A . . . bull’s-eye. She blinked, then blinked again. A freakin’ bull’s-eye?
She snapped from bewilderment to fury so fast she had no way to rein herself in, no way to retreat behind her walls. Her mouth fell open, she hung there motionless for a second, and then she blew. “You drew a damn target on your chest!” she shrieked. “You moron! Do you have a death wish? Did you think it was funny when some knuckle-dragger nearly killed you?”
He moved closer, his chin lowered, squaring up against her like a fighter about to go a round or three. His gaze was locked on her face, fire simmering in his own eyes, but he gave a negligent shrug. “I thought: ‘Shit, this messed up my tattoo.’”
She felt as if her eyes might bug out, as if her hair were standing on end. The only other time in her life when she’d been this angry was when Kyle Gooding had punched her in the face and she felt the same, as if her skin couldn’t contain her body. In her outrage, she poked the gator again, literally, jabbing his left pec with her forefinger as she glared up at him. “Idiot!”
She saw a flash of his eyes, glittering like glacier ice, and then he kissed her.
She had no warning. He wasn’t kissing her, and then a split second later he was. His right arm was around her waist, holding her up on her toes against him, and she could feel the coolness of the weapon still in his hand as it pressed into her hip. His left hand cupped her jaw, holding her face tilted up while he lowered his head and slanted his mouth over hers.
Something cataclysmic happened inside her. It felt right, as if every other kiss she’d had in her entire life had been wrong. All of her senses, everything she knew or felt, was swamped by this. The taste of him filled her, the mint of the toothpaste he’d just used underlaid by something raw and hot and powerful, something that made her heart pound and her blood, which had been so cold, sear her veins as it raced through her body. There was the heat of his skin, most of it bare, against her and under her hands. The tank shirt she wore was a single, flimsy layer of cotton between them, inadequate for protection but suddenly feeling rough against her nipples, nipples that were no longer soft but tightly pinched and erect. And below . . . he was erect now, too, a straining hardness pushing against the softness between her legs. There was heat there, his as well as hers, blood pooling and throbbing and burning.
Distantly she was aware that this was just a kiss, one kiss, a kiss that hadn’t stopped yet, and she was ready to let him strip down her pants and get between her legs. Even worse, that was what she wanted, wanted as she had never wanted a man before. She wanted him there, inside her, riding her deep and hard.
She was a fool.
The thought was a slap in the face, a dash of cold water, just what she needed to will control back into her arms and legs, steel back into her spine. The first step was to turn her head, breaking contact with his mouth. One kiss, but if he kept on kissing her, she knew he’d have her on her back. She let her forehead rest on his shoulder and that was almost worse, because she could smell the heat of his skin and feel the tug of instinct that urged her to burrow deeper against him, so she could absorb more of that heat and man-scent.
The second step was to stop digging her fingers into the muscled pad of his shoulder, to place her palm flat against his chest and push. Her fingertips flexed on his skin, just for an instant, then she concentrated her strength and put pressure in her touch. She couldn’t push him away, he was too strong for that, but the pressure let him know to stop.
Slowly his arm released its hold and he let her drop from her toes, her body moving down his, the hard ridge of his erection momentarily dragging through the soft folds between her legs and sending little fiery arcs of sensation through her clitoris. She caught her breath, bit back a helpless moan even as her hand pushed more insistently against him. Oh my God, she wanted to surge against him and whisper, “Do that again,” because she felt so close that if he did it again, she would come.
One kiss. One kiss, and everything else.
Then she was free, stepping back, and hallelujah, her trembling knees came through like champs and didn’t fold.
He said nothing, his eyes narrowed, his gaze locked on her. His chest was rising and falling as if he’d been running, and she was savagely gratified that she wasn’t the only one wrestling with the effects of that kiss. She refused to let herself look any lower than his face, she didn’t want to see how far his boxer shorts were poking out or if they had failed to contain him. What if they had? Would she be able to resist curling her fingers around his penis, stroking it, bringing him to his knees the way he’d almost brought her?
“No,” she said, her voice hoarse but firm. “We aren’t doing this. Sex is not on the table, not part of the deal.” She would keep saying that until she convinced herself as well as him.
He cocked his head a little. “Not part of the deal,” he agreed, “but we’ll be doing it. Count on it.”
Panic raced through her because she was afraid he was right. And if he was, it would be because of her weakness. She couldn’t let herself be weak, she had to remember that he was leaving and keep her guard up. She’d learned too many times not to depend on anyone else to forget those hard lessons now. She turned away, needing the sanctuary and privacy of her bedroom, where she could close the door and be alone. “Don’t touch me again,” she ground out. “Good night.”
“Wait.”
She didn’t want to stop, she wanted to get to her bedroom, but her feet halted and she stood with her back to him, waited to hear what he said.