Loving Him Off the Field (Santa Fe Bobcats #2)(18)

“A few days,” he echoed.

“Maybe a week,” she amended.

He grunted.

“Okay, a month. Ish. A month-ish,” she amended, and had the pleasure of watching his jaw and neck tighten. “It’s not like I’ll get a month’s worth of usable footage. You know how this stuff works. I end up with seven hours of footage and information that gets boiled down into a six-minute piece. Just suffer the indignity and get it over with. If I cover this, then it will be done. And nobody else is going to rehash my work. So you’ll be free of other reporters doing the same. Since you’re a self-professed lone wolf with no scandalous past. . . . What?”

Killian froze, though she didn’t realize he’d stopped walking until she’d passed him by several steps. She turned to watch his fists clench at his sides. “Is there a problem?”

His head moved side to side stiffly. “So if I say yes, you’ll get it done and move on.”

“Absolutely.”

“No more bugging me.”

“None.”

“And you’ll respect the limits I put on what I share.”

“I . . .” She considered that. “What kind of limits? I’m not going be snooping through your trash or anything, Killian. But I do need access to you and your friends and teammates. But I’m not going to hide in bushes and try to trip you up.”

“If I say no, that means no.”

She shrugged. She could always try to encourage him to open up as time went on. “Sure.”

“Thirty days, and that’s it. If you don’t have everything you need, you deal with what you’ve got.”

“You know,” she said idly, walking back to him, “this is only making me more curious, not less. And a curious reporter is—”

He gripped her shoulders and pushed her two feet off the trail, until her back hit a tree. Then his mouth lowered to hers, capturing her lips in a fierce kiss. His hands pressed against the tree, bracketing around her shoulders so she was surrounded by him.

Aileen made a sound . . . and she couldn’t have told God himself if it was a sound of shock or one of true, immediate relief. Her fingers plunged through his hair, so long and soft, and tugged him closer against her. One of his hands snaked down her body, pausing a moment to caress the side of her breast before reaching her thigh and pulling her leg up to hook around his hip. His erection, covered only by boxers and those thin mesh athletic shorts, pressed hard against her now-open core.

She wanted to rub up against him, all over him. Turn him around, press him to the tree, and have her own way with him.

His tongue caressed hers, and he bit lightly on her bottom lip as his hand squeezed her leg. She fought against the urge to pulse her hips into his, mostly because she would have lost her balance and she could only handle so much humiliation for one lifetime.

The sound of two women chatting about how many calories were in their blueberry breakfast muffins snapped her out of the moment. She pushed away, the bark of the tree scraping against the exposed skin of her back as she did.

They both stared at each other, breathing heavily, while the women passed. In mutual agreement, they were silent until the feminine voices evaporated.

“Are you doing this to distract me from the interview?”

His lust-glazed eyes sharpened in an instant. “Fuck that.” He spun around and stalked back to the trail. She hurried after him quickly. He was heading in the direction of their cars.

“Don’t blame me,” she said, panting a little as she fought to keep up. “You were just as skeptical of my motives when I showed up at your door.”

“That was different,” he snapped.

She sucked in a winded breath. God, she had to start taking the stairs, or walking in place while watching Orange Is the New Black, or something. Cardiovascular whatever. “How?”

“Because.” He glanced down, and some of the anger seemed to smooth out. “You’re going to pass out if you keep breathing like that.”

“So slow down,” she wheezed. She ran into him as he did just that, her nose smacking into his shoulder blade. “Uncalled for.”

“Sorry.” The last of his anger seemed to fade as he bent down and tilted her chin up toward him. “You okay?”

The way he held her face in his hand so tenderly made her blink in surprise. “Fine.” She meant it, but it still came out a little breathlessly.

His hand slipped away, but not before she would have sworn his thumb caressed the underside of her jaw. Or maybe she was delirious from lack of oxygen. “We’re treading a fine line here.”

“No line. We just have to keep it professional. I have promised to respect your boundaries, and you can promise not to toss me up against any furniture or trees to kiss me senseless.”

His lips quirked in amusement. “Senseless, huh?”

She waved that off and started walking. He fell into step without any trouble. “Why do you have to be so tall?”

He huffed out a laugh. “Lady, I’m short.”

“Not to me, you’re not.” She glanced up at him. “Is that weird, being the smallest person on the team?”

“Is this the start of our month?”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “I was just passing the time. Trying to forget about the fact that my legs will never forgive me for all this exercise I put them through. I am so going to regret this tomorrow morning when I try to get out of bed.”