The comment took him aback, and he fired off a barrage of questions. “You expected menotto cancel? Like we were supposed to sit down over tea and crumpets and pretend none of this happened? Wouldyouhave wanted to keep the date if the tables were turned?”
Her mouth opened, closed, and opened again.
“Yeah, exactly,” he smugly agreed.
“Have you gotten in with Silver Summit yet?” she fired back.
Shit. He hadn’t thanked her yet. “About that—”
“Did they call you or not?” she bit out.
“Ursula did and—”
She made a disgusted little noise and executed an epic eye-roll aimed right at him.
He leveled her with a glower. “Would you stop acting so snotty? I’m trying to tell you that whatever you did up there worked and that I appreciate it. Yes, I have a meeting.”
“Oh.” Contrition flashed in those beautiful blues but was quickly replaced by caution. She didn’t trust him.
Because frustration festered, and he was a moron who couldn’t leave well enough alone, he needled her to get a rise. “Ursula called and set it up. She was awesome. She even apologized for not doing it sooner. We talked, and it almost felt like old times—the good ones.” By the time the newsflash reached his thick brain that he’d laid it onwaytoo heavy, it was too late.
Her wariness shifted into a lofty sneer. “Hmm … apparently the technique works.”
The words, dripping with sarcasm, confused him.“Whattechnique?”
“Everyone around here knows a Hunnicutt only has to snap his fingers and women line up for their turn.”
His barely leashed temper detonated, but he kept his voice cucumber-cool. “Oh, so you heard about that. Yeah, it works every damn time. Like last night, and the night before, and the night before that. Snap, snap.” And yes, he snapped his fingers for effect because not only was he a total idiot, but he was in full dick mode.
Hailey stunned him quiet when she closed the distance between them, pushed up on her toes, and stared him down … or up, since the crown of her head barely reached his chin.
He returned the glower and snapped his fingers again.
Indignation transformed her features. “You arrogant prick! Youactuallybelieve that would work on me?”
The magma chamber of emotions inside him boiled and heaved. In one move, he slammed the door shut behind him and reached for her, spinning her shoulders so her back hit the wood slab. Heart thudding against his rib cage, he pressed his body flush to hers, pinning her in place, his forearms caging her in without touching. Her chest, mere millimeters from his, rose and fell in time with his as her breaths rushed in and out.
Shock replaced the annoyance reflected in her gaze. “W-what the hell, Noah?”
The saner side of him asked the same question, but the primal side of him ignored them both. It wanted what it wanted and was on a mission of its own—to conquer, to tame her, to make her recognize he was worthy of her. Shit rooted in antiquity and as tangled as it was befuddling.
His logical mind couldn’t keep up with the switchbacks of their heated exchange, but it was overrun by his body firing off one reaction after another, holding itself rigidly against her, his muscles taut, the power in them coiled.
Their eyes stayed locked on one another in a stubborn death glare, neither willing to budge first. He became aware of two things: the scent of honeysuckle drifting off her warm skin and the bruise on her cheekbone floating into view. The mark yanked him back to himself. He was behaving no better than the asshole who’d hit her. Easing away, putting a few inches of space between them, he studied the angry island of purple and blue amid a sea of unblemished ivory. Without thinking, he feathered the back of his index finger over it, wishing he could erase it. She seemed to release a breath she’d been holding but didn’t resist his touch, pressing into it instead.
“For the record,” he murmured, “I don’t believe you’d put up with anything as crass as me snapping my fingers, and I’d be disappointed if you did. Also for the record, I don’t snap my fingers and make women come running. Even if I had that superpower, I’m pretty sure I’d want to trade it in for something way more practical, like conjuring ketchup out of thin air when we run out.”
The storm in her eyes yielded to soft clouds as he scanned her face. A tiny smile twitched her rosy lips. “Ketchup?”
“Yes, ketchup. Maybe mayo or dill pickles. Pickles are a real bitch sometimes.”
A delightful giggle bubbled up inside her, breaking the wild surface tension stretched between them, and his entire body slackened. He trailed his fingertip to her lower lip and traced the cut. “If I ever lay eyes on that fuckwad again, I will tear him limb from limb for what he did to you.”
Her eyelids fluttered closed and slowly opened again at half-mast. “Kiss it and make it better, Noah,” she whispered.
Her quiet command rocketed through him, firing nerve endings, rewinding muscles once more. His already stiff cock swelled unbearably and strained against his fly. Ignoring its growing insistence, he hovered his mouth an inch from hers, drinking in the moment, pulling her breath into his lungs. Inside, he was a writhing mass of contradictions. A caveman who roared with need to lay claim to her body with roughness and a tender lover who longed to worship her, to devote himself to bringing her all manner of pleasure.
With his forearms still bracketing her head, he planted a soft kiss on her damaged plump lip. He dipped his mouth to the juncture where her neck met her shoulder. She let out one long, sweet sigh and dropped her head back, emboldening him. Her palms were flattened against the door, and she arched her body toward him, as if offering herself to him. Working his way up her smooth throat, he interspersed languid kisses with nips he soothed with his tongue, relishing the taste of salty-sweet skin.
