Her chest rose and fell with a deep breath, her incredible eyes never leaving his.Yes, I do, they seemed to say.
She wasn’t like his stepmother, a woman who’d offered sex as casually as money at a drive-thru window. Lust he could control; anger, he couldn’t. “But I’ll tell you this much: you’re playing with the wrong man. I’m neither virtuous nor honorable. Never have been. I played the gentleman once, but don’t push your luck. I don’t like to go too many days without.”
She smiled, the tilt of her lips faint and uncertain. “If you were virtuous, do you really think I would have asked?”
For a blind, blazing second, Campbell entertained the idea of accepting her insulting proposition. It was too easy—far too easy—to imagine her lean, long-limbed body beneath his, her lips parting in a cry of pleasure as he sank deeper than he’d ever allowed himself, those throaty moans circling his ear, wrapping around him like a spell.
Sassy and defensive, with a sharp thread of intelligence stitching together her gaze, she wasn’t typical—or his type.
Senseless, but he knew the combination would make for a mind-blowing lover.
He took a step back, never having been attracted to unsophisticated women, no matter how beautiful they were. And this one was gorgeous without even trying. Considering her gall, maybe he was foolish to think she was innocent, but something…goddamnit,something, tugged at his last remaining moral chord.
Vulnerability shimmered off her like sunlight on the surface of a lake. Fontana Quinn would’ve been mortified, he imagined, to know it.
While he stood there, reasoning, her hands fisted inhis sweatshirt as she backed him into the shed's wooden wall. It rocked with a harsh creak, scraping his calf and knocking his cap to the ground. His Hellcat was stronger than she looked.
And determined.
Up on her toes, her lips pressed to his before he could take a breath—or close his eyes to enjoy it.
Campbell muttered a weak denial against her mouth, but she took advantage of it, slipping inside.
The kiss was hesitant and not quite...right. As though neither of them knew what to expect.
But it didn’t matter.
The teasing flavor of her hit his tongue as the scent of honeysuckle rolled over him like a wave. No matter her suspected inexperience, she knew her way around a kiss. Desire surged, igniting an instant, fierce reaction. His dick hardened with the quick rush, his chest burning withwant. He tilted her head, deepening the contact, bringing her into the cradle of his arms. She melted into his touch, and he pulled her body flush against his, fingers tracing the soft line of her jaw as he kissed her with a desperation he couldn’t control.
Fontana tasted of mint and soda, crisp fall mornings and aching artlessness. His hands slid into her hair, releasing the silken strands to tumble over her shoulders, a sensual shroud. She moaned, arching into him, pleading without words. He answered, drawing her closer, their bodies a sizzling press from chest to hip.
Her fingers circled his shoulder, clung, then tangled in his hair as she breathed her agreement against his lips. When her nails scraped his scalp, his control shredded.
A guttural sound escaped him as his mind flooded with images of all the ways he could take her. Sparks fired his brain, peppered his skin. But the flutter in his stomach, the powerful swell of affection, ofbelonging, had him gripping her shoulders and pushingher away.
Dragging his lips from hers even as he hungered.Yearned.
Campbell concentrated on her hand, clenched in the folds of his sweatshirt, smears of dirt streaking her skin. Slender fingers, ragged cuticles that looked like she chewed on them, a crescent-shaped scar on her thumb. He exhaled slowly through parted lips, steady, deliberate. But the faint fragrance clinging to her, subtle yet persistent, sent his head spinning.
If he waited another minute, he could let her go and mean it.
“Why did you stop?”
He blinked, lifted his head. Fontana’s azure eyes, wide and unguarded, brimmed with curiosity, suspicion, anticipation…lust. Offered up like an unwrapped gift.
She didn’t even know how to play the game.
He’d gotten so jaded, he didn’t know hownotto play.
“Fuck,” he whispered, stepping into her, his lips finding hers without hesitation. She rocked into him, against him, her sigh echoing through the small enclosure. Zero to sixty in seconds—tongues tangled, battling for control.
Campbell would have given it up, didn’t care, as long asshe didn’t let him go. The thought burned through him, melting his ardor, exposing something raw beneath it.
Something that felt a lot like fear.
Stumbling, he kept his gaze anywhere but on her as he snatched his cap from the ground, flicked off bits of pine straw, and tugged it on. “I’m already booked. Did you happen to notice the blonde on the field? She and I, well…you know what they say, getting the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than getting it in.”
He heard her swallow as she backed away, each step driving something sharp through him. “So, the charmer I met by the roadside has decided to save his perpetual hard-on for someone else.”
