Heart-Shaped Hack(25)

When they arrived at the airport, Kate said, “I’m flying American.” She expected him to drop her off curbside, but he followed the signs for short-term parking and took a ticket. When the gate rose, he pulled into the ramp and found a spot on the second level.

“We’re a little early,” he said. “Maybe we can think of something to do.”

“What are your plans for Thanksgiving?” Kate asked.

“Was I too vague? I meant steaming up the windows of this car.”

“Humor me for a minute.”

“I’ll be working on Thanksgiving.”

“You’re not going home to Texas?” she asked.

“No.”

“What about your family?”

His expression remained neutral when he said, “I don’t really have any family to speak of.”

How could he not have any family? Everyone had a family, didn’t they?

“So you’ll be alone?”

“I don’t mind. Holidays have never really been my thing.”

“Is there anyone in Minneapolis? Friends or maybe business acquaintances?”

“I tend to keep to myself.”

“But don’t you—”

Before she could finish, Ian leaned over and kissed her. Maybe that was why he was so good at it. Kate presumed there’d been other women, possibly more than a few, whose questions he’d silenced with his mouth. She put her arms around him, and he pulled her as close as the console would allow. When he slipped his hand up the back of her shirt, Kate nearly melted from the feel of his warm palm on her bare skin.

Ian pushed the button to run his seat back as far as it would go. “Come over here.”

“Hold on. There’s a family getting out of the car next to us. I don’t want to traumatize the kids. Aw, they’re wearing Mickey Mouse ears.”

“Are they gone?”

“Almost.” Kate waited until they shut their trunk and started to walk away before she scaled the console and sat sideways in Ian’s lap.

“Much better,” he said, kissing her deeply. He smelled so good, and she fit in his lap perfectly. She settled in and let herself get lost in his kisses, which was becoming easier and easier to do.

“Your upper lip has the most adorable curve right here on either side,” she said, touching it with her finger. “It makes you look like you always have a secret.”

“You have many curves that I like.” He ran his hand along the side of her breast, down to her waist, and along her hip.

“You are one gorgeous man,” Kate said, looking into his eyes.

“I thought you said you didn’t find me all that handsome.”

She kissed him. “Lies, nothing but lies.”

He slid his hand up the front of her shirt and rubbed his thumb back and forth across the cup of her bra while he kissed her. Her nipple hardened immediately.

“Admit that I’m the one you were thinking about in the bathtub.”

“Of course it was you.”

“Is this what you were imagining?” He slipped his hand inside her bra and caught her nipple between two fingers, tugging gently on it.

“Yes,” she said, whimpering into his mouth. Kate didn’t want him to stop. She was so turned on she didn’t care that they were making out in a parking garage like a couple of teenagers and that the windows had, in fact, started to steam up a little.

She nibbled his earlobe and then kissed her way down his neck. She sucked the tender skin into her mouth, and he responded with a low, deep groan.

“You have no idea how much I want you,” he said, and he was breathing every bit as fast as she was by then.

“I might have an idea.” Her voice sounded ragged, and she could not seem to move her mouth away from his neck. “But I don’t think our first time should be in a parking garage.”

“All I took away from that is that we’re going to have a first time. And as skilled as I am, it would still be nearly impossible to reach my optimum performance in the front seat of an SUV.”

“Your confidence never fails to astound me. I’ll be expecting big things when I return.”

He smiled. “I’ve got one big thing I can promise you.”

“Yes, I know,” Kate said, giving him one last kiss. “I’ve already seen it.”



Ian stayed with Kate until they reached the security checkpoint; the line stretched clear around the corner.

“I should go,” she said. “It’ll take a while to get through that.” She stood on her tiptoes and gave him a quick kiss good-bye. “Thanks for driving me.”

As she turned to leave, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. “Kate.” He slid his hands underneath her jaw and kissed her tenderly.

Nothing was going to rush him.

Not Kate’s flight.

Not the line for security.

Not the crowd milling around them.

Nothing.

When it was over and she opened her eyes, he was looking at her in a way he never had before. His usual smile had been replaced by an expression of longing and vulnerability. Kate wanted him to look at her like that all the time.

“You better get going,” he said.



Kate’s head was in the clouds as she waited her turn to pass through security. She hadn’t even left yet, but already she wanted to be back. She remembered how mad she’d been that day at the café when Ian had sat down across from her and admitted he’d hacked her credit card information, how exasperated she’d felt upon discovering he knew so many things about her, how exposed she’d felt when he’d walked in on her while she was in the bathtub.