If you don’t want my mother to call The Wendy Williams Show for a chance at her dream vacation, make this look good. That was the reason Sean had given her for the kiss. That was the reason she’d told herself not to push him away, but later in her hotel room that night, Lexie knew that wasn’t completely true. She hadn’t pushed him away because she’d liked the way his lips felt pressed to hers. Rock-hard lust, constrained with gossamer kisses.

Wearing a towel around her head and one covering her body, Lexie raised Sean’s flannel shirt to her face. It smelled of Chanel perfume—left over from the wedding escapade—and woodsy musk, the scent she’d now come to associate with him. She buried her nose in the armpits and determined they didn’t stink. She pulled on the panties she’d washed the day before and a new pair of black leggings Jimmy had provided.

When Sean had dropped her off last night, they’d agreed that he’d pick her up at eight a.m. because Geraldine Brown needed to be charmed one more day.

“She likes talking to you,” he’d said. Lexie didn’t know if that was true or if he wanted Lexie to talk to his mother so he didn’t have to. She’d noticed tension in him when he was around Geraldine. A tightness in his jaw that hadn’t been there earlier at the Waffle Hut. Either way, she was just happy for something to do other than obsessively watching TV and getting anxiety over the latest Gettin’ Hitched bride news.

Lexie was a natural-born charmer—a talent she’d inherited from her mother’s side—but it hadn’t been difficult to schmooze Geraldine. She mostly just had to listen to the woman’s many complaints and ailments and say “Bless you” at the appropriate times. As a kid, Lexie had been a hypochondriac and could easily spot one in a crowd. She hadn’t had to use her natural ability with Geraldine. The ridiculous cap had been an easy giveaway.

She dried her hair, then lightly applied mascara to the tips of her eyelashes. She loved her mink extensions and felt more presentable after a few swipes of mascara. Just because she was on the run didn’t mean she had to go completely tree hugger.

Once more she shoved her phone, folded cash, and Chap Stick in her corset. Minus a purse or pockets, her bra was the best place to stash necessities. At the age of fifteen, she got her first D bra and discovered that her cleavage could be useful. Now a triple D, the sides of her bras were higher and she could easily stash essentials without too much trouble. The corset she’d put on two days ago was more decorative than functional. The underwire dug into her flesh, but it did have a wide bridge that kept her phone from falling out.

At exactly eight, Sean pulled up in the Subaru and they headed to his mother’s. He hadn’t shaved, and the dark scruff covering the lower half of his face made him appear perfectly sinister. The kind of sinister that cheated death and seduced virgins.

Gloomy clouds hung just above the pine trees, matching the equally gloomy scowl creasing his forehead. Most of the way there, his big hands gripped the steering wheel as if it had done something offensive. He hardly spoke, leaving long lapses of silence that Lexie felt compelled to fill. She told him about Yum Yum and her problems with her knees and the humidity. She talked about the conversation she’d had with her dad earlier.

“The team’s in Pittsburgh tonight,” she said. “My dad hates the Penguins.”

Sean finally spoke. “Why?” He’d managed to muster one word.

“He blames Jaromir Jagr for all the hair gel in the NHL.” She looked across the car, into the gloomy shadows of his gloomy face. “He had to trade two Chinooks for one Penguin, and he told me he doesn’t think the guy is worth his contract.”

“Asshole.”

Calling the Chinooks’ newest sniper an asshole was extreme, but some fans were extreme. “Are you going to be grumpy all day?”

Without taking his eyes from the road, he said, “Probably.”

Lexie gave up, and neither spoke the rest of the way.

Geraldine sat in the same spot as the day before. The cooling cap no longer covered her short dark hair, but the same eyesore afghan covered her. In Lexie’s experience, women who crocheted that many unnatural colors together were generally crazy. That or blind.

Eggs and ham, spinach, and flaxseed bread waited for Lexie in the kitchen. She got to work making a healthy crustless quiche, and toasted the grainy bread. They all ate on faux-wood TV trays straight out of the sixties.

“I can’t wait to see if anyone called in about that trip to Cancun,” Geraldine said between bites. “Or if Wendy—”

“This is really good, Lexie,” Sean interrupted. “We’re grateful.” He looked up and took a drink of coffee. “Isn’t that right, Mother.”

“Beats cornflakes.”

