From Enemies to Expecting

She had reasons for why she was so overtly sexy, so in-your-face with her asymmetrical hair and tongue piercing, and none of them were because she was a free spirit who reveled in her individuality.

She was hiding something behind her shock value.

Let’s just see how you handle a man who has your number, Ms. Forrester.

Before she could blink, he had her trapped against the wall, his body pressing hard against hers. Exactly where he wanted to be, every nerve primed to sink into her.

More than that...he wanted to expose her secrets in the same way she’d peeled back his need to be like his father.

“Cameras?” She peered around his shoulder in anticipation.

“No idea.” He tipped up her chin, guiding her attention back where it belonged. “I’m just curious about whether kissing you feels as good as I remember.”

Her expression heated as she zeroed in on him, ignoring the crowd. “Well, that doesn’t sound like it’s in the rules according to Logan.”

“It’s number three,” he corrected silkily. “When a woman has been begging you for something all night, you give it to her.”

And exactly like the first time he’d kissed her, he couldn’t stop himself from caving to the blinding need to have her mouth under his. Their lips connected, and instantly, he parted hers to savagely seek her taste.

It exploded on his tongue. Back and forth, give and take, he kissed her with every ounce of pent-up longing and passion and frustration that he’d been battling since the moment she’d slid into his limo. Since before that. Since that first kiss.

He wanted to strip her raw and tunnel under her outrageous appeal in hopes of tempering it somehow.

The cool hardness of the steel rod through her tongue skated along his hot tongue, and yes, the contrast and the sheer uniqueness of the sensation was as affecting as he remembered. More so. Because there were no cameras on them this time and he didn’t have to think about decorum if he didn’t feel like it.

He didn’t feel like it.

They’d be so hot together. He wouldn’t have to think about anything but pleasure. She’d tell him what she wanted, take it, give it back tenfold, and there’d be nothing but miles of skin and Trinity’s laugh.

Her hands were everywhere, in his hair and caressing his face, against his back.

He returned the favor, groaning deep in his chest as he slid both hands beneath the fabric of her dress to take as much of her bare bottom into his palms as would fit. Which wasn’t much, because the stupid wall was in the way. He eased up his full-body press enough to go deeper, and that got a moan out of her that was like music to his ears.

“You’re stopping,” she murmured. “Don’t stop.”

He groaned. Again. Oh, yes, it would be so easy to wedge his hand between her legs and continue his exploration of the secrets under that dress. But they were in public, with other couples taking advantage of the shadows a mere few feet away.

He’d never been so tempted to throw caution to the wind.

“If I touch you like that, I want to be someplace where you don’t have to be quiet,” he advised her. His name tearing from her throat as she came over and over again would be perfect.

She smiled and nipped at his lips with hers, rolling her hips against his erection. “Trust me when I say I have a lot of practice letting a man pleasure me in places where noise isn’t kosher.”

He sucked in a breath. He so did not need to hear that. Too late. His mind started filling in the blanks, calculating how wild and insane an affair he and Trinity could actually indulge in and still stick to the rules—after all, they weren’t behind closed doors.

His body nearly made the decision for him, straining toward her in eager anticipation.

No. He had more control than this. He could not let her drag him under her spell. No matter how slick and ready she must be. No matter how much he ached to find out if she was as turned on as he was. “You’ve never done that with me. I seriously doubt you could keep it together.”

“Only one way to find out.”

“That’s not going to work this time.” He shook his head. The only reason it wouldn’t was because he seriously feared that if he gave in, she’d suck him so far down into her bad-girl fantasy that he wouldn’t ever be able to cut himself free.

And he needed to be disentangled if he ever hoped to find something real.

Four

The sketches refused to come together.

Trinity threw down her pencil and let her head drop into her hands. A whole Saturday wasted on the premise of the ad campaign she’d glimpsed in her mind while with Logan last night. Wisps of it had floated through her consciousness while they’d been dancing. Then when he’d kissed her—it was like her entire body had woken up from a hundred-year sleep.