Chapter 82
[ 489 words ]
Chapter 82:
The second kiss was slower, but infinitely more dangerous. It was a deep, consuming possession that stripped away the last of Caroline’s defenses.
When Jarrod finally pulled his mouth away, Caroline slumped back against the door panel. Her entire body was trembling. Her face was flushed hot, and her lungs burned as she dragged oxygen into her chest.
She opened her eyes. Jarrod was hovering over her, his dark eyes tracking every single breath she took.
The realization of what she had just done hit her like a bucket of ice water. She had completely surrendered to him. The highly trained operative had melted into a puddle just because he touched her.
A wave of intense, defensive shame washed over her.
R𝘦аd t𝗁𝘦 𝗹𝗮𝘁𝖾ѕt 𝘁𝗋𝖾𝗇𝗱s o𝘯 𝗀𝖺𝘭ոо𝗏𝘦𝘭𝘀.𝘤o𝗆
Caroline planted her hands on his chest and shoved hard.
Jarrod let her push him back. He settled into the center of the leather bench, his long legs spread wide, watching her with a dark, calculating gaze.
Caroline scrambled into the farthest corner of the seat. She pulled the lapels of her trench coat tightly together, hiding the thin t-shirt underneath. She turned her head, staring out the rain-streaked window, refusing to look at him.
The silence in the car grew thick and sticky.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Caroline snapped, her voice trembling with forced anger. “That was just an adrenaline response. We have a transactional arrangement. This… this isn’t intimate.”
The temperature in the Escalade plummeted.
Jarrod’s jaw clenched. The muscles in his neck jumped.
“Transactional,” he repeated. The word came out flat and cold, a blade laid bare on the table between them.
He didn’t lunge. He didn’t grab her. He simply turned his head and looked at her, a long, unblinking stare that stripped her bare.
“You keep telling yourself that,” Jarrod said, his voice dropping to a low, lethal murmur. “You keep telling yourself this is just a contract. That I’m just a mission parameter. That you can walk away when this is over.”
He leaned forward, his gray eyes boring into hers with an intensity that pinned her to the seat.
“But we both know the truth, Caroline. You didn’t kiss me back because of adrenaline. You kissed me back because for three days, you couldn’t sleep. You couldn’t eat. You sat in that empty apartment waiting for this phone to ring, and the silence was driving you insane.”
Caroline’s throat constricted. She shook her head, refusing to let him see the crack in her armor.
“You don’t know anything about what I felt,” she whispered.
“Don’t I?” Jarrod reached out slowly, not grabbing, not forceful, and pressed his palm flat against her chest, directly over her pounding heart. The heat of his hand seared through the thin fabric of her t-shirt. “Your heart is racing. You’re shaking. And you haven’t moved an inch away from my hand.”
Caroline stared at him, her chest heaving. Every instinct screamed at her to retreat, to rebuild the walls he kept demolishing. But her body refused to obey.
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