Lexie didn’t know if that was a compliment or not. “Thank you.”

After breakfast, Sean pulled on jogging pants and a Nike sweatshirt before he ran out the door, leaving Lexie to entertain his mother. First up on Geraldine’s list of morning programming:

1. The Today show.
   1. a. Hoda and Kathie Lee.
2. Santa Diabla.

“I don’t speak much Spanish,” Geraldine confessed, glued to the telenovela. “But Humberto is so handsome and romantic.”

The show opened with a woman crying, the dramatic sound of a beating heart in the background, and Lexie knew it was official now. She was being punished for:

1. Flunking Spanish class.
   1. a. Not a fan of rajas poblanos.
2. The misunderstanding with the Mexican policía in 2010.
   1. a. The dog had looked homeless. She hadn’t tried to steal it.

Blessedly, the telenovela was only a half hour. Next up on Geraldine’s watch list, Wendy Williams.

“How you doin’?” Wendy asked, wearing a tight white dress and fingertip veil. “Let’s head on over to Hot Topics.” She walked across the stage in white stilettos and arranged herself in a lavender velvet chair. “You know my staff loves a theme,” she said through a deep chuckle and arranged the veil about her shoulders.

“I bet you’re up first in Hot Topics,” Geraldine said, the telephone just inches from her fingers.

“I appreciate you keeping me a secret for a few days.” Out of the corners of her eyes, Lexie watched the older woman’s hand.

“Let’s get to it,” Wendy said as Lexie’s publicity picture from Gettin’ Hitched appeared on the screen behind Wendy.

“I was right!” Geraldine crowed.

“It’s been a day and a half since Lexie Kowalsky—you know, the Gettin’ Hitched bride—ditched her wedding to poor Pete Dalton. I’ve been told by someone on the set”—she lowered her voice for effect—“they’d planned a big fancy reception at the Fairmont Hotel in Seattle. They were serving prime rib and roasted potatoes infused with rosemary.” She laughed. “You know I love prime rib. Red in the middle with horseradish. Yum!” She went on to name the rest of the menu Lexie and Pete had picked out for their wedding dinner. “Now, I also heard she’s probably hiding out in the UK at the Manchester Dog Show. You know how much she loves dogs. That’s where I’d be. You know I love my Shaq.” A picture of a dog replaced Lexie, and the audience gave a collective “ah.” “If anyone sees the runaway Gettin’ Hitched bride, call me.” Wendy pointed to a pink phone on the table beside her as she went on to describe the all-inclusive trip to Disney World.

Lexie’s stomach twisted into a knot, waiting—waiting for Wendy’s phone to ring. Had she been spotted? Would someone call in? Did anyone know where she was hiding, beyond the woman in the recliner beside her?

“With all the people in the world looking for you, you’re right here in my living room.”

Lexie waited for Geraldine’s hand to move. So much as a twitch and she was going to tackle the older woman. “I know how much you want that vacation. When this all blows over, I’ll send you to Disney World.”

“No, thank you. It’s not the same as winnin’ it.” Geraldine turned and looked at Lexie. “I told Sean I’d keep your secret.” She picked up an imaginary key and locked her lips. “I’m not telling a soul,” she said from one corner of her mouth.

Halfway through Wendy, Lexie called her mother and learned that her agent was trying to get ahold of her. People, Us Weekly, OK, and Star magazines wanted exclusives, while TMZ and the National Enquirer had staff looking everywhere for her.

“Are you safe, honey?” her mother asked. Lexie looked across her shoulder at Geraldine and could not give her mother a reassuring answer. “That’s all I care about right now.”

The back door of the house opened, drawing Lexie’s attention to the kitchen. She heard the creak of Sean’s footsteps seconds before he walked through patches of deep shadow and bright sunlight toward her. “Yes,” she told her mother without stopping to think about it. “I am.” For some reason, she felt safe with a man she didn’t even know. A man she was pretty sure didn’t even like her very much. “I’ll call you when I get home tomorrow,” she said, and hung up the phone.

He stopped in the doorway and raised his hands up and behind him, grabbing fistfuls of his sweatshirt. As he pulled the sweatshirt over his head, a white T-shirt beneath rose up his hard stomach and ripped abs. The end of the T-shirt stopped at mid-chest, hovering for several drool-worthy seconds before sliding back down to the waistband of his jogging pants. He used the sweatshirt to dry his hair, wet from sweat and chilled dew hanging in the air. He looked from one woman to the next. “What’s going on?”

