Hot Item (Hot Zone 3)

Suddenly he remembered his parents using this car for family picnics. They’d always used an old blanket his father kept in the trunk.

“Wait here.” He climbed out of the car and walked back to the trunk. He held his breath as he looked inside and exhaled a huge sigh of relief.

Sophie slammed the passenger door shut and joined him as he pulled out the old blanket. “What’s going on?” she asked.

He propped a hip against the car. “Just how frustrated are you?” he asked, his tone rougher than he’d intended.

“Well, I don’t know. You’ve already managed to get me to go parasailing, to come to Mississippi, to leave my comfortable bed and go parking. What else did you have in mind?” Her blue eyes twinkled with curiosity and more.

He reached out and stroked her cheek. “I want to make love to you right here, right now.”

She gnawed on her lower lip. “Where?”

“Over there.” On the field that held so many other memories for him. “Well?”

Her eagerness was almost tangible as she shifted from foot to foot. Just like in Florida, the uptight Sophie who needed control as badly as she needed to breathe was nowhere in sight. But something was definitely wrong. Though her flushed cheeks told him she wanted to be with him, too, she still hesitated.

He waited, giving her the moment she obviously needed.

“I just want to make sure we both understand the ground rules,” she said at last.

He bit the inside of his cheek. “Now that sounds like the Sophie I know—” He’d been about to add, and love.

Here, on an open field beneath the stars, Riley admitted to himself that he’d fallen hard for Sophie Jordan. Forget good old-fashioned necking, he was talking about good old-fashioned love.

He shivered despite the heat unfurling inside him. Not because he was actually in love for the first time in his adult life, but because of the possibility that she wouldn’t let herself return the feelings. He didn’t doubt that she loved him. Hell, he’d bet she’d known it back in Florida, but he’d pushed her away because of his own insecurities. He’d yet to win her back and he was afraid, based on her own issues, he never would.

“Riley? Ground rules,” Sophie reminded him.

He nodded. “On the field I’m a rules man myself,” he said, keeping things light. No sense losing her before they even began. “Name your terms.”

She inhaled deeply. “This one night with no expectations afterward.”

Oh, this was rich, Riley thought. She was handing him the stuff of male fantasies. “The words any man would want to hear.” Just not the words he wanted from Sophie, he thought and forced a smile.

Until now, Riley had defined his life by going after what he wanted and making it happen. The only glaring failure was his relationship with his biological fathe

r, a situation too complicated for him to accept all the blame. Failure wasn’t in Riley’s vocabulary and that included how things would end up with Sophie.

Between her fear of being abandoned and her need to control, she had walls higher than any Riley had ever constructed. Which meant that for the first time, he was going to have to play by someone else’s rules in order to win the endgame. He just wished the outcome of this one was guaranteed.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

RILEY SPREAD the blanket over the ground, using the time to gather his thoughts and his resolve. He had played many big games before and never suffered performance anxiety. He didn’t intend to do so now, even though this was the one time he had the most to prove.

He needed Sophie to see that what they shared was more than one night. That they were more than a brief fling. He almost laughed at the irony. He’d never planned to think beyond the moment. Even when he’d been with Sophie in Florida, there’d been an inherent understanding that they were giving in to temptation. Nothing more.

He’d cemented that impression by turning on her when she’d tried to point out his mistakes with his daughter. Any positive feelings Sophie had begun to develop for him had evaporated fast. He’d given Sophie no reason then or now to think she was special to him. After all, she’d seen him flirt with every woman in a skirt.

But he knew now that she was the only woman he truly wanted. If he thought it would make a difference, he’d hand over his heart as quickly as she’d captured his. Yet he knew that baring his feelings would send her running far and fast, because in Sophie he’d found someone who’d mastered the art of self-protection far better than he had. And he’d caused her to raise her barriers high. She couldn’t allow herself to trust him and he promised himself he’d gauge her reactions and pace himself accordingly. The endgame mattered more than the short-term goals.

He sat down on the blanket and patted the space beside him. “Join me?”

She curled up close, the cool air from the ride in the convertible giving her incentive to want body heat. He just plain wanted her.

“This is a nice place to grow up,” she murmured.

He smiled. “Glad I could share it with you.”