Captive in Greece

She should've taken the cab.

That thought kept circling through Vera Holt's mind as she stood in the middle of a hotel room she had no business being in, wearing a red dress and watching a man pour champagne as though they had all night.

What am I doing? she asked herself.

But she didn't have an answer.

Twenty minutes ago, there'd been a cab waiting at the curb. She'd walked right past it.

She had every sensible instinct a woman could have, and she'd ignored all of them the second he said, "One drink."

He crossed the room and handed her a glass.

"Second thoughts?" he asked.

She looked at him.

"A few."

"And yet you're still here."

"And yet I'm still here," she agreed.

He sat beside her—closer than necessary, the warmth of him reaching her before he'd even settled.

She should've left.

She finished the champagne instead.

He took the glass from her fingers.

Set it down without looking away.

"This is a terrible idea," she said.

"The worst," he agreed.

Neither of them moved.

His hand slid along her jaw, warm against her skin, and something pulled tight low in her belly—a slow, deliberate ache that had nothing to do with sense and everything to do with the way he was looking at her.

He kissed her.

She'd never been kissed like this.

She'd never been kissed at all—not once, not by anyone, not in a way that mattered enough to remember.

There'd never been time for it, never room in a life built around everyone else's needs.

His mouth was patient and certain and devastating, and she met it with a hunger that scared her a little because it didn't feel like her at all, yet it felt exactly like her.

His palm covered her breast, and she made a sound she'd never made in her life.

She felt him go still.

Felt him breathe her name against her mouth.

"Vera."

Low, like something he hadn't meant to say out loud.

Then his fingers found the zip at her back.

The small metallic sound of it cut through the haze like a light switching on in a dark room, and reality arrived all at once—complete and unwelcome.

I'm about to sleep with a man whose name is the only thing I know about him.

She pulled back.

He let her.

His eyes had gone darker—a deeper, hungrier blue—and he watched her with no impatience at all, just a question raised in one brow.

"I'm sorry," she said, her breath unsteady. "I'm not the kind of woman who does this."

"Of course not."

His mouth curved.

"I dragged you here kicking and screaming, against your will, if I remember correctly."

That stung more than it should have.

She stood.

Found her clutch.

Didn't wait for him to say anything else.

She walked to the door without looking back.

She didn't trust herself to.

The door closed behind her.

In the cab home, shoes off and feet tucked beneath her, Vera pressed her fingers to her lips and watched the city slide past the window.

It was just a kiss, she told herself.

Just a kiss.

She almost believed it.