“Ah.” Lexie had to remove her tongue from the roof of her mouth. “Nothing.”

“No one’s called Wendy for that vacation.”

“I’ll be upstairs.”

Doing what? Lexie wondered. Her answer came shortly with the unmistakable bump and clang of a weight machine.

“He must lift every day,” Lexie said, more to herself than to anyone else in the room.

“He has to keep fit for his job.”

“What job?” She removed her gaze from the doorway and looked at Geraldine. “He’s never told me what he does for a living.”

“Oh.” Geraldine’s eyes rounded. “Commercial fisherman.”

That didn’t sound right. “He said he doesn’t fish?”

“Oh.”

“What?” Lexie said through a laugh. “Is it a secret?”

“Yeah.” Geraldine nodded. “So secret we can’t talk about it.”

Which of course made Lexie super curious. “Does he work for the government?”

“If I told ya, I’d have to kill ya.” Geraldine laughed like she was real funny. Evidently Geraldine meant it, too. Above the sound of Wendy’s last segment, Geraldine talked about everything but Sean. She recited a lifetime of her misery. With every “Bless you” or “I’m so sorry” Lexie uttered in commiseration, the older woman elaborated and exaggerated her suffering.

I’m being punished, Lexie thought. Punished for:

1. Running out on her wedding.
2. Cowardly hiding out.
3. Having bad thoughts.
   1. a. Masking tape.
4. Geraldine’s mouth.

Finally, at noon, she left her spot on the couch and made lunch. She whipped up chicken salad sandwiches, complete with grapes, walnuts, and cranberries. She garnished the plates with radish roses. Geraldine loved the garnish, hated the multigrain bread, and ate it all despite that.

Lexie didn’t wait around to chat with Geraldine. Instead she stuffed several paper napkins in the breast pocket of the shirt Sean had loaned her, loaded up a plate, and walked up the stairs next to the back door. The top floor was mostly one big room filled with exercise equipment and a hallway with several closed doors near the back. Lexie’s footsteps faltered, and she almost dropped the plate as her eyes came to a skidding halt on a sweaty, half-naked Sean doing crunches on an exercise ball. An Edmonton Oilers hat covered his head, and he’d changed into a pair of red gym shorts and CrossFit shoes, but her eyeballs weren’t stuck on his shoes. They were glued to his bare chest and the sweaty glow covering his bare skin. A bead of sweat dripped from the dark hair in the hollow of his armpits to the exercise ball. Normally, all that sweat would have grossed her out, but he wasn’t a normal guy.

“I made lunch,” she said, and made her way across his line of vision to a workout bench.

She took a seat and placed the plate beside her. When she looked over at him, he was sitting on the ball, knees shoulder width apart, just looking back at her blankly. That’s when she noticed he was wearing earbuds.

“I made lunch,” she repeated herself. She tried not to stare as he rose and walked toward her, all hard muscles and sculpted abs. A bead of perspiration ran down the center of his chest to wet the happy trail circling his navel and disappearing beneath his waistband.

“Thanks.” He grabbed a towel from a weight machine and dried his face and chest. “You can go back downstairs if you want.”

For some reason, that sounded like he wanted to get rid of her, but she wasn’t ready to leave. “I’m good.” He stopped in front of her, and her eyes just naturally landed on his happy trail dipping south. She felt her cheeks warm as she lifted her gaze up his flat belly and the defined muscles of his chest. She looked past his square chin and into his deep green eyes looking right back at her. She felt like a perv, but where was she supposed to look? “I just need a few moments of sanity before I go back down,” she said. “I need a short break from hearing the details of your mother’s near-death experiences,” she said.

One side of his mouth twisted upward in an uneven smile as he tossed the towel aside and sat on the other end of the bench. He picked up half a sandwich and took two huge bites.

“Hungry?”

He smiled as he chewed and pointed to the other sandwiches.

“No thank you.” She’d snacked as she’d made lunch, but mostly she wasn’t hungry after listening to Geraldine’s bowel movement disorder. “The description of your mother’s skin lesions and bloody stools made me lose my appetite.”

