Hot to Touch (Kimani Romance) by Kimberly Kaye Terry

hadn’t even seen it coming. The attraction he had for her had snuck up on him, and damn if he knew what to do with it.
    He set his beer down on the bar with a thump.
    The hell of it was, he knew the attraction wasn’t one-sided. He picked up on her body language whenever she was around him. He’d caught the sidelong glances she’d cast his way when she thought he wasn’t looking; the way her eyes would darken, the unconscious way she would moisten her lips when he stared just a bit too long at them. Unwillingly fascinated…the attraction was there, palpable. And mutual.
    She wanted him as badly as he wanted her. Double damn.
    The way she stood up to him fed the growing admiration and attraction he felt for her. There was something more in her gaze, besides her attraction to him and her all-around stubbornness. Something she hid well from the others. Something she had obviously practiced hiding, he thought. In the depths of her brown eyes was an uncertainty she tried hard to cover up. Yes, she showed herself as a more than competent woman, had a confidence that most lacked, yet lurking beneath the confidence was an odd vulnerability.
    When he’d been pushing her the last week, he’d been pushing at that vulnerability he had picked up on. Hoping to use it against her, hoping it would makeher break. Make her go away and leave him and his men alone.
    To leave him alone.
    With the firm support she had from Roebuck, along with the grudging respect he noted she’d been steadily gaining from the men, he knew getting rid of her was out of the question. And, if he were honest with himself, he was no longer sure he wanted her gone.
    Not yet, anyway. Not until…
    He’d only messed up in judgment once with a woman, and it had cost him dearly. His jaw clenched as he forced the memories away. Shane tipped back the bottle of beer, lingering thoughts of Emma refusing to go away.
    In his mind, snapshot images of the way the sweat made her T-shirt cling to her body, molding her high, firm breasts to perfection, sprang into thought.
    He shook his head, trying to clear away thoughts of her. He wasn’t going there. He didn’t want to think of her or the way he felt whenever she was within ten feet of him…or anything else that would interfere with the reason he’d come to the bar. Not tonight.
    No, tonight he would put both the mission he’d returned from, along with the troublesome woman, firmly from his thoughts. He glanced around, broodingly surveying the scene. It was an eclectic place, a place where a desperate housewife needing to get away partied with a Brooks Brother–wearing executive, looking for a little action any way they could get it.
    The large dance floor was packed with gyrating bodies getting their dance on, to an old Michael Jacksontune, with an abandon that was testimony to it being a Friday night and there being plenty of alcohol pumping in their systems.
    Multicolored lights flickered off the walls from the large strobe suspended from the ceiling in the middle of the dance floor. Split-level, the first floor played a mixture of music and had a large dance floor with bar areas scattered throughout. The first level was what he and most others referred to as the “meat market,” the place to hook up.
    The second floor featured another dance floor—this one smaller, along with a several games tables and the prerequisite bar areas as well.
    For those who wanted a more intimate place to hang out, the new owners had created a third level on the roof, with music, drinks and an even smaller dance floor; a place where couples usually went to talk and drink.
    For his purposes, the main level was what Shane wanted.
    The partygoers all mingled; social status meant nothing here. Those out for a drink and open to whatever came their way mingled with everyone else, all looking for a hole to fill, a temporary solace to whatever they’d faced the previous week.
    Shane knew the feeling.
    Within moments of his entry he’d