She bared her teeth in a quick grimace. “Probably not the best pep talk ever,” she admitted as she met his gaze again. “Sorry. Now you know why I’m not allowed in locker rooms.”
He gave her a lopsided smile. “Women like you aren’t allowed in locker rooms because you’d incite riots.”
Suddenly, the air was thick and ripe with things unspoken. The nagging hyperawareness was back. Unleashed desire crept up her spine one vertebra at a time. His breath was hot and moist. And heavily scented with scotch. Ignoring the tingle of arousal racing through her blood, Millie laughed and let go.
“See? It’d be a damn shame to let a sweet talker like you hole up here in the dark like some kind of wounded animal.”
She tried to disengage, to step back out of the humming force field surrounding them, but he caught her hands before she could escape. She stared down at them, struck by how tiny and delicate her fingers looked compared to his. The contrast between the paleness of her skin and the tawny palms of his oversized hands made her breath catch in her throat.
Words. She needed words. Something to break the spell. “Make sure you’re sweet when the reporters start calling,” she added tartly. But Ty didn’t take the bait. He just stared down at her, searching her eyes, reaching into her.
Something was about to happen. Something bad, mad, and completely inappropriate. She should stop—she had to stop whatever this was—before they started. “Ty—”
She managed to get the syllable out before he dipped his head and gave her a taste of the smoky scotch he’d downed.
Good God, his mouth was hot. Those full lips, soft but firm. The kiss was everything she’d ever thought locking lips with him would be. More, if you counted the contact buzz from the booze.
From his first day on campus, she’d entertained a few harmless, certainly never to be acted upon, fantasies about Wolcott’s most imposing Warrior. They were only something to give quality time with her vibrator some extra va-va-va-voom! She wasn’t supposed to be letting him rev her engines for real. The second he came up for air, she’d put a stop to the madness. He was vulnerable. These situations had rules, right? The problem was, this opportunity, this man, was too delicious to pass up.
He shifted but didn’t break the kiss. She caught his low groan as he angled his head, and she gasped when his tongue touched hers. A cannonball sailing across the bow. The second she weakened, he drove for the goal. She should have been repulsed by what she was doing. He was still technically a married man. But one masterful swipe of his tongue wiped the thought from her mind. She surely shouldn’t have clung to him, her fingers pressing dents into his biceps, her own arms shaking as she fought to stand her ground.
Despite having spent years as the spokeswoman for a Division I athletic program and claiming the nation’s premiere women’s basketball coach as one of her best friends, Millie hadn’t understood the power of a full-court press until his arms came around her. But now she did. Oh, sweet Jesus, did she ever.
The pressure was every bit as relentless as it was compelling. She tried to step up her game, take a bit of her composure back, but Ty refused to give an inch. He wound his arms around her, taking her hands with his and pinning them to the small of her back. She should have found the position uncomfortable at best, but the whole clinch was incredibly hot. Incendiary. She had to stop. And she would. Soon.
The velvet slide of his tongue over hers made her moan. Or maybe it was the way he drew lightly on her lower lip, then kissed her lingeringly. Like she was the one with the mouth dreams were made of, not him. She arched her back, pressing as much of her against as much of him as she could reach, but their heights were too damn disproportionate.
If we were horizontal, that wouldn’t be a problem.
Millie banished the thought as soon as it popped into her head. This was kissing, nothing more. He was a man whose wife had just left him. His ego needed redemption, and she happened to be the nearest female. She needed to remember where she was and what was happening. If she had any sense, she’d be offended even. Employ the SING method Sandra Bullock touted in Miss Congeniality. But she had no desire to jab him in the solar plexus or stomp his instep. His nose was long and straight and beautiful. And the last thing she wanted to do was cause any damage to this gorgeous man’s groin.
He drew back enough to press a lingering, little kiss to the corner of her mouth. She knew what the tiny, tender peck meant. Though his hold on her didn’t loosen one millimeter, he was waiting for her to give him the green light. And oh, she wanted to. More than anything, she wanted to let her knees buckle and drag him down to the floor. Horizontal, she could reach every bit of him, map ever muscle, kiss every—and she meant every—inch of him.
But she wouldn’t, damn her ever-practical nature.
She wasn’t the kind of woman to allow herself to be swept along by romance, or even plain old down-and-dirty lust. No, she was the type to go in eyes open and head engaged long before she let her heart even consider entering the field of battle. She’d spent years building a reputation as the woman who could fix anything. The last thing she needed was to blow her hard work sky-high by getting entangled with a married man. No matter how much he needed her.
Ducking her chin, she dodged the next kiss. “Ty,” she whispered as his too, too tempting mouth landed below her cheekbone. But neither her admonishment nor her misdirection