His smile fell and he reached for a big bottle of BioSteel on the floor. His green eyes got a little squinty at the corners, like maybe she’d insulted his mother.

“Not that she isn’t a lovely woman.”

He swallowed almost the entire bottle before he lowered it. “She’s a hypochondriac.”

Even though several feet separated them, Lexie felt the heat of him rolling off in waves. It surrounded and pressed in on her. Overpowering her senses like a blowtorch to the face, and she liked it.

“Growing up, I was a hypochondriac,” she said into the uncomfortable silence. She reached into her breast pocket and pulled out the paper napkins and put them next to the plate. “Band-Aids were my addiction, and I loved the pain relievers my mother kept on hand for me. It wasn’t until I was about ten that I discovered the pain relievers were actually white Smarties.” He grabbed another sandwich and a BioSteel from the pack on the floor by his foot. “I know you’re probably thinking that I should have figured out that the medicinal Smarties where just like all Smarties, but I didn’t figure it out until I was ten.” She glanced up at the A-frame ceiling painted a bright white. “I don’t know why it took me so long to figure it out.”

He popped the top off his sports drink and sucked down half the bottle. “White Smarties taste like orange cream.”

She lowered her gaze to his. “And yellow like pineapple.” She looked into his green eyes. “Most people think all Smarties taste the same.”

“I know my Smarties.”

She raised a brow. “Did you line them up according to color?”

“Of course.”

“We’re Smarties connoisseurs.” She laughed and shook her head. “In the same room.”

He smiled and pulled his hat from his head. A lock of damp hair escaped and curled over his forehead, touching his brow like a big C. “What are the chances?” He combed it back with his fingers, taking his time adjusting his cap as if getting it just right on his head. “I ran into town earlier, and your picture is on a bunch of newspapers. I’m surprised no one has spotted you.”

“I’m surprised your mother hasn’t turned me in.” She wanted to ask if he was a spy, or at least worked for the Canadian equivalent of the CIA. “This whole thing has gotten way out of control.” She watched him reach for another sandwich and added, “It seems like it started out small, but every day it just snowballs bigger.” He handed her a bottle of BioSteel. “Thanks.” She took a sip of the sports drink that reminded her of Gatorade. “I don’t know how I got here or what to do about it.”

“I know the feeling.” He swallowed, drawing her attention to the muscles stacked around the hollow of his throat. “Shit can go sideways real fast.”

She wondered if that was a military term and fought the urge to look lower as the words “devil’s playground” slid across her brain like a serpent’s tongue. She purposely raised her gaze up his face to his sweaty hat. “Are you an Oilers fan?”

“We used to live in Edmonton.” He glanced at her, then pointed at the plate. “Are you sure you don’t want to eat?”

“I’m sure.”

He reached for another sandwich. “Can’t hardly live in Alberta without being an Oilers fan.”

“My dad played for the Oilers. Of course, that was before I was born.” She stood and moved away from the devil’s playground to a cable weight machine in the middle of the room. The pins in the dual weight stacks were set at three hundred. “Hockey players get traded a lot, but my dad played in Seattle until he retired after ten seasons. My mother wishes he’d stop coaching and retire completely.”

He took the napkin from the bench and wiped his mouth. “Why?”

“Hockey teams are on the road a lot.” Wasn’t there something about the devil’s workshop, too?

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She reached into her shirt and pulled out her Chap Stick to cover her suddenly dry lips. She hadn’t been to First Baptist for a while, but she was pretty sure she’d been warned to stay away from both. “He gets cranky and jet-lagged, and Mom thinks he’s getting too old to keep up such a hectic pace. She wants him to stay home and help hang wallpaper, but I doubt that will happen.”

The one-sided smile she recognized tugged at the corner of his mouth and was followed by an unexpected chuckle.

“Every time he comes home from the road, he complains more and more about old injuries.” She liked his laugh. It was deep and honest and slid down her spine. “But I’d much rather hear him complain about old injuries than grumble about some of the players.” She took the top off the Chap Stick and smeared her lips. Hadn’t there also been something about devil’s tools? “Those rants can last a long time.”

“What does he rant about?” He stood and moved toward her.

“Everything.” He hooked an arm over the top of the weight machine and looked down into her eyes. He was close and half naked, and against her will, she responded to the pheromones attacking her senses. She should move. Run away. “If he thinks a guy’s taking a dive.” The serpent’s tongue whispered, Maybe later.

