Loving Him Off the Field (Santa Fe Bobcats #2)(15)
“I didn’t even knock on your door. I was debating turning around and leaving when she opened her door and started talking. I was ready to take off when you came up the stairs.” She almost added “and caught me,” but it sounded too incriminating. And she hadn’t been doing anything wrong. Not technically.
Killian stalked closer still, pressing her back against the kitchen table. The lip of the furniture pushed into the small of her back. “Let me make this very clear. Don’t drag my neighbors down into the gutter for some tabloid piece of shit story. Just because I’m not cooperating like those little puppies you have on a leash at the stadium doesn’t mean you get to make other people’s lives—innocent people—uncomfortable.”
She wasn’t sure where to start with that. “I’m not sure who the puppies are in this instance, to be honest.”
“Josiah Walker?” He snorted. “Michael Lambert. Ringing any bells? The guys who seem to do whatever you want to be on your little Internet show.”
“Maybe they’re just nice guys, who have an accommodating spirit and a general understanding that I’m harmless.” She tried to cross her arms, but his chest was too close and it was awkward. So she gripped the edge of the table instead and thrust her chin out. “And I would never put my stories ahead of an innocent person’s life. That’s despicable. I was raised better, I was trained better. And damn it, I want better than that.”
Before she could think of the next point of argument, his mouth was on hers. She gasped in shock, then locked her elbows to keep her upright against the table. Her knees wanted to melt away. His lips slanted over hers, tongue probing for entry. And God help her, she let him.
Because she was insane.
But it was good. So good. And she couldn’t remember being so tangled up with a male in a long, long time. So when her legs felt a little stronger, she unhooked one hand from the table and wrapped it around the back of his neck. Sort of, anyway. Her arm didn’t quite reach, but the effect was enough. He bent lower to match her disadvantaged height, then grabbed her hips and raised her up to sit on the kitchen table. The additional inches made kissing him back easier, more delicious.
He tasted like mint, as if he’d brushed his teeth after practice. And smelled like pine needles. His body wash, probably. The skin of his neck felt flushed under her cool fingertips, and she explored his hairline above the collar of his T-shirt.
He groaned something into her mouth, but she couldn’t make it out. His mouth nibbled down to her jaw, up over to her ear, before sucking her earlobe. She nearly melted straight into a puddle at his feet.
“Wh—what?” she managed to ask.
“Freckles,” he muttered, almost like a curse.
“My freckles?” She pressed a kiss to his neck—the only thing she could reach at the moment—before he jerked back. As if her confusion had cleared the fog he was swimming through.
He blinked, took two giant steps back, then turned and tunneled his fingers through his hair and squeezed.
That looked like it hurt.
After realizing the moment was over, Aileen glanced down at herself. Her legs were spread wide, having given him access to step between them so they could mold their bodies together. She snapped her knees shut. The image of a barn door closing while a horse romped in a nearby meadow made her want to snort a laugh.
“This doesn’t go any further than this room.” His voice was low, dark, carrying a sharp edge she hadn’t heard him use before. “You don’t talk about it, you don’t print it anywhere or blog about it or . . . whatever you do with your interviews.”
That hurt, more than she was willing to admit. That he would think . . . She counted to ten, then hopped down and picked up the tote bag she’d dropped. After straightening her hoodie, she walked to his door and opened it. “I don’t know where you get the idea I’m looking for a sleazy story, Killian, but I’m not. My job right now might not be with the best company, but I do the best work I can. And that doesn’t involve talking about a player’s sex life . . . with me, or anyone. I’m better than that.” She closed the door behind her, pasted a fake smile on her face, waved at Mrs. Reynolds’ door in case she was watching, and headed to her car.
*
Killian spent a good five minutes beating his head against his door before surrendering to the need for a Tylenol. The woman was a walking migraine, spreading headaches and aggravation wherever she walked.
Which was, of course, exactly why he had to get his hands on her. She pestered him until he couldn’t think of anything but her. Her voice. Her face. Her freckles. Her stupid Converse. Even her ugly car.
It was like psychological warfare, and she was kicking his ass.
So that was all this was. This being the clenched stomach feeling he’d had since the moment he spotted her in front of his door, talking to Mrs. Reynolds. The fact that his body tensed, that his dick hardened and still hadn’t calmed the hell down, that his mind went completely blank and he’d done the most stupid thing in mankind.
Kissed a damn reporter. Sank into that sweet, pixie-like warmth and lost his ever-loving mind in her instant response to his moves.
He rubbed a hand down his face and opened his door. He counted to five in his head and smiled a little when Mrs. Reynolds opened her own door. “Yes, sweetie?”
“You’ve got the hearing of a bat.”