This was a foolish idea.
When foolish ideas weren’t her norm. Something about the man striding across a weed-choked lot behind a dilapidated mill stirred her up. Like a storm, he brought change and force, momentum and excitement. An electric spark muscling through the air.
She wasn’t the same person when he was around.
The problem was, she liked this Fontana better.
They’d taken her Jeep because she’d only had one glass of champagne. Which led to him finding his book on her floorboard, ready for its return to the library. So now he clutched it in one hand, a flashlight in the other, a backpack slung over his broad shoulder, and his ever-present camera hanging from astrap about his neck. She carried a blanket and an old boombox he’d gotten from somewhere at the Rise.
The perfect midnight picnic.
She hoped he had alcohol in the backpack.
Although she had no idea where hissafeplace was, she couldn’t leave him sitting on that wall, utterly lost, collar twisted, one of his cuffs folded at an odd angle. Something about the entire scene brought to mind what he must have looked like as a boy, listening to his parents’ fight inside.
As always, his vulnerability drew her in like nothing else could.
“Does this thing work?” She shook the boombox, a little rattled from holding his hand earlier. Her palm still tingled.
It wasn’t her imagination—she could still smell his citrusy scent on her skin.
“Circa 1985, and yes, it works.” Campbell took a sharp right when they reached the crumbling brick wall surrounding the mill, following along its outer perimeter. The flashlight’s beam bounced with his steps, he checked often to make sure she could see well enough, that she didn’t trip. Less danger for her if he went first, etcetera. He was a gentleman, his kindness hidden beneath layers of wit and sarcasm.
As she followed, she tried to avoid studying him, but it was hard not to.
A full moon lit him, blanched and soft, revealing the tense set of his mouth, the dent between his brows. He looked gorgeous and formidable, his jeans faded except for bright blue seams. The hole this time was on his hip, big enough to slip her pinky in if she had a mind to. He’d tucked a well-made white dress shirt into those ragged jeans, and the opposing combo was sexy, devastating. Hiking boots she recognized from his bio picture were on his feet. He hadn’t gone back to those slick loafers that didn’t really suit him.
Considering the baseball fiasco, he wouldn’t like the comparison, but Campbell moved like an athlete. Graceful for such a tall guy. Sure-footed. At some point growing up, his arms had probably been too long for his body, his nose too big for his face. Or maybe he’d been this good-looking from day one. She could imagine that, too.
At odd times during the day, the fascinating thing he’d done with his fingers arrived like a fast-moving train at the station of her brain. He’d known exactly how to make her come.
Then the train unloaded, sending pulses scattering all over her body. She’d touched herself way too often in the past week trying to replicatehistouch.
But there was no comparison.
How dangerous was it now to remember? When the rock-hard muscles shifting underneath his soft denim were completely within reach?
Yoga-breathing through her lust, she sidestepped rocks, stray branches, and discarded lumber, wondering about the history of this place and his connection to it. Wondering what color underwear one chose to wear to their birthday party.
“Awfully quiet back there, Hellcat.”
“Fear of trespassing, Atlanta.”
Good response, Fontana.She sounded cool. Collected. In control.
He halted at a section of the wall that had given up the fight and propped his hands on his hips. Someone had boarded it up—half-assed at best. Lifting his leg, Campbell kicked, sending wood flying. He shot the flashlight’s beam through the splintered hole while she secretly swooned. “That’ll do,” he murmured, making a chivalrous motion with his book that signaled she enter the serrated doorway first. He smiled, a flash of white teeth and mischief. “Not trespassing,I swear.”
“How do you figure?” she asked, pivoting to step through the gap without catching her dress on a splinter.
“I own it,” he whispered in her ear, his breath a moist, searing invitation.
Fontana stopped so abruptly that he bumped into her, his body a hot press against her back. “Ownthis?” If she was breathless, it was due to shock, not because he’d touched her. Or because she was recalling that finger move again.
He made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a grunt, then circled around her and loped, his camera banging against his hip, into the shadows. “Hey, every Southern gentleman needs a worthless cotton mill.”
When she reached the building, she paused at the threshold of a doorway without a door.This place is massive, she thought, tilting her head back to take it in.
And stunning. Nothing worthless about this.