His hand rose from the machine and he pushed her hair from her temple. “What else?”

The slight touch scattered warm tingles down the side of her neck and across her chest. Earlier, he’d made her feel safe, and now he made her feel tingles. Maybe it was stress. Only she felt relaxed. Maybe it was the devil in her head. Only that voice sounded a lot like her own.

“What else?” His finger slid down the side of her face to her jaw.

Maybe it was Stockholm syndrome. Only she hadn’t been kidnapped. “What?”

“What else does your dad get grouchy about?”

“Oh.” She took a deep breath and let it out, hoping to clear her head, but not having much luck with his touch on the side of her face. “He gets really grouchy if he thinks some guy cares more about his hair than scoring goals.”

He dropped his hand.

“He thinks a guy’s hair shouldn’t flow beneath his helmet,” she explained, and took a step backward. “When I talked to him yesterday, he wasn’t happy with the team’s new sniper. I guess the guy needed some time off to deep-condition his flow.” The little tingles began to dissipate and she said through a relieved laugh, “Dad said he’s a nancy-pants.”

“A what?” One dark brow rose up his forehead. “What’s that?”

“Nancy-pants is a . . . a . . .” She tried to think of a word, other than the one the guys on the team used.

“Pussy?”

That was the word, all right.

“Your dad thinks this guy is a pussy?”

She probably wouldn’t go that far.

A deep furrow creased his forehead, and he moved across the room to a hook with his white T-shirt on it. “Because of his hair?”

“There are probably other reasons.” She was slightly relieved when he pulled the shirt over his head. “Maybe he’s not worth his big salary? Or isn’t a team player and gives the veterans on the team attitude. Dad says he’s a showboat and rides his stick across the ice.”

“Maybe your dad doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

That sounded oddly belligerent. “Are you a Chinooks fan?” But nothing she hadn’t encountered before. Hockey fans could be fiercely loyal to their favorite players.

“The jury is still out on that.” A deep scowl creased his forehead as he moved to the bench and reached for his sports drink.

“Are you mad at me?”

“You?” He shook his head and tossed a BioSteel at her. “Your father’s wrong, though.”

She caught it with one hand and moved toward him. “My dad’s a good judge of character. The guy probably has other issues.”

“Probably.” His gaze swept across her face, and the corners of his mouth turned up into a slight smile. “Probably has issues, and one of those snowballs you were talking about is giving him a big problem.”

“What problem?” His fingers touched her face, and she fought the urge to turn her cheek into his hand.

“This.” He lowered his mouth to hers and said against her lips, “You.”

Lexie had the feeling they weren’t talking about a hockey player anymore. She slid her hands up his T-shirt and rose to the balls of her feet. Through the material, his skin felt hot beneath her palms, and his heart boomed in his chest. “I’m not your problem.” She touched the tip of her tongue to his top lip, and his breath whooshed from his lungs.

He chuckled and slid his hand to the back of her head, tangling his fingers in her hair before he said, “You’re chaos.” He tilted her face up, and her mouth parted even further. Then he softly sucked her bottom lip, and she felt it, too. The kiss a stark contradiction to the hot rush flowing across her chest, spreading fire and creating chaos. Lexie took a step back before she gave in to it. One of the last things she needed was added mayhem in her life. Not even if that mayhem had solid muscles and sexy green eyes.

Sean pulled the Subaru to a stop at the Harbor Inn and walked Lexie to her room. They moved through pools of light as a chilly ocean breeze caught her hair and brushed it across her cheek.

“I guess I’ll see you in the morning,” she said, and for some reason felt a bit panicky. Which of course was silly. She’d known him for only two days. “Bright and early.” She stopped in front of room seven and looked up into his face. She didn’t know Sean. She probably would never see him again after tomorrow. “I’m looking forward to going home, but not to the Gettin’ Hitched madness.”

The light above the door shone down on them; his lashes cast a faint shadow as he returned her gaze. “You’re tough. You survived my mother.” The tips of his fingers brushed her neck as he pulled the ends of Jimmy’s collar under her throat. “I think she may have even liked you.”

“What about you?”

