My sister, on the other hand, evidently liked to go out, to meet clients for dinner and drinks—if I could make judgments by her wardrobe and what others had told me.
The singing had stopped, but I could still hear water running as I returned to the kitchen. I knew I was pushing it but I quietly opened the two cupboards that framed the sink. Dishes were stacked in neat piles, mugs arranged in rows. One drawer contained towels, the other a minimal selection of flatware. Then I just had to open Sloan’s refrigerator. You could tell a lot from a person’s refrigerator. I’d once had Mallory Carstairs take an inventory of the contents of her current lover’s fridge and decide to break off the affair. He had been planning to kill her and the telltale mushrooms were right there on the bottom shelf.
There were no mushrooms in Sloan’s fridge. In fact there wasn’t much in the way of food at all. He kept it stocked with bottled water and beer. The top shelf held a bottle of white wine—the same Chardonnay that he’d claimed was Cameron’s favorite. Behind it was a paper bag. Opening it, I saw it contained cheese—three kinds—and a bag of plump green grapes.
“Hungry, Red?”
I dropped the bag and whirled around to face Sloan. “I—”
For the life of me I couldn’t get another word out. He was standing in the archway wearing only a pair of jeans, bare-chested and barefoot. I could see that his skin was still a bit damp from his shower. Heat flooded through me. I tried to tell myself that it was from embarrassment because he’d caught me snooping, but that was a lie. It was Sloan who was making my body burn and my mouth water. Oh, I was hungry all right. Only it wasn’t for food. I wanted a taste of Sloan Campbell.
13
“HUNGRY, RED?” He definitely was, Sloan thought as she jumped and whirled to face him. He’d been watching her for some time as she’d poked through his cupboards and studied the contents of his refrigerator as if there was some secret there she was determined to discover. Her concentration had been total. He’d seen the same intentness the evening before when he’d been introducing her to family and guests, and he couldn’t help wondering if she would bring that same concentration to the task of making love to a man. To him.
He’d spent a sleepless night trying to talk himself out of what he was going to do. He’d even tried to sell himself on the idea that if he could have her just once, he could get her out of his system. He hadn’t been successful at either endeavor.
He wanted her. She wanted him. That was the one truth between them. He was going to start there, and see where it would lead. And for the first time in his life Sloan was going to damn the consequences. But he’d wanted to choose the time and the place. And he had. He’d chosen the perfect spot, and he’d planned to take her there.
He studied her now as she stood silently regarding him. She was wearing Cameron’s clothes, well-tailored riding breeches and one of the silk blouses Cameron always favored. He even caught a hint of the scent that Cameron always wore. But it wasn’t Cameron’s eyes he was looking into. Her eyes had never held that combination of heat and promise and innocence. He wasn’t sure which pulled at him more or which caused the desire building inside of him to turn so quickly into a burning ache.
What he was sure of was that his plans had changed. The time and the place was now.
“I thought we’d take the wine and grapes with us,” Sloan said as he walked toward her. “There’s a place I’m going to show you, your favorite place on the ranch, and I thought we’d have a picnic. But we could enjoy them now. If you think you can’t wait.”
“WAIT…” My voice was working. Now all I needed was some more words. Thoughts would be good, too. They’d drained out of my mind the moment I saw him standing there. Now that he’d moved closer, I could feel his heat and the sensation was only heightened by the coolness of the open refrigerator at my back. I felt trapped between ice and fire. I took a breath and drew in his scent—soap and something uniquely male, something that was Sloan Campbell. It made my mouth water.
I had to say something. Anything. “I…was just…snooping. I’m sorry. I once read that you can learn a lot about a person from what he or she keeps in their refrigerator. And so I thought I would take a look and—” Now I was babbling. I bit down on my lip because if I kept it up, I might give myself away.
“What did you learn about me?” He took a step closer.
“I…” Just as quickly as it had come, the power to form words and string them into sentences deserted me again. When Sloan touched my arm, I jolted.
