“It’s the safest thing to do.”
“You always take the safe route?” His mouth curved.
Yes. She’d lived most of her life trying to be safe. Her mother had died in a car accident when Kate was a girl, and that incident had marked her. She always buckled her seat belt. Drove the speed limit. Safety—caution in all things, was paramount. In everything from driving to balancing her checkbook to salting her steps during winter. She didn’t take chances. Risks. She was always careful. Always vigilant. And the smart thing to do right now would be to continue being safe. To walk away from what she felt when she was with Sean.
Even while she was giving herself some excellent advice, he bent his head and kissed her. Once. Twice. His mouth was soft, his manner tender and she was lost. When he finished, leaving her breathless and just a little unsteady, he looked at her again.
Kate swallowed hard and said, “Safe is smart.”
“Be stupid,” he urged.
She couldn’t look away from that warm, determined gaze. “I think I’m going to.”
He kissed her again. This time gentle tenderness washed away in a roaring tide of clawing, greedy hunger that had been building between them for days. Even through the thick layer of sweaters and jackets they wore, Kate felt his hard, muscled chest pressed against her, and everything inside her caught fire.
It was as if embers that had lain smoldering within suddenly caught a draft of air that flashed them into flames. Her hands at his shoulders, she clung to him as he wrapped his arms around her waist and held her tight, close. Though they stood locked together in knee-deep snow, she didn’t feel the cold. His mouth fused to hers, his breath filled her, his tongue twisted with hers and Kate felt the already-blazing fire inside her erupt and flash white-hot.
He tore his mouth from hers and said, “Inside. We’ll freeze to death out here.”
“So not cold,” she told him, licking her lips to savor the taste of him.
He grinned, and her heart stumbled. “Gonna make sure you stay that way, too.”
Keeping one arm locked around her, he guided her into the hotel, through the kitchen door, then slammed it closed behind them. They left the wind, the snow, the cold, and now it was just the two of them.
Nerves rose up unexpectedly and Kate started thinking. Her body was churning, every hormone she possessed was doing a cha-cha of anticipation, but her brain had clicked back on the moment he stopped kissing her and now...
“No way,” he said, caging her against the counter, with his hands braced on either side of her.
“What?” She blinked up at him.
“You’re thinking too much. You’re starting to worry that maybe we’re making a mistake.”
“Are you a mind reader now?” she asked, trying to ignore the hard thump of her heartbeat.
He laughed shortly. “Reading your mind isn’t that tough at the moment.” His gaze moved over her face like a caress before meeting her eyes again. “You’re interested. You just don’t want to be.”
“I could say the same about you,” she pointed out in her own defense.
“Yeah, you could.” He nodded thoughtfully. “The difference between us is I’m not big on denying myself and you seem to be a champ at it.”
“I’ll agree with the first half of that sentence. You do seem to be the type who indulges himself whenever he feels like it.”
“Why not?” he asked with a shrug. “You don’t get trophies from the universe for being stoic and cheating yourself out of something that could be amazing.”
In spite of everything, Kate felt a rush of anticipation that fed a small smile. The man was arrogance personified. “You’re so sure it would be amazing?”
His mouth curved, his eyes gleamed and he leaned in closer until their mouths were just a breath apart. “Aren’t you?”
Stray snowflakes slipped from the collar of her jacket, went beneath the neckline of her sweater and snaked along her spine. Kate shivered and told herself it was the ice on her skin, not the heat in his eyes that had caused it.
“This is crazy,” she murmured, shifting her gaze from his eyes to his mouth and back again.
“I’m a big fan of crazy,” he whispered.
“Yeah, you would be,” Kate said with a choked-off laugh.
Her insides jumped, trembled and settled into a thrum of expectancy that wouldn’t be denied. Crazy is just what they were talking about here. Sex with Sean would be a mistake. A huge one. But if she let this moment pass, let him go back to California without taking the opportunity Fate had handed her, wouldn’t that be a mistake, too? Wouldn’t she have to live with regret for the rest of her life?
And she couldn’t handle more regrets.
Kate had been so closed off for the last two years, she’d never once felt even the slightest attraction for a man. And what she felt for Sean went light-years beyond a “slight attraction.” That could be a problem, too, she knew. Feeling too much was an open invitation to pain.
Kate had already had enough pain to last a lifetime.
So she’d have to keep her heart tucked neatly away. Of course, sex without love wasn’t like her at all. But then again, she’d already had and lost love and didn’t expect to ever have it again. So unless she wanted to live her entire life as if she was locked up in a monastery, she’d have to accept that things, for her, had changed. Affection would have to be enough. And as she met his eyes, Kate could admit to herself that as much as Sean irritated and annoyed her, she also sort of liked him. Hard not to, really. Looking up into Sean’s eyes, Kate thought he really was as charming as he claimed to be. Plus he didn’t cheap out on building plans, he was fair to her crew and even when he argued with her, he managed to make her laugh.
That kind of man was hard to resist. Though she’d been doing her best to do just that for the last week, she was done with it now. She took a breath and sighed heavily. She was finished trying to ignore the buzz of electricity between them.
If she was going to make a mistake, Kate preferred it be an active decision, not a mistake of omission.
“So, Kate,” he murmured, pushing the edge of her jacket aside to drag the tips of his fingers along the undersides of her breasts. “Are we going to be crazy together, or are we going to be sad and lonely separately?”
She shivered again as tiny twists of heat licked at her. Her eyes closed briefly and when she opened them again, Sean was there, staring into her gaze, searching for her answer.
She lifted one hand, cupped his face and drew him to her. “Crazy,” she whispered. “I vote for crazy.”
“Thank God.” He kissed her.
Kate’s entire body lit up in an explosion of light and color and heat. She hooked her arms around his neck and hung on, drawing him even closer. Now that she’d opened the floodgates of long-banked desires and needs, she was helpless to do anything but ride the tide cresting inside her. Kate groaned as he parted her lips with his tongue. That fast, greedy dance stole her breath, blurred her mind and set fire to her body.
His hands were busy, too, pushing her jacket off her shoulders and down her arms. Free, Kate did the same for him, then threaded her arms back around his neck as he lifted her and plopped her down onto the old, worn counter. He moved to stand between her thighs, and she hooked her legs around his waist.
They were eye to eye now and when he scraped his hands up beneath the hem of her sweater to cup her breasts, even through the fragile material of her bra, Kate felt heat blossom. Tingles flickered into life deep in her belly, and the core of her ached and throbbed in time with the beat of her heart.
Want.