“Just kiss me already,” I whisper back, surprised by how much it sounds like a plea.

“Your eyes are still open.”

I immediately shut them.

His soft laugh sends a thrill up my spine. “If only you were that obedient all the time, lass.” He lightly nips my lower lip, a dark, delicious little promise.

My hands. What do I do with my hands? They’re flattened against his chest again, but that seems lame, so I slide them up around his neck . . . and discover his hair. Good Lord. Thick, glossy strands of hair slide like silk between my fingers. His hair is longer than any of the men’s at the office, much longer than Michael’s, past the collar of his shirt, dark and waving, exquisitely soft.

As his tongue slowly begins to probe my mouth, I tug on all that gorgeous hair, forgetting I’m not supposed to be enjoying this.

I arch against him, softening, expanding, breathing deeply through my nose as the kiss deepens and begins to burn. I wasn’t kidding when I said he was experienced. He knows exactly what to do, how to get my blood sizzling and my heart hammering and all the pornographic images of him nude and splayed out like the best Christmas gift I’ve ever received pulsing like neon signs inside my head.

My nipples tighten. There’s a new heaviness between my legs, but it’s not him, it’s me, flushed and aching, every pull of his lips sending a spike of heat to that hollow space inside me that I’m becoming acutely aware of, with its muted little howls of need.

I break away to check in before I lose myself completely and choke him with my prehensile tongue. “How’m I doing?” I mumble, flushed and out of breath.

His eyes drift open. Hot and dark, they pin me in place. “Jury’s still out,” he says, his voice thick. “Need more evidence.”

His mouth. I will drown in the pleasure of his mouth. I’ll die on this sofa, and Mrs. Dinwiddle will find my body, fingers and toes chewed on by the poor starving cat.

The kiss grows decadent. Sinful. I moan, a desperate sound rising from the back of my throat. It has an interesting effect on Cam.

His entire body goes stiff.

He takes my head in both hands, breaks the kiss, and turns his face away. He breathes raggedly for a few moments, his nostrils flared and his jaw like granite. With his fingers pressed into my scalp, he says roughly, “You can’t make noises like that.”

Oh God. I sound like a warthog. A donkey. A trained pig, snuffling through the underbrush in search of truffles. “Okay.”

The humiliation in my voice makes his eyes slash to mine. “It’s not bad. It’s just . . . distracting.”

Distracting?

He slightly shifts his weight, and things are clarified.

I bite my lip so hard I might have drawn blood. My heart is a hummingbird beating frantically against a cage. I whisper, “You said you wouldn’t get aroused.”

He looks at my mouth like a warlord looking over a kingdom he’s just seized. “I lied.”

A kiss again, dangerous, like standing at the edge of a cliff and looking over, shifting dirt and rocks tumbling beneath your feet. My fingers twist in his hair. His hands move my head, left or right, however he wants it, a throbbing pulse like drumbeats in my ears. I’m so turned on I feel frantic, unstable, like I might break out of my own skin.

Caterpillar becoming butterfly. Chrysalis shed, wings outstretched, wind beneath my belly. Caught on an updraft. Beating, beating, flying free.

He breaks the kiss, suddenly, shatteringly, the separation like breaking glass. Dizzy, I whimper at the loss of his mouth.

“Fuck. Joellen. Fuck.”

He’s panting, his voice a desperate rasp. He radiates heat like a furnace. Even his hands on my head are hot, burning right through my skull.

With his scent in my nose and his heat wrapped around me and his heart pounding against mine, I’m somewhere else. I’m someone else. A gypsy, casting spells. A sloe-eyed singer in a smoky jazz club. A femme fatale in a film noir, all knowing smiles and long legs and a throaty voice with an edge like a purr.

“Don’t stop,” I say in my new voice. “You taste so good.”

He stares right at me, his eyes intensely aglow. Tiger eyes. Wolf eyes. The eyes of a predator about to pounce on his meal.

He growls, “You like the way I taste?”

There’s a challenge in the question. Other than his ragged breathing, he’s so still, every muscle tensed.

What’s happening?

I come back to myself abruptly, all at once aware of how far this little experiment has gone, how dangerously close it is to the point of no return, and the cat up on the kitchen table eating the remains of Cam’s dinner from his plate.

Oh shit. My face floods with heat.

I’m not a gypsy. I’m not a femme fatale. I’m an awkward, lonely woman sitting on the lap of the most famous athlete on the planet, making an utter fool of myself.

“Sorry,” I say faintly, my voice raw. I clear my throat. “I think I got a little carried away.”

I grab my glasses and fly off his lap as if I’ve been launched. I flee into the kitchen, where I busy myself with cleaning the dinner dishes and attempting to stave off a major heart attack. For a long time, I hear nothing from the living room. When I chance a glance over my shoulder, Cam has his elbows propped on his knees and his head in his hands, looking at the floor.

“So I’ll see you in the morning?” I try to make my voice normal.

He huffs out a breath, like a husky laugh only harder. He slowly rises to his feet. “Yup. See you in the mornin’.”

He leaves, never looking at me, an awkward hitch in his gait.

I try to convince myself that my weight must’ve cut off the circulation in his legs, but it’s a tough sell considering all the evidence. Ultimately I’m forced to face the truth.

Cameron McGregor was as turned on by that kiss as I was.

I can’t decide if that’s the best development or the worst.

TWENTY

In the morning, we act as if nothing ever happened.

We jog along the snowy streets, chatting about rugby, Scotland, the best places to eat in Manhattan, everything light and safe. I ache to talk to him about the kiss, but I know it’s better left alone. Besides, what would I say? “Hey, that was some great kissing last night, eh? Wow, I sure was grinding on that king cobra in your pants! Had to go to bed and rub one out—how ’bout you?”

So not gonna happen.

At work I’m confronted with a corpse. The roses Cam sent me last Monday committed suicide over the weekend and are stinking up my cubicle something fierce. There are withered petals and crispy leaves all over the place. I consider dumping them into the kitchen trash, but the can is only slightly bigger than the one under my desk, unable to accommodate the remains of one hundred roses. Also I’d probably trip and fall on my way, thereby spilling disgusting flower-rot water all over the company carpet and eliciting the ire of Portia, who has already made several ominous passes by my desk like a shark toying with the seal it’s planning to eat for dinner.

So I call for help.

Denny arrives with one of those industrial-size garbage cans on a round dolly with wheels. “Yikes!” he says, grinning. “Is that stench the roses, or did you have chili and beans for dinner last night?”

Even when he’s not making fart jokes, he’s still making fart jokes.

“Do you want me to help you?”

“No, kiddo, I got it. Thanks. You want to keep the vase?”