Scoring. Kristin Hardy

don’t know, you were sure breathing hard.”

      She ignored him. Mallory watched avidly, dashing up to catch the door before it slammed behind Becka.

      Mace glanced at her. “Thanks.”

      “Don’t mention it. I’m enjoying this. I’ll be up in a few minutes.”

      He grinned and ducked in the door. Ahead of him, Becka started up the stairs, and he watched her appreciatively. Whatever she did to keep in shape, it was working.

      He took a better grip on the box he was carrying, glancing at its contents. Books, mostly, tossed in haphazardly. He wasn’t surprised to see that they were mostly nonfiction. Becka didn’t strike him as the type for novels. The book on nutrition fit his image of her, as did one on t’ai chi, and one on…

      “Ancient Chinese sexual secrets for Western lovers?”

      Above him, Becka stumbled and caught herself before stepping out onto the upper landing. She walked quickly into her apartment without a backward glance.

      Mace followed. “Well, this looks like a useful reference book.”

      Becka dumped the sheets in her bedroom, next to the unmade bed that still stood in the center of the room. “Keep your paws out of my stuff,” she snapped and burst back into the living room to find him fishing the book out of the box he’d set by her shelves.

      “Oh, but I think I could really learn something here.” He held the book out of her reach, stepping nimbly around her toward the bedroom. “Here we go, the Tortoises of Spring. ‘The woman places her hands and feet on the bed. The man inserts his jade stalk into her cinnabar grotto and plucks her lute strings ten times,’” he read, somehow managing to stay just out of her reach as he dodged around the bed. “‘He ceases when she rejoices. A hundred illnesses will vanish.’” Mace flopped down on the quilted surface of the mattress and sent Becka a wicked look. “We could cure those hundred illnesses right now, if you want.”

      “You’re pushing your luck, Duvall. Hand it over, now.” She stretched across him, groping for the book.

      Mace rolled onto his back and held the volume away from her with one long arm. “Hey, look at this one. She’s hanging from ropes coming down from the ceiling.” He slanted her a look. “Your mother know you read this?”

      Face flaming, Becka made another stab for the paperback just as her hand slipped on the slick cover of the mattress, sending her falling down on top of him.

      For long seconds, the only thing that registered in her stunned brain was the hard length of his body against her. Hard and getting harder, she realized, turning her head only to brush her lips against the taut skin of his neck. She made a move, then, to get her hands under her and rise.

      Swiftly, Mace rolled to pin her half beneath him. “No sense in rushing. You owe yourself a break after all that lifting.”

      She felt an alarming thrill of excitement, and a trembling that started deep inside. Oh no, she thought, this wasn’t the way it was supposed to go. She was supposed to be impatient and worried about time. She wasn’t supposed to wonder what it would feel like if he kissed her again with that mesmerizing mouth.

      She wasn’t supposed to want him.

      “It seems to me we didn’t get much of a chance last night to see where this could go,” Mace murmured, nuzzling her throat.

      Keeping a grip on her wits was vital, Becka thought, striving for the detached amusement she used on the players when they made passes at her. “Better brush up on your lines, Duvall. They could use some work.” She fought to ignore the soft kisses he pressed into her skin. How could a man’s mouth be so soft and gentle when his hands felt so hard sliding down the curve of her hip, running up to brush over her breast? She jerked as the heat scorched through the thin cotton of her tank top.

      “Maybe I should just skip talking, then,” he said, his eyes snaring hers, capturing her gaze until she couldn’t look away.

      Becka steeled herself not to respond to the whirlwind of sensation she knew was coming. And while she prepared to defend herself against it, he slipped in to seduce her with gentleness.

      His lips were warm, soft, taking light, quick samples rather than drinking her in as he had the night before. Nibbling his way across her jaw, he left a trail of heat and awareness that teased, enthralled. Before she could adjust, he returned to her mouth for more of those teasing kisses, now on one side, now on the other, now on the lids of her eyes that had somehow fluttered closed. The better to focus on his kisses so she could ignore them, except they never came where she expected. Like the soft, random landings of a butterfly, his kisses touched from point to point, here then gone, over before she could register the little buzz of electricity they triggered.

      More. It drummed through her in frustration. The light touches only ignited cravings she didn’t want to have. She tried to think of all the reasons she had for keeping her distance from Mace Duvall, even as need began a slow twist in her gut. If she let her treacherous body take over, it was just like handing him the reins.

      Becka cast about to remember just why it mattered but only wound up getting lost in the heat of his body against hers, the tantalizing pressure that made her wonder what it would feel like to have him naked on top of her, inside her. She shifted against him, her arms coming around his neck. A puff of breeze came through the window.

      Mace brushed along her jaw, sampled the softness of her earlobe, but always he journeyed back to her lips. Her mouth was addictive, he thought, like an irresistible dessert. One taste drew him back for another, and another. He could feel the heat simmering in her as she tried to bank it back, as she tried to ignore what he was doing to her. It made it all the more enticing to tempt her, to savor that full lower lip like it was taffy, warm and sweet.