Kit was determined to find out about a past that didn’t concern him. Well, too damn bad.
Historical information would cost him, if she decided to sell. On second thought, no. She was too damned stubborn to let Kit win this battle. Her file was closed to interested viewers.
The great Kit Keesling would learn the hard way. He’d process and accept the word “no.” Besides, he was far too obsessive anyway. If he knew everything about her, wouldn’t he later use it against her? Wouldn’t details of her past life drive him away rather than bring them back together? And why, pray tell, did he think her history determined what kind of future they could have? How shallow was that?
And it was shallow, right? She decided on a short second, yes. Her past was best left in the yesteryears where those days belonged. Her life pre-Keeslings in no shape, form, or fashion determined quality time they could enjoy together in the future.
“If you plan to play the game like a sport, you can’t sit around and be a discontented spectator. You gotta be a team player, Kit,” she said suddenly, deciding the best course of action was pure arrogance. She wasn’t about to open herself up like a coffee-table book. The colorful pictures discovered there provided a private tour to events she didn’t want to revisit through the eyes of others.
“I am,” he promised her, dropping his gaze to her chest.
“Maybe I should refresh your memory on team play. No man is left behind and no one stands alone out front. That means, in team situations, everyone is on the same footing. If I tell you about my former lovers, you tell me about yours.” She had no intentions of doing that but took a gamble, realizing she was placing a safe bet.
“I’ve had relationships,” Kit bit out. “Your situation is different.”
Damn chauvinistic prick was what he was. He really thought she’d just crumble and tell him everything he wanted to know. He wasn’t man enough to handle her. “I haven’t seen sportsmanship out of you in a long time,” she continued, acting positively disagreeable. “It’s starting to bother me, Kit.”
“Maybe you haven’t been looking in the right places,” he said, glancing down.
“Ah, now, tiger,” she drawled. “Are you trying to tell me you keep your integrity in your breeches?”
He copped a smile. “You’d like to think so, wouldn’t you, Holly? It would be so much easier if everything you thought about, all that you imagined, led you straight back to where the best of slippery goodness starts anyhow.”
“You mean in the sack?”
His eyes darkened. “It’s true. You don’t care about much else. Whether you’re stroking for honor or fucking for corruption, you believe you’ll find whatever it is you need between a man’s legs. It’s virtue that you have a problem with, baby, and that’s one area where I can’t help you.
“You ruined yourself years ago and no man alive can give you back the innocence lost, the fragile days you left behind long before you understood what your actions might cost you later.”
“Like what?” she asked, swallowing once.
“Your self-respect for starters.”
“What makes you think I don’t have self-respect?”
“You couldn’t,” Kit insisted.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” she defied him.
“And what about love?”
“Love?” she drawled.
“Do you have love?”
“Maybe.”
“Admiration?”
“Perhaps.” She snickered. “Oh, Kit, and what do you have your hands on when you have hold of me exactly, hmm? You don’t know, do you?” A beat later, she ran her finger down the length of his cock and said, “You’re so male chauvinistic you can’t stand it that I’ve had you by the balls since the first day we met.”
“About like I’ve got my fingers stuffed in your tight little snatch.”
She’d let him have that one. “Maybe.”
“There’s no maybe to it. You’re as taken with me as I’ve been with you, but it doesn’t mean I’m a foolish man, Holly. I know what I want in a woman. In order to be happy, in order to feel complete, I have to know my partners or else I’m not interested in pursuing anything else long term.”
“What would you call us, Kit?”