“Easy,” he said in the same kind of tone I’d heard him use on Saturn. “I just want to shut the refrigerator door.”
Keeping his hand on my arm, he picked up the bag, replaced it on the shelf and closed the door.
When he finally turned back to me, I found myself pinned against the counter.
“So what did you learn about me?”
I cleared my throat. “You don’t cook much here.”
“Thanks to Elena, I don’t have to. She spoils me. Is that all you learned?”
“You like to read.” I thought of the photos in the living room. “I think that family is important to you. I looked in the other room. I was curious, and when you didn’t answer my knock, I just—”
“You don’t have to apologize. Given the chance, I’d love to search the place where you’ve been staying for the last five weeks. I’m curious about you, too.”
It was a mistake to keep looking into his eyes. The heat there was even more intense than what I was already feeling. He rubbed his thumb over my bottom lip, and I heard my breath catch.
“You’re so responsive.” He lifted his other hand to cup the back of my neck.
I knew what Sloan was going to do. He was going to kiss me. So I raised a hand and pressed it against his chest. Big mistake. His skin felt like warm velvet stretched over steel. The hand at my neck was hard, too. Heat rocketed through me from both contact points.
“I want to kiss you.”
“No.” I don’t know how in the world I got the word out. It was such a lie that I marveled lightning didn’t strike me dead. Never had my mind and body been so diametrically opposed.
“Why not?”
Desperately, I tried to remember my sister and what I’d come here to do. I moistened my lips. “That’s what I came to talk to you about.”
“About kissing?” He rubbed the pad of his thumb over my bottom lip again.
“No. About not kissing. I know that you probably were curious on the bluff and again last night in the garden, and then this morning you kissed me again to make a point to Marcie and Hal and Beatrice. I understand that. But I don’t want you to kiss me anymore.”
“Liar.”
Okay. So I desperately wanted him to kiss me again. And wanted to kiss him back. And more.
“You’re wrong about why I kissed you.” His thumb began a gentle stroking up and down the back of my neck. Any minute I was going to evaporate into steam.
“Each time I kissed you it was because I wanted to. Because I couldn’t help myself.”
“Really?” He didn’t look entirely happy about that. Still, at his admission, a mix of pleasure and astonishment flooded through me. The fact that he could be feeling the same kind of attraction, the same level of lust that I was feeling made my knees go even weaker.
“In a minute, if you don’t let me go, I won’t be able to help myself, either,” I said.
“You can’t say something like that to me and expect me not to act on it.”
I could have moved then. I didn’t.
He did. His mouth covered mine, and there was nothing of the gentle exploration that he’d used in the garden the night before. Today his lips were hard, his tongue and teeth demanding. Little explosions of pleasure shot through me, making my hunger build with a speed I’d never experienced before. My tongue met his, tangling and caressing. I tasted the hot, minty flavor of his toothpaste and something darker that reminded me of chocolate, only better.
When he bit my bottom lip, pleasure sharpened. I wrapped my arms around him, flattened my palms against that hard smooth skin and tried to absorb him. When hard hands cupped my bottom, I scooted up to wrap my legs around his hips. Through layers of clothes, I felt the rigid length of his penis pressed against my center, and I rubbed myself against it.
With a groan, he eased me onto the edge of the counter and broke off the kiss. For a moment, we were both oxygen starved and breathing hard. He drew away, just a little. But he didn’t release me entirely. He left one hand on my side, his thumb stroking my nipple. The palm of his other hand lay heavily on my thigh, and that thumb was moving up and down between my legs, teasing, promising. The friction at both contact points had me quivering with need.
Sloan’s eyes were narrowed, and his voice was husky when he spoke. “If you want me to stop, say so now.”
He was giving me a choice. But with his hands on me, I couldn’t seem to say a thing. All I wanted was him, hot and hard inside of me. I couldn’t think of anything else.
“If you don’t say something, I’m going to take it as a yes.”