“He was,” she repeated, swatting his hand away. “I get that. Now. But I spent weeks being mad and upset about the breakup.”
He wanted to hurt someone—preferably her fiancé. Instead, he settled for spearing another marshmallow onto her stick.
“So as I told you, I’m here for the summer,” she began, veering off in another direction. He wondered if she had any idea how sexy she was. Or if she’d watch him with that hot gaze of hers. “And we’ve established you’re here for a while,” she continued, oblivious to the sensual daydreams wreaking havoc with his equilibrium.
“As such.” She paused, then plunged in. “I think we should explore this. See where it takes us.”
“Excuse me?”
“Sex,” she said firmly. “I think we should have sex.” The mischievous smile on her face dazzled him. “As many times as we can before the summer is over.”
“I’m re-upping,” he warned, just in case her words were code for something else. He didn’t think so—Dani Andrews didn’t pull her punches and he respected that—but he needed to make sure.
“You’re already Mr. Wrong.” Her fingers walked up his chest. “Therefore, you’re absolutely perfect.”
He spluttered.
“Too blunt?” she asked.
“No.” He nipped her ear, kissed her cheek, and her eyes widened. Now she was the one off-balance. “You’re perfect, too.”
“Perfectly wrong,” she said, sounding delighted.
* * *
SHE’D ROLL OVER in her bed in the middle of the night and not bump her feet against Rick’s. An empty space in the bed, an empty space in her heart. She hadn’t seen it coming, either. How he’d pulled away, was no longer interested.
In hindsight, she’d missed the telltale signs. His emails had gotten shorter and shorter, the texts coming less often, and forget the phone calls. It had been all, “I’m out of coffee—can you stop and get some?” No more, “Your voice is so sexy—I just wanted to hear you speak.” Okay, so maybe that last one had been pure fantasy, but still. Rick had been all work, work, work as he grew his insurance company from a family-run business to a major player in the industry, and she’d given him the space he’d suddenly craved. Space he’d filled up with someone else.
Rick certainly hadn’t seen her when he had been there. He’d looked at her, obviously, but he hadn’t seen her. She’d dropped a fortune on expensive lingerie and he hadn’t blinked. Daeg Ross, on the other hand, saw her. He noticed the little details and watched her as if he was a starving man and she was a feast.
She took a deep breath. “This isn’t going to turn into anything long-term. Just so we’re perfectly clear.”
“Got it. We can’t pick up where we left off ten years ago.”
“No. We can’t.”
“But we can have sex,” he said cheerfully, “since you asked so nicely.”
Kiss him.
Don’t kiss him.
She’d made her choice. Putting her hands on his shoulders, she leaned into him, licking the sticky marshmallow from the corner of his mouth. He stilled beneath her touch, all that muscled hardness and masculine power beneath her palms. He tasted good, wild and sweet.
“Dani?” Her name was a rough growl.
“Hmm?” she whispered back.
He took the roasting stick from her hand and dropped it on the table. She didn’t move, just waited for him to come to her.
“Give me a second chance,” he said against her mouth. “Give us a second chance.”
She wasn’t a risk taker. She evaluated other people’s risks, and he was one risk she wouldn’t be able to manage. Odds were high that eventually he’d run because he wasn’t the kind of man who stuck around. Oh, he’d do it nicely—he’d be mustered up, called away on a mission—but he’d leave in the end. She studied his dark eyes watching hers.
This would be just sex for as long as it lasted.
Her actuary professors had hammered the lesson into her: two risks were always better than one. It spread out the risk. If she got into bed with Daeg Ross, he could be disappointed. She hadn’t wanted to believe her ex’s claim that she was a boring lover, but it was a possibility. Just a small risk there, she believed. The bigger risk was that one night wouldn’t be enough with Daeg.
“A second chance at what?” she asked, since she needed to be sure.