White-Hot Hack (Kate and Ian #2)(44)

“You risked your safety after promising me you wouldn’t drive so fast. So really I’m the one who should be mad.”

“Why was it okay when I drove a hundred and ten miles an hour in the Shelby?” Ha! She had him there.

“Because I was in the car with you, and I hadn’t yet made you my wife. I wouldn’t have wanted any harm to come to you back then, but I really can’t handle the thought of something happening to you now. It would end me.”

It was really hard to stay mad at him when he said things like that.

Something unspoken passed between them, and her expression softened. Her need for boundaries and his need for freedom would always be at war, and that would never change. His methods might have been heavy-handed, but his heart was in the right place. He’d come a long way, but she doubted he would ever completely lose his impulsive, free-spirited ways and there would probably always be a wild-card component to his behavior. He’d tried to temper it for her, but it was like trying to keep air from escaping a balloon that had a tiny hole in it. Eventually it was going to leak out.

She pictured herself nuzzling her face in his neck and catching a whiff of soap on his clean skin.

He looked at her as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. “Why don’t you come over here?”

“We both know what will happen if I do.” Ian’s sex appeal would always be his mightiest superpower.

“Exactly. Please hurry.”

“I have groceries to put away.”

“I’ll put them away for you. Afterward. It’s been three days. We’ll barely need any time at all.”

She walked toward him but stopped halfway.

“Aw, sweetness. You’re going to make me work for it, aren’t you? Come closer. I just want to kiss you.”

She was trying hard not to smile because she wanted him as much as he wanted her, and it was only her lingering obstinacy that stood between them.

“Right here,” he said, patting the bed beside him.

She sat down and he slid his hand up the back of her shirt, pulling her closer so that their mouths were only inches apart. Kate’s body buzzed with desire as their lips danced, almost touching, each of them withholding their full commitment to the kiss as they waited for the other to give in. He might have coaxed her back into their bed, but she would not give him the satisfaction of surrendering first. His hand slid under her jaw and he closed his eyes. So did she. Then he brushed her lips with his and pulled away. She opened her mouth slightly, searching. It would feel so good to let him in, to kiss him deeply. He brushed her lips again and she felt just the tip of his tongue. Expecting him to do it again, she was surprised when he used his teeth to gently bite her bottom lip. She wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer, especially if he did that again, and seconds before her resolve crumbled for good, he broke.

He opened his mouth and wound his fingers tightly in her hair to hold her in place as he kissed her roughly, with abandon. There was something primal and barely contained in the way neither of them could stop kissing the other, and it seemed to go on for hours. He reached for her hands when they finally came up for air and interlocked their fingers.

“I won,” she said, her chest rising and falling.

“Did you? Because I’m about to take off all your clothes. If that’s losing, you can win every time.”

“You kissed me first.”

“And that kiss definitely needs a number.”

“Nine.”

“Or we can just call it the ‘I’m sorry’ kiss.”

“I’m not sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry, but you do have to slow down, Katherine Bradshaw,” he said in a whisper that tickled her ear. He kissed her again, and then he took off her clothes and she forgot all about the groceries.

Like he said, it had been three days.





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“Do you want to go out for coffee with us?” one of the women in her Pilates class asked as Kate hung up her jacket and stowed her purse in a locker, shaking raindrops from her hair. The temperature had dropped and it had been raining off and on for the past two days.

“Sure.” Despite the gloomy weather, her mood brightened considerably at the thought of going out for coffee. Though Kate kept plenty busy working for Ian, she still longed to make friends. She’d made some strides with the women, as they were now regularly returning her greetings, but she hadn’t attempted any further engagement and, until this morning, neither had they.

“We always go to Common Grounds after class,” the woman said. “We can all walk together.”

“Great.”

When the class ended, they filed into the locker room to shower and change. No one seemed to be in a hurry and no one seemed to own a robe either, maybe because some of the best bodies Kate had ever seen all seemed to be congregated in this room. There was also a lot of stretching and bending. She’d noticed this before, and while she herself wasn’t the least bit modest, she had no desire to put on a show for the others and found their posturing strange.

Kate was standing in her underwear about to reach for her bra when one of the women in the group walked over, pointed at her breasts and said, “Who did those?”

“Um, they’re factory originals.”

The woman put both hands on Kate’s breasts and squeezed them gently, one at a time, as if she were comparing melons at the grocery store.