“Do I like you?” One side of his mouth lifted, and the same breeze that tossed her hair about her head brought his scent to her nose, and she breathed him in. Funny that she’d known him for such a short time but she recognized the smell of his skin. Funnier still, it calmed her when she didn’t know she was nervous.

“You’re a pain in the ass.” His silent laughter and obvious amusement creased the corners of his green eyes.

She leaned back against the door. He calmed her. Everything about him felt safe, stable in a world that had become so uncertain. “Well, you won’t see me after tomorrow.” He didn’t correct her and she looked away, into the dark parking lot. “I won’t be a big pain in your ass anymore.” He placed his fingers on her cheek and turned her face to him.

“I didn’t say you were a big pain in the ass.” His fingers touched the side of her jaw and raised her face to his. “I guess you’re okay.”

“I’m glad you think I’m okay.” She meant it to come out a little sarcastic; instead she sounded a little breathy.

“For a runaway bride.”

“I guess you’re okay for a guy who had me babysit his mother for two days.”

He brushed his thumb across her bottom lip and smiled. “Did you have somewhere else you needed to be?”

She kissed his thumb, then put her hands on his big arms. “Acapulco.” She swayed into him, and her breasts pressed into his chest. Her palms slid to his shoulders, and she rose onto the balls of her feet. “I’m supposed to be on my honeymoon in Acapulco.”

As he had the day before, he dropped a soft kiss on her mouth. “With a guy you don’t know.”

She didn’t know him, either. Only two short days, but after his mouth came back for a third kiss, she wasn’t counting anymore.

His tongue touched hers and swept into her mouth, hot and intense and curling her toes into her boots. A deep, satisfied “uuh” came from his chest, and she combed her fingers into his hair. He liked it, and the “uuh” turned into a deep groan. The kiss caught fire and she clung to him, the only stable thing in a world gone out of control. She slid her hands down his sides and back until he captured her wrists. Without breaking the kiss, he pinned them to the door above her head, and something deep and primitive within her responded to the force of his restraint. She moaned deep in her throat as desire twisted and knotted her stomach.

“This is the time to tell me to leave.”

“Do you want to leave?” She licked her lips.

“No.”

She didn’t want him to leave, either.

1. She didn’t want to be alone with her own thoughts.
2. She felt safe with him.
3. She liked the way he kissed her.

“Do you want to come inside for a drink?” she asked.

“What do you have?”

“Ginger ale.”

Silence stretched between them and she thought he might resist the temptation of ginger ale and her. They both knew if he went inside her room, they would end up naked. Which was a bad idea.

1. She didn’t know him.
   1. a. He could be a killer.
2. It was impulsive, and following her impulses was bad.
   1. a. Standing in Sandspit with a man she didn’t know.
3. Kind of promiscuous.
   1. a. She liked to have feelings for a man first.

“Where is the key card?” he asked.

“Next to my phone.” Or ending up naked could be good:

1. She didn’t know him.
   1. a. Would never see him again.
2. Impulsive.
   1. a. Would never see him again.
3. Promiscuous.
   1. a. Who cares!

“I’ll just get that for you.” The desire in his gaze turned even hotter. He wanted to be with her as badly as she wanted to be with him. It was crazy but felt perfectly sane.

“I’m a helpful guy.” He held her wrists with one hand and lowered the other to dip inside the bomber jacket. Easily, he unbuttoned the shirt. He parted the fabric, and the cold breeze swept across her breasts and hardened her nipples. His lids lowered a sleepy fraction, and he pulled a breath deep into his lungs. “Where could it be,” he asked, and brushed her skin along the edge of her corset.

“Do you want a hint?”

“No.” He pulled the phone from her cleavage and stuck it in his back pocket. “I’ll find it for you.”

“Because you’re a helpful guy?”

He shook his head and slid his fingers between her breasts. “Because I’m a guy who is dying to get you out of that bra.” He pulled out the plastic card and let go of her wrists to unlock the door. “If you invite me in, that’s what I’m going to do.”

Now was the time to say no. To herself and to him. That would be the smart thing to do, but she didn’t want to do the smart thing. She didn’t want to go inside the small hotel room where nothing waited for her but her own thoughts of the past few days. “Do you have a condom?”

“Yes.”

She pushed the door open and stepped inside. “Come in, Sean,” she said, and he followed her inside. Except for the light from the parking lot slicing through a crack in the curtains, the room was completely dark.

