To Die For by Linda Howard

forcibly took me away from my place of business and drove me to another location where I didn’t want to be. Sounds like kidnapping to me.”
    He snorted and continued reading my list of grievances, which included bad language, a snotty attitude, and poor manners. He hadn’t even thanked me for the coffee. Oh, there were other legal terms in there, too, like
coercion, badgering,
and
harassment,
refusing to let me contact my lawyer, but I hadn’t let any detail slide.
    Damn his hide, he was smiling by the time he got to the end of the list. I didn’t want him to smile. I wanted him to realize what an asshole he’d been.
    “I brought you a Diet Coke,” he said, sliding the can toward me. “You’ve probably had enough coffee.”
    “Thank you,” I said, to underscore the difference between his manners and mine. I didn’t open the can, though. My stomach was already jittery from too much caffeine. Also, as a peace offering, the Diet Coke didn’t make the grade, especially since I was well aware he’d left the room more to give himself some breathing space before he snapped and tried to strangle me. The Diet Coke was a last-minute thought, to make it look as if he was being considerate when in fact it was his own skin he’d been protecting, because I’m sure it would be hell on his career if he strangled a witness. Not that I was much of a witness, but in this case I was all they had.
    “Now get out of my chair.”
    I blew my hair out of my eyes. “I’m not finished with my list. Let me have the pad back.”
    “Blair. Get out of my chair.”
    I wish I could say I behaved like an adult, but I was already way past the point where I could do that. I clamped my hands on the arms of the chair, glared at him, and said, “Make me.”
    Damn, I wish I hadn’t said that.
    A very short and humiliating struggle later, I was back in the chair where he’d originally put me, and he was in his chair, looking angry again.
    “Damn it.” He scrubbed his hand over his whiskery jaw, where his five o’clock shadow had long ago become darker than that. “If you don’t behave— Do you know how close you came to being in my lap instead of that chair?”
    Whoa. Where had that come from? I pulled back in alarm.
“What?”
    “Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. And I don’t buy your earlier act, either. You remember me, all right. I’ve had you naked.”
    “You have not!” I said, shocked. Did he have me confused with someone else? I was pretty sure I’d have remembered
that.
Yes, clothing had been shed, but I definitely had not been naked.
    He gave a grim smile. “Honey, trust me: when all you have on is a skimpy little skirt pulled up around your waist, that’s naked.”
    I trembled a little, because this was indeed familiar. I remembered the occasion well. It was the second date. He’d been on the couch; I’d been astride him, his fingers had been inside me, and I’d been an inch away from saying to hell with the concept of birth control, and taking my chances.
    I blushed, not in embarrassment, but because the office was becoming uncomfortably warm. The thermostat for the air-conditioning in the building needed to be bumped down just a notch. Just because I felt all squirmy inside, however, didn’t mean I was giving up the fight. “Naked means totally without clothes, so therefore by your own description I definitely wasn’t naked.”
    “So you do remember,” he said with satisfaction. “And don’t split hairs. You were as good as naked.”
    “There’s still a difference,” I insisted stubbornly. “And, yeah, I remember that we made out. So what?”
    “You mean you get naked with a man so often it doesn’t mean anything anymore?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.
    I was tired of pretending. He wasn’t buying it, anyway. I looked him in the eye and said, “Evidently it didn’t mean anything that time, either.”
    He grimaced. “Ouch. I know I owe you an explanation. I’m