Slow Heat

the tile floors and counter as sparkling and clean as the kitchens he’d just walked through to get here. “You owe me a steak,” he said, and came up behind her to meet her eyes in the mirror’s reflection. “Medium rare. Actually, make it two, with a baked potato, loaded. No veggies required.”

“This is the women’s restroom.”

“I know.” He looked around. “Not nearly as mysterious as I’d have thought. Where’s the lesbian party?”

She choked out a laugh that had him taking a second, longer look at her. She was seriously unnerved, and he had an idea that he was a fairly big part of that unnerving. He knew she had a lot going on: the high-powered job, a demanding family that, given the phone call he’d taken for her earlier, was about to become a lot more demanding.

But his tough-on-the-outside Sam was holding on to a surprisingly soft, tender, bruised heart on the inside, and it did something odd to his own heart. Setting his hands on her hips, he stepped close so that her back brushed his chest. He pressed his mouth to her neck, a motion that tugged a surprised breath out of her, just a little hum of helpless arousal that turned him upside down.

But though he was a lot of things, he wasn’t stupid, and he raised his head to meet her gaze in the mirror. “So. What are we doing in here?”

“I don’t know about you,” she said. “But I’m running a poll with my bad and good side.”

On whether to give into this attraction. “Do I get a vote?” he asked.

She didn’t so much as blink, and taking that as a yes, he reached out and hit the lock on the restroom, because his vote was for the bad side, every time.

Chapter 10

[A knuckleball is] a curve ball that doesn’t give a damn.

– Jimmy Cannon

Sam listened to the bolt on the bathroom slide home and resisted the urge to let out a half hysterical laugh. “Wade-”

“Do you remember what I said last night?” he asked. “What I need to hear from you?”

“Y-yes.” God, listen to her stutter. With a low laugh, she tossed up her hands and faced the truth. “I want you. Dammit. I don’t want to, but I do.” She blew out a breath. “There are a thousand reasons why this is stupid, a million, but-”

He whipped her around, cupped her face and kissed her-probably to shut her up.

It worked. Oh, good Lord, did it work. She’d been standing there staring in the mirror at a woman she didn’t recognize because she’d buried herself so deep behind the professional image that just a simple dance with a sexy guy, a guy who most definitely wanted to strip her out of her professional image, had terrified her.

So where was the ice princess now? Because she couldn’t find her, not when she’d been standing in here alone wondering where the hell the good parts of her life had gone, and sure as hell not now that she was hauled up against the very warm, very hard body of the man she’d been fantasizing about for months.

“God, Sam,” he murmured huskily against her mouth. “God. Kiss me back.”

In that very beat it all tumbled together, her fear, her restlessness, her loneliness, and it turned into something else entirely.

Sheer, unadulterated need.

So much that she shook with it, and she dropped her purse to wrap her arms around his neck, for the first time in her life, doing as he asked.

She kissed him back.

It wrenched a rough groan from deep in his throat and this time he whipped them both around, pinning her to the wall as he kissed her, kissed her like he’d never kissed her before, as if she was so much more than the woman he’d happened to get caught on an elevator with, or a woman he was merely pretending to care for.

He kissed her as if she meant something to him, and it wrenched her heart wide open as she gave him the same back, what she’d never given before, which was to say everything.

He pressed into her, using the wall as leverage to free up his hands, which made great use of their liberation as he slid his fingers into her hair, angling her head to better suit him while he continued to devour her. Then suddenly he lifted his head, looking deep into her eyes, his dark and slumberous and sexy as he stared at her.

“What?” she whispered.

“Nothing. I just wanted to see you, see if you’re half as gone as I am.” His gaze swept her face and softened. “You are.”

“I’m-” She closed her mouth on the lie, instead giving out a miserable nod. He let out a low sympathetic laugh before he came at her again, settling his mouth firmly over hers while she sank her fingers into his hair and clutched at him.

Yes. Yes, she was just as gone as he was, crazy as that seemed. She had no idea how long they went at each other, all she knew was that her toes were curling, her hips rocking to his, and she’d never, ever, felt as far “gone” as she did in that moment, like if he so much as touched her skin to skin she was going to burst into an instantaneous orgasm.

As if he read her mind, he slid his hands down her arms to her hips, and then up again, over her ribs, then higher, to her shoulders, where from the inside of her jacket, he nudged it off, down to her elbows. With her arms caught, his palms swept down again, covering her breasts, his thumbs rasping over her nipples, which wrenched a gasp from her and another heartfelt groan from him.

“Not enough,” he muttered. “Not. Even. Close.” He worked open the buttons of her blouse, murmured a wordless thanks when he found a front hook on her bra, and flicked it open. With an inarticulate sound of hunger, he bent his head, nibbling the full curve of a breast as he crushed the hem of her skirt in his fingers.

“Wade.”

He looked up, eyes bright and intense.

She took a deep breath and searched her mind for a single coherent sentence. She had nothing. Less than nothing. “I forgot what I was going to say.”

Face still serious, he pulled her skirt up. “Let me know when you remember.”

And up…

When her skirt was bunched to her waist, he tilted his head down to take in her boy-cut panties and let out a rough breath. “God, look at you.” He ran a finger over her hip, then beneath the silk, his other hand joining the fray, and then he was cupping her bare bottom in those big, warm, callused hands, hauling her up so that her legs could wrap around his hips.

“I don’t-” She broke off as he rocked his hips, nudging his sex right up against the already damp crux of hers so that she cradled him between her thighs. “Oh, God,” she managed on a rough exhale of breath as he tightened his grip on her and rocked again, his tongue tangling with hers.

She really had no idea what she’d been about to say, none. Maybe that this quick, aggressive, possessive style of his was over the line, that he was pushing her too hard too fast, taking her where she hadn’t wanted to go again, but the truth was that it had a thrill rushing through her, exciting her to the very tips of her curling toes.

And she did want to go there with him. So very much.

He had his big body pressing her to the wall as he rocked to her, and she clung to him, breathing like she’d just run a mile. She didn’t know how she could want him like this, but she did, and every shift of his hips brought her closer to the edge, and that edge was in sight. Gasping, she gripped the front of his shirt. “Wade-”

“I know. Christ, I know…”

Suddenly terrified with the depths of what he was wrenching from her, she tried to shake it off, tried to hold back, but he kissed her hard, bringing her focus back to him. “Oh, no you don’t,” he said against her mouth. “Don’t pretend you don’t feel anything, when I can see that you do.” His fingers slid down, finding her hot and wet, and he