“Come here, Lexie.”

“I thought you wanted ginger ale.”

“I hate ginger ale.”

She took a step toward the sound of his voice as the bomber jacket fell from her arms. Within the blackness, he tangled his fingers in her hair and pulled her head back. He kissed her parted lips like a man who knew what he wanted and was going after it. His tongue slid inside and withdrew with hot, insistent strokes. He created a luscious suction, and his hand moved through her hair and down her back, drawing her close until the hard bulge of his erection pressed into her stomach and the tingling knots in her belly slid between her legs. She pushed her pelvis against the bulge, and within seconds his hands were everywhere, touching her all over. They pulled at each other’s clothes until they were naked and Sean’s hands were on her breasts, her hard nipples pressed into his palms.

“Ahh . . . baby,” he said, his voice a low gravel before his mouth found hers once more.

It was crazy and hot, like nothing she’d ever experienced before. Two people giving in to a purely physical need. An overwhelming need for sex and nothing else. There was no need to talk about it. No need to define it.

His hand moved down her left thigh and he lifted her leg to his waist. The long, hard length of his erection slid against her, and when he spoke his voice hovered in the darkness. “You feel so good, Lexie.”

Tiny slivers of pleasure tickled her nerve endings, mingled with the blood coursing through her veins. He thrust against her, both hands gripping her behind. He was right. It did feel good, but not as good as it could feel. She wrapped her arms around his neck and whispered, “Take me to bed.” She lowered her leg from his waist.

Sean hit the switch on the wall. Blinding light jabbed Lexie’s eyes and she buried her face in his neck.

“Sorry,” he said as he walked her backward. “I didn’t know where the bed was.”

He pushed her down on the bed and followed. “And I want to see you.” His gaze followed his hand to her waist and hip and back up to her breasts. He touched her nipple with the tips of his fingers, then lowered his face and sucked her into his mouth. His cheeks drew inward and he moved his hand down her stomach and between her thighs. She moaned and ran her fingers through his hair. The pleasure so delicious, the heat of his mouth so exquisite, her back arched against his wet mouth and hand. He kissed her breast, and his short breaths heated her already hot skin. Then he was on his knees between her thighs. Cool air brushed across her nipples. He reached into his back pants pocket and pulled a condom from his wallet.

There had been a time in Lexie’s life when she’d thought that a man with a condom in his wallet was presumptuous. She was close to thirty, and was just awful glad he’d come prepared.

He stuck one edge of the black package between his teeth and ripped it open. Then his eyes sought hers as he wrapped one hand around his hard shaft and rolled the condom down his engorged flesh.

“You’re a beautiful woman, Lexie.” His eyes were sleepy with lust as he knelt between her knees and planted one hand next to her head. “Everything about you is sexy as hell.” Then he thrust into her and she couldn’t help her deep sigh of pleasure. He rested his weight on his forearm, and his other hand grabbed her thigh. She felt him everywhere, his body covering hers as he moved within her, touching and stroking the exact place where her pleasure was centered, in and out, driving her wild. Withdrawing slowly and plunging deep. And with each stroke, he pushed her toward climax. She slid her hands down the contours of his back to the hard cheeks of his behind. Beneath her palms, his muscles flexed with the motion of his slow, thrusting hips.

“Yes. Right there. Yeess,” she whispered against his mouth, moving with him as he pumped harder, deeper, faster. Heat and desire, flushing her skin and tangling her nerves into hot, twisted knots. “Sean? Oh my God.”

“Talk to me.” His hot breath touched her face and she sucked him in like oxygen.

She opened her mouth but the words spinning around in her head were embarrassing, unladylike, and best left unsaid.

“You feel so hot around me.” Sean didn’t seem to have trouble expressing himself as he drove into her, pushing her harder. “Tight and wet and good.”

Orgasm gripped her insides with pleasure. It ripped through her, again and again, as Sean’s climax tore a deep, primal groan from his chest. “Lexie,” he said on a harsh exhale as her body pulsed around him. His deep, relentless thrusts pushed her to more intense pleasure. “Do you want more of this, Lexie?”

“Yes.” She couldn’t think past the second orgasm setting her on fire. And then she did. She opened her mouth and swore like a hockey player. A natural ability she’d inherited from her father’s side.