“Isn’t that for me to worry about? And why should my personal life have to revolve around elections?” He’d been walking the straight and narrow for too damn long and for some reason it took meeting Summer with her bedroom goddess lips and decadent bordello to make him realize it.
She rose, brow furrowed, and edged around the coffee table to circle the sitting area. From the way her teeth sank into the soft fullness of her lower lip, Jackson gathered she was thinking. Worrying, maybe?
Pausing beside an open armoire, she folded her arms under small but oh-so-enticing breasts. “You’re asking me on a date?”
“Are you already seeing someone?”
“No. But look at us.” She gestured between her body and his. “Anyone could tell we’re mismatched.” She shook her head and started pacing again. “What sign are you?”
“What sign?”
Stopping again, she leaned against a sleek, unobtrusive marble wet bar and sighed. “When’s your birthday?”
He had so lost the thread of this conversation. “May twelfth?”
“Of course, you’re a Taurus. I’m an Aquarius.” She withdrew a silver pendant that had been hidden under her dress. From his vantage point, it looked like a disk with a few wavy lines carved across the front. “You’re the bull and I’m the ever-changing water sign. It will never work.”
Ah. A challenge.
If Summer Farnsworth had known him better, she would have realized she couldn’t chase him off by declaring he couldn’t possibly win. Throughout the course of his career, challenges had always fueled him. Fired him up. Made him all the more determined.
Rising, he stepped closer to Summer. Plainly, the time had arrived to employ stronger means of persuasion. “This Aquarius condition…does that make you clairvoyant or something?”
She tilted her chin as he neared and he could almost see her dig her heels into the plush taupe carpet. “I once accurately predicted a hurricane in a Tarot-card reading. But in general, no, I’m not psychic.”
“Then you can’t possibly know what might happen between us if we got together.” He stopped a fraction of an inch inside her personal space, just close enough to catch the wild floral scent of her.
“It just seems unwise for a man in your position to court trouble.” Her breath caught, a fact he noticed since his glance had somehow strayed to her chest.
Dragging his attention back to her wide gray eyes, he concentrated on listening to her words as opposed to her body language.
“Especially when we have so little in common.” She cleared her throat, licked the rim of her lips.
Too bad Summer talked in very articulate body language. Jackson didn’t have a prayer of ignoring it.
Or her.
Or what he’d wanted from the moment he’d first spied that rosy-colored mouth of hers.
“It seems even more unwise to pretend we don’t feel what’s going on right now.” He reached for her, his fingers skimming her jaw while his thumb found the soft fullness of her lower lip.
She swayed slightly. Her eyelids fluttered but refused to fall.
“I’m the kind of person who craves freedom. I break rules all the time. Just for fun.” Her voice held a note of warning, mild panic. “Didn’t I tell you I was the original bad girl behind the Bad Girl Bordello?”
Jackson had no interest in being warned off. The temperature between them cranked up a few more degrees, giving him no choice but to pull her to him and mold her slender body to his.
“I don’t see you breaking any rules tonight, Summer. If I’m going to be convinced you’re such a bad girl, I think you’re going to have to prove it.”
3
Be aware that kissing can lead you into dangerous territory.
PROOF?
Summer had greeted the man with her bustier untied and now she was practically unraveling in his arms from just a touch, yet he required proof of her wild and wanton streak?
Well by God, she would gladly show him.
Stretching up on her toes, she brushed her lips over his the way she’d wanted to for the last hour. Sitting beside sexy Jackson Taggart in the lush sensuality of the bordello room had made her more than a little edgy. And since the kiss was simply an exercise in proving a point, she didn’t bother to hold anything back.
She flicked her tongue across his lips to steal a taste. He possessed a full, soft mouth for a man of such chiseled features and hard angles. Her eyelids fell shut, heightening the sensations of his kiss. The warm whiskey taste of him intoxicated her, made her even bolder.
Splaying a hand across his broad chest beneath his jacket, she absorbed the feel of starched cotton and warm muscle through his white dress shirt. Her fingertips itched to cover more ground, to explore the terrain of the rock-hard abs currently plastered against her. To follow the silky path of his tie to the leather of his belt and then dip lower still…
Yet she contented herself with reaching to touch his face, to cradle his rough-hewn jaw and stroke the crisp hair at the back of his neck. His aftershave smelled clean and expensive, elusive enough to make her want to linger so she might catch the scent more strongly.
But then Jackson expelled a throaty growl of pure male hunger and tightened his grip. Arms banded around her, he locked her body against his, his formerly still hands now coming to life.
He deepened their kiss, delving into her mouth to mate and join them. Summer closed her eyes more tightly against the onslaught of heat, the tingly wave of needy sensation that tripped through her whole body. As his tongue probed hers, an answering shock wave pulsed between her legs.
In the recesses of her brain, she heard the bluesy piano of Duke Ellington somewhere in the background, but even the vivid reds of the bordello were fading to black when forced to compete with the magnetic draw of this man.
Jackson.
In her mind’s eye, she could see no one and nothing else. The heel of his hand smoothed over her cheek while his long fingers combed through her hair. Her scalp prickled with warmth while her breasts tightened against his chest.
The silk moiré bustier that she’d retied now strained at the seams with her erratic breathing. She could already anticipate what it would feel like to peel off the stiff fabric and press herself intimately to Jackson’s hard chest.
Bliss.
She wanted this man with an intensity that surpassed any longing she’d ever felt for a tattooed surfer. How had she ever thought Jackson was low-key or laid-back when he kissed with the exquisite finesse of the devil himself?
He backed her closer to the bed recessed in a private alcove of the larger room. Or perhaps she drew him toward the bed. It seemed their chemistry had exploded all of a sudden, leaving them both in the grip of a power that was hotter and more volatile than either of them.
Her thigh skimmed the red satin coverlet as the black lace grazed her ankle. The dull thud at the back of her leg barely fazed her, but it seemed to bring Jackson back to life.
He broke off their kiss, his eyes refocusing on their surroundings.
On her.
“That’s not so bad in my book, Summer.” His voice hit a smoky note, blending in with the gravelly blues singer emanating from the bedside radio.
She struggled to recall what they’d been discussing, or what his words had to do with climbing into bed right now and not getting out for the next forty-eight hours. “Hmm?”
His hands wandered over her bare shoulders. Apparently she’d lost her shawl