought hits me that this attraction might be one-sided. Which is good, absolutely—tell me you’re dating someone so I can get over this irrational need to strip you naked and make you mine.

“Um, you know, I’m dating. Just not one person.” Her voice emerges as a squeak, and she makes another grab for the water bottle.

She’s lying.

“Yeah?” I lower my voice, dropping it to a husky purr. “How’s that working out for you?”

“Great!” She sucks down water like she’s been stuck in the Sahara for weeks. “It’s great. I’m really enjoying it, you know, just playing the field or what not.”

This from the girl who used to make me tag along on her dates because she worried that all men were murderers? I shake my head, doing my best not to laugh. “That good, eh? You’re just taking over the Boston dating scene and showing these men what Detroit women are made of?”

Something flickers in her expression. “Oh, absolutely. I mean, just the other day I went on a date with this . . . ” She swallows. “This—”

“Let me guess,” I say, my mouth finally giving up on the battle and curling up into a grin, “he was a doctor.”

“No.”

“A lawyer?”

She taps her phone against her thigh. “He’s a millionaire.”

I roll my eyes. “Of course he is. Does he have a penthouse, too?”

“You’re assuming I’ve been up to his penthouse.”

The thought of Zoe alone with a guy who may or may not be her boyfriend doesn’t sit well with me, even though I know she’s faking this whole thing. “Have you?”

“Aren’t you dating Suzanne?” she counters.

No. “No chemistry, remember?” I pause, deliberately waiting until she’s practically on the edge of her seat, and then add, “Doesn’t mean that there won’t be other women, though. Just like you’re not exclusive with your . . . penthouse-owning millionaire.”

“You’re a chauvinistic pig.”

At the frustration in her tone, I smother a grin. “I knew you were lying.”

More with the phone tapping. “About what?”

“You dating.”

She’s quiet, probably deliberating her next move. Then, stiffly, she mutters, “I like my life just as it is.”

I hear the seat creak under her weight and then the radio comes back on. It’s an old-rock classic. Seems like she’s over the whole talking thing, too.

I reach for the radio, prepared to turn the volume up. But my hand wavers, dropping back to the steering wheel, and I hear my voice instead, low and raspy. “Me too, Zoe. I like my life just the way it is, too.”

I think we both know that the other is lying.