God, yes, more of that. Aching, fiery need exploded between them, and he wrapped a hand around her thigh dangerously close to the ivy tattoo under her jeans, hauling her leg higher on his hip. The angle opened her wider and the stool was just the right height to make everything feel unbelievably good.
Deepening the kiss shouldn’t have been so effortless, but she was as into it as he was, her moans vibrating her chest against his, or maybe that was the thump of the bass jarring them both. Whatever it was, this was the hottest kiss he’d ever participated in.
The music wasn’t loud enough to cover the hoots of the surrounding partygoers, though, and somehow it filtered through his head that he’d more than accomplished his goal of laying a photo-worthy kiss on his date. And publicity was the only reason to be doing it. The only logical reason, anyway, and the only one he’d admit to.
With far more reluctance than he’d like, he ended the kiss and pulled away, but Trinity was having none of that. She threaded her fingers through his hair, pressed against his neck and nuzzled his nose with hers, brushing their lips together, and suddenly they were kissing again.
But this time, it was a slow slide into an intense web of awareness. Everything faded and time stopped as he tasted heaven. The floodgates of his body opened, welcoming her in. This was connection, the kind he’d said he wanted. It was so much more than a kiss, and he craved it like he craved blood to his heart.
This was what it was like to kiss the woman behind the curtain. No barriers. He’d been looking for the essence of Trinity and he’d found it. More importantly, she’d given it to him. It spread through him, warm, thick, sweet, and it was so right that it became a part of him instantly, as if she had always been there.
One of her hot hands slipped under the hem of his shirt, scrabbling at his waist as if she’d slide off the stool if she didn’t hold on. He totally understood that. Because he was careening down a slippery slope as well, hitting a hundred miles an hour with no brakes.
And that’s what finally snapped him out of it.
When he’d told her he wanted intimacy, he’d expected her to balk. It was supposed to put another barrier between them, a reminder that he wanted a home and hearth kind of woman, not one who threatened to incinerate every bone in his body.
This time, when he pulled back, she let him go, her arms falling into her lap. She blinked, reorienting herself, apparently as befuddled as he was by what had just happened.
“Did she get the shot?” Trinity murmured, and instantly it was business as usual.
“She better have.”
If not, he was done with this farce. There was no way he could keep this up. Because it was starting to feel way too real even when they weren’t behind closed doors.
* * *
When Logan’s phone rang at 8:00 a.m., Mom was the last name he expected to see flashing on the screen.
He groaned and put a pillow over his head, but it still felt like each chime of the ringtone cut straight through his temples. He knocked the phone onto the bed without looking and dragged it under the pillow. “Don’t you have church?”
“Hello to you, too.” His mother was way too chipper for a Sunday morning. “I’m about to leave, yes. You should come with me.”
“I have a game today,” he reminded her, which she should know, since she had box seats and came to most home games. When he was free, he didn’t mind taking his mom to the church she’d attended with his dad for over thirty years. He hated that she had to go by herself now.
“Judging by the pictures your grandmother forwarded me, you’d do better to come with me to church,” his mother said and he could hear her raised eyebrows in her tone. “Who is this woman you were kissing like you wanted to swallow her whole?”
“Trinity Forrester.” He could not have this conversation at 8:00 a.m. on a Sunday. Or any time on any day, for that matter. How did he live in a world where Grandma got her mitts on photos posted to the internet and tattled to his mother about them? “And it was just a kiss.”
It was so not just a kiss, and odds were the photographer had captured the scene at the club last night at the height of the frenzy. Logan hadn’t seen the pictures yet, but they must have been really good if they warranted an early-morning call regarding the subject of his eternal soul.
“Would it be too much to ask if I could meet her? Since you’re seriously involved and everything?”
Logan groaned. “Mom, I’m not marrying her. We’re just...dating.”
“That’s not what the caption says.”
He sat up, knocking the pillow to the floor. “What? What does it say?”