His kiss was slick, wicked and insidious, and almost unbearably good.
He kissed the way he did everything. Lazy, reckless, and underneath it all, a dark edge of that same danger she really should have heeded.
She could taste him. Smell him. His tongue was a temptation, his sensual mouth a seduction, and she could hardly make sense of all the sensations that stormed in her.
Molly was lost.
All the dreams she’d had of him when she was a girl. All the stories she’d told herself about what it might be like if ever he actually noticed her. All her wildest fantasies—this was better than any of that.
This was so good she wanted to cry. Strip off all her clothes here and now. Throw herself at him—
Which, she thought with something far too close to horror when he wrenched his mouth from hers, was going to make her plan for surviving this a little tricky.
She hated him in that moment.
Molly hated that satisfied, entirely too male expression on his beautiful face as he gazed down at her, his huge and unfairly hard hands wrapped around her upper arms to hold her in place. How a great boneless cat of a man like Constantine Skalas could somehow, magically, be as fit as if he worked his days away in the proverbial fields was an outrage. It was unjust, was what it was.
And meanwhile, she was absolutely certain that he knew full well the effect he had on her.
Her lips felt swollen. She could taste him on her tongue, something rich and heady that she was half-convinced had already gotten her drunk. He looked entirely too pleased with himself, so she was sure he not only knew all of that, but more, knew that her nipples had pinched tight with need while the core of her had gone molten.
Damn him.
“Kissing?” She called on all the acting she’d learned how to do to have the career she had, and to do it well. Every single time she’d had to contend with a horrible photographer, a grueling schedule, the usual condescending way women in her profession were treated, had been practice for this. And the faintly surprised but mostly bored tone she employed now. “Since when is there kissing when you’re paying for it?”
Constantine’s smile was a flash of white teeth, just this side of fangs. Or so she assumed when it hit her like a blow and made her feel tottery in her heels when she’d mastered stilettos back at age eighteen.
“I’m not interested in your ice queen act, Molly,” he said, still smiling.
“What makes you think it’s an act?” She tilted her head to one side and stood there woodenly, as if she had men’s hands on her and their faces scant inches from hers every hour of the day. Which was not too far from the truth, though usually, at work, there was none of this spiky, brooding tension in the air. “I had a rough adolescence. My mother married a truly awful man and the blended family thing was hell on earth. But luckily enough, it cured me of feeling much of anything too deeply.”
His smile took on that feral edge she remembered too well, though back then, she’d been foolish enough to mistake it for something else. Like empathy on his part. “I’m sure that’s the story you like to tell, stepsister, but we both know it is not the truth.”
“All right,” she said, patronizing him. And making sure that he was fully aware that was what she was doing. “You know me better than I do. Got it.”
Constantine...did something then, though she couldn’t have said what it was. His hands were on her arms still, making her wish she’d worn some kind of sleeve to ward him off. Or to save herself, more like. That smile of his had settled into something worryingly knowing that she didn’t like at all. And the gleam in his gaze was intense enough that it should have pierced her straight through. But then all of that changed, though she couldn’t see how. It was as if he focused in on her, even more intently, and she lost her breath.
And he knew that, too.
“I think you’ll find that there is no one on this earth who knows you better than I do, Molly. For your sins.”
He released her arms and stepped back. And she was buffeted with contradictory sensations then. Relief. Loss.
And the heat in her rose all the while.
It did not wane, at all. Not even when it was clear that he was standing there, sizing her up the way they always did at work, as if she was a horse at market. Molly felt lucky that she was used to it. And more, that despite the reaction she was having, there was something soothing about being treated like a mannequin that took direction. It was her life’s work, after all.
“The only things you know about me,” she said, fighting to keep her voice even, “are the things I never should have told you when I was a silly teenage girl who believed that Constantine Skalas was actually my friend. But guess what? That girl is gone. You got rid of her yourself.”
“You learned a valuable lesson,” he replied, thrusting his hands into his pockets and giving her a long, thorough, deceptively sleepy once-over that made everything inside her prickle into high alert. “It is an act of supreme foolishness to trust anyone. Some don’t learn this until it’s too late. You learned it while you were but a girl. You should thank me.”
“Thank you.” Her voice was acidic. “And how proud you must have been to take it upon yourself to teach such a harsh lesson to a lonely girl. Such a humanitarian you are. I’m shocked you haven’t collected awards for your services to mankind.”
His smile was an exercise in seductive menace. “But we are not speaking of a hapless, awkward teenage girl, the daughter of a
