“Hasto count,” he muttered, not breaking his livid stride.
“If you could only see the advantage of staying in Promise, where Kit has friends, a school, family. Can’t you take pictures anywhere? Moving will rip the rug out from under him, destroy any structure, any routine, he has.”
Campbell kicked a pinecone from his path, muddy bootlaces whipping his ankles. “I got structure in spades—out the wazoo—until my childhood felt like a goddamn timetable. Football practice at five. Baseball at six-thirty. Dinner at eight, sharp. Bedtime at ten. Homework in between. In the winter, I practiced in a gym. On Saturdays, my father had the coach come over for private batting lessons. A tutor each Sunday after church. No affection was mixed into that assortment, either, I’ll guarantee you.” He shot her a vengeful glare. “Besides, my farcical picture-taking is stationed in Atlanta.”
“Uprooting Kit to compensate for your exacting childhood isn’t the answer.”
Blocking her path, he caged her between his body and the scant section of post and board she and Jaime had fenced last May. Waves of fury radiated from him, tensing the muscles in his arms, tightening the jaw darkened by a day’s growth of whiskers. “What do you know about raising a child?” he asked, his lips chapped from overuse, his teeth a brutal flash of white around the words. “And why are you so sure I’ll do a shitty job of it?”
Holding Campbell’s stunning, golden gaze didn’t help her gain strength of purpose. It only summoned an image of him moving inside her, his eyes darkening before he tumbled over the edge.
Her quickly drawn inhalation only served to remind her that he hadn’t taken a shower. The scent of them was thick on his skin—and on hers.
A traitorous lick of excitement threatened to diffuse her sanity. Without thinking, she pressed a hand to his chestand shoved, only to realize too late that she’d overlooked his lack of clothing. And his resistance.
If her fingers curled into him, seeking, it was beyond her control.
“Why are you so sure tearing him away from everything he’s ever known is the solution? I don’t, and I refuse to let you think I do. Maybe everyone else is, but I’m not scared to tell you the truth, Campbell True.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Even after what we shared.”
“Do you mean to fight me on this?” His labored breaths brushed her brow, the faint scent of smoke oddly appealing.
His heartbeat drummed beneath her palm, his hair crisp torture as it coiled around her fingers. A maelstrom of emotion seized her—excitement, allure, apprehension, skepticism. “Fight you?” she asked, certain she’d lost her train of thought.
His hand cradled her face, guiding her to his heavy-lidded gaze. “You’ve got me practically on my knees when my good sense tells me to run in the other direction. One minute you look at me like I’m the devil, the next like I’m the answer to your prayers. You tell me you have no need of me, yet you draw me closer.” Leaning in, his mouth halted a hairbreadth from hers. “I think you’re anythingbutthrough with me, Hellcat.”
“I’m done.” She tugged him off balance, against her. “Finished.”
She was losing her mind. Making, for the first time in years, an impulsive, glorious error in judgment.
She wanted him back in her bed. On these steps. In the gazebo.
She wanted to understand what made him tick. She wanted toknow.
And she wanted itnow.
“Tonight, we can continue where we left off.” Histongue traced her lower lip, halting at the corner of her mouth. Before she could respond, he kissed her—softly at first, a teasing but very deliberate sweep that left no room for misinterpretation. His lips parted hers, the heat of him sinking in like a promise.
When he pulled back, his breath was uneven, his voice rough. “I’ll bring Kit. Pizza, a movie. After he falls asleep, I’ll take him home, then come back and show you that thing I mentioned. Remember? Silk ties, your bedposts.”
She hummed, agreeable to silk ties and bedposts. At the moment, agreeable to anything he wanted to do to her.
Or that he would let her do to him.
“It’ll be the perfect time to tell Kit about the move,” he said, his finger skimming the pulse point beneath her earlobe, his lips following right behind. “You can help me prepare him. He trusts you.”
Fontana shook her head, refocusing her mind. The sexy man leaning over her partially blocked a dreamy cobalt sky, dappled sunlight breaking through cotton clouds to drift across him.
A chill she couldn’t suppress rippled up her spine.
Crazy. That’s what she was. Letting a charmer seduce reason from her, then lying to herself about why she was allowing it. Forgetting her promise to put a child’s needs above her own while giving him more credit than was his due. A great lover—fantastic, actually—but the glimmer of hope she’d had that he was different only proved how far passion could carry you down the garden path.
And who knew garden paths better than she did? Fabricated creations were hercareer, for heaven’s sake.
When Fontana shoved Campbell this time, he was unprepared. Stumbling back, his feet crossed, and he landed neatly on his bottom in a bed of pine straw.
Rubbing his eyes, he gazed up at her. If she were foolish, his stunned expression might have tugged at her heartstrings. “Is this some kind of foreplay”—he untangled his camera from the twisted strap—“I haven’t heard about?”
“Like there’s any foreplay you haven’t heard about.”
