He shrugged a broad shoulder, one dusted with a delectable scatter of freckles. She hadn’t noticed those during the madness. “Funny, I didn’t figure you for a smoker. The jogging and all.”
He slid her a narrow, backward glance. “This is the second cigarette I’ve had in two years. The first was”—he smiled thinly—“fifteen minutes ago.”
Not knowing what to make of that, she floundered. “Um…they’re Jaime’s.”
“Virginia Slims? Figures.” Campbell tipped his head back and blew a vaporous stream into the air. She recognized the smoldering look in his eyes when they found their way back to her. “Binges aplenty in the last twenty-four hours.”
“Possibly. I suppose.” Leaning back, the bark bit into her palms. “I mean, three times was almost a third of my total, so I couldn’t really say.”
His insouciant expression collapsed in on itself. Smoke hit him wrong, and he bent at the waist, choking. She started topush off the tree, but he raised an arm, holding her back. “Do you always have to be so…damned honest?”
She frowned, not sure how to be anything but. It was enough to keep her gaze from sliding over his half-naked body the way her hands had the night before—forget worrying about what she was saying. Tanned and lean, his hair streaked from sunlight three thousand miles away, he looked like something magical that had stepped from her dreams and into her garden, a delicious apparition set to drift away at any moment, like the smoke from Jaime’s Virginia Slim.
“My self-control has limits, Fontana.” He spoke around the dangling cigarette, which only added to his appeal, something she recognized as feckless and silly.
But her eyes wouldn’t stray from his plump bottom lip, memories of devastating pleasure flooding her as she recalled what he’d done to her with his mouth. Each vivid image sent a hard twist through her belly, a pinch of longing settling between her legs.
She must have made a sound because he growled low in his throat, the cigarette dipping. “I’m trying here, I really am,” he whispered.
She shoved off the tree, the hem of his T-shirt brushing her thighs as she moved closer.
He held up the hand holding the camera and stepped back. “If you touch me right now, we’ll end up christening your pristine gazebo. And you’ll have to worry about the neighbors hearing us. Count on it.”
She halted, her gaze flicking to the gazebo, lips rounding in delight.
“You ever?” he asked softly.
Blood pumping in her ears, she shook her head.The gazebo. The planks would be cool and slick with dew. Campbell’s skin would be hot and slick?—
He pitched his cigarette to the ground. “Quit looking atme like that.” Her gaze followed the smoking nub, and he snarled, grinding it out before pocketing it.
“Like what?” She sounded breathless. Aroused.
Who was she kidding?
“Eating me up with those sparkling sapphires, that’s what. I know you only wanted one night to prove…whatever it is you wanted to prove. So, you got your night. We both got a night.” He paced to a row of pansies in full bloom, then turned to face her. “Why is this stuff sprouting in the fall?”
“Crystal bowl pansies. They bloom until spring.”
He grunted but leaned in, trailing a finger lightly across a pastel petal. Lifting his camera, he seemed to forget she stood there as he aimed. “You’re over this whim, right?” he asked without looking back, adjusting the aperture as he clicked away. “You learned enough?”
“Sure.” She cleared her throat. “I mean, I could last another year or two now.”
The shutter sounded in rapid succession. “Great.”
“Yes...well, it is.”
“I need to spend my time with Kit anyway.”
“You seem to be doing better with him.”
Freezing in place, he lowered the camera. “You sound surprised.”
“I guess I am.” She lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “It’s not like you were part of his life until a week ago.”
“Thanks one helluva lot, Quinn.” Stalking past her, he took the gravel path at a furious lope.
Rubbing her arms to keep warm—but mostly to keep her hands occupied—she sprinted alongside him. Fontana had the sneaking impression she’d hurt his feelings, something she’d thought was impossible. “Listen, let’s not muck this up by arguing about a subject we’ll never agree on. You’re here for him now, that’s what has to count.”
