Free Exposed (Tropical Nights) by Emma Barron Page B

on Rachel, hearing what he said about her, Leo had felt a current of anger flow through him that he almost hadn’t been able to contain. He had wanted to destroy Kelley, to obliterate him, to wipe him off the face of the earth so he wouldn’t contaminate the air Rachel breathed.
    It didn’t make sense.
    Leo had no problem protecting himself or those close to him, but the level of aggression he had felt toward Kelley was all out of proportion to what had happened. He couldn’t explain why that incident had triggered such protectiveness in him; he only knew that he hated seeing her upset in any way.
    And he hated seeing anyone else touching her. He startled at the realization, but he couldn’t push it away. He wanted Rachel for himself. Not in a grunting caveman “you my woman” sort of way…well, okay, he couldn’t deny he felt a little of that visceral male possessiveness about Rachel.
    Leo hit the heavy bag with several quick punches to release a sudden surge of frustration.
    Fine, dammit.
    I f he was going to be completely honest with himself, he had to admit he going more than just a little caveman over Rachel. He couldn’t deny that aspect, no, but he knew it was also tied up with something deeper. He liked having her at the office and he found himself missing her when she wasn’t around. He liked talking to her, listening to her, finding out everything he could about her. He wanted to take her to dinner so their time together wouldn’t end with the workday. He wanted to take her out dancing so he could hold her close to him. He wanted to fall asleep with her tangled in his arms and wake up to see her smiling face.
    Whoa.
    Leo told himself to slow down. He was getting ahead of himself. It was perfectly fine to find a woman attractive and to enjoy spending time with her—Leo did it often enough with the women he dated casually—but the ridiculous thoughts running through his head about Rachel were precisely the kind of entanglements he had spent the last few years trying to avoid. His company needed his full attention right now. His focus was especially needed now, with the PR hit the company had taken with his parents’ crash and the way the changing market was shrinking his client base. He would have time for everything later, when he had gotten the company where he wanted it to be. Then he would let himself mourn his parents. Then he could take some time for relationships or his other hobbies that had fallen by the wayside recently.
    And he didn’t care what Rivers said. It was the demands of his company that kept him more socially isolated right now than he was usually, not any ridiculous ideas about closing himself off to people due to sadness over his family…or whatever psychobabble crap Rivers was prone to spout. Rachel intrigued him because she was an intelligent, interesting, beautiful woman, and since he was a normal, healthy male, that was all to be expected. But mild interest in her was where it ended. Tomorrow was the last day she was scheduled to spend with him. Then she would file her story and be out of his life and everything could go back to normal.
    The pang he felt when he thought of Rachel leaving was merely tiredness after a long day. It wasn’t panic over his feelings for her that was making his heart pound—it was physical exhaustion from working the heavy bag.  He repeated that to himself as he threw punch after punch after punch, as if he could physically beat into submission the nagging thoughts in his head insisting otherwise.

Chapter Five
     
    Rachel scurried around her bedroom, throwing clothes on as she gathered her notes, computer, and everything else she needed for work and shoved it all into her bag. She’d been awake most of the night trying to figure out what to do about Leo and Karen and the story she wasn’t going to write. She was especially worried about Leo. She replayed their kiss over and over in her mind as she tried to tease apart her warring feelings for