that was enough to get him to step back. Fast. The last thing they needed to be discussing was the blistering hard erection in his pants. Or how he was convinced that only her slick center could relieve it.
Apparently his body only remembered the good stuff between them.
“We can’t,” he told her simply. “I’m not like Anderson. I respect the fact that you’re together, even if he didn’t have the same respect for me.”
Charlie turned to get the hell out of this shadowed little alcove before Audra drove him insane. Before he forgot that she was off-limits and reacquainted himself with her mouth right here in this alleyway.
“Charlie.” Her sharp bark brought him up short. “I ended things with Jared a couple of months ago.”
Audra cursed whatever stupid compulsion had caused her to blurt out that gem. She didn’t owe him any explanations, nor had he earned any.
But God, the feel of him surrounding her—she’d obviously lost her senses to have allowed such a thing, never mind blurting out a statement designed to keep him from storming off in a huff of righteous indignation because he’d thought she was two-timing Jared. Of all things to be up in arms about.
It had worked though. Charlie stood at the edge of the alleyway, his body vibrating with tension, not turning around.
Then he did, and she wished he hadn’t because something wholly seductive had taken over his demeanor, as if he’d been thinking of exactly the same thing she’d been imagining while in the circle of his arms.
“The opportune time to mention that would have been earlier,” he said, his voice rough with unchecked need that she was very afraid was reflected on her face.
That hug had woken up her insides in a way that she hadn’t been awake in a very long time—two years. Since the day Charlie had taken a plane out of her life. Jared had been there when her world fell off a cliff, and she’d always have a soft spot for him in her heart. But Charlie had claimed a much bigger piece of her—and then crushed it into smithereens.
Which didn’t seem to be enough to kill the physical reaction he’d always elicited in her from the very first moment she’d met him. It pissed her off.
She should have let him go. “Why? Does it matter so much to you that I’m single?”
It mattered to her.
Independence was her gig now. It was the whole reason she’d had to firmly tell Jared that she loved him for being there for her but she wasn’t in love with him. Hell, she barely liked him some days and definitely not enough to keep living in fear that she’d lose her job if she said or did the wrong thing. He was used to people kowtowing to him, and he liked to use people’s weaknesses against them.
She’d had to end things if for no other reason than to prove she didn’t need a crutch to hold her up. Maybe she had once—much to her sorrow and chagrin—but not anymore.
“Oh, yes,” Charlie purred. “Your relationship status is very relevant to this conversation.”
Charlie’s gaze burned into her with that strange heat that seemed so wrong for his icy blue eyes, and she had the distinct impression everything had shifted the moment he’d heard not with Jared.
That was a convenient shield that never should have been removed. There was too much hurt pinging around amidst all the sizzle, and he’d taken the admission the wrong way.
“That wasn’t some kind of green light, Charlie.” She crossed her arms over the worst of the ache in her midsection, but it would be impossible to salve it since there was nothing that could physically reach that deep. “There’s a reason we haven’t seen each other until now.”
He nodded. “Because neither of us are good at saying what’s going on inside. Unless it’s ‘take me now,’ ‘faster, Charlie’ or ‘race you to the shower.’”
There was little use in arguing with the truth. “Perhaps. But that part of us is over. I’m not averse to trying to be civil since we’re bound to run into each other from time to time. Anything more than that is off the table.”
But he was already shaking his head with a smile that made her very nervous. “Civil. I don’t think there’s even a small part of our interaction that could be described as civil. And you’re lying to yourself if you think the chemistry between us has fizzled even slightly.”
Oh, no. She had