tell me the truth. Why did you leave alone?”
Because you walked away from me.
The words were there, in her brain, but there was no way she was going to say them. Any more than she would admit that she’d started wearing her clothes a lot tighter, just on the off chance she’d run into him again now that she’d let Callie and Babe make her over into a baseball-star-attracting studette.
She didn’t need to say a word, because his eyes narrowed. “You weren’t going to settle for just anyone, is that it?” He lifted a hand and traced a fingertip across her jaw, then down her throat. His touch was simple yet potent, leaving her skin burning.
Stepping closer, until she could feel his breath on her face and the brush of his body against hers, he added, “Only me.”
She couldn’t deny it.
“You don’t seem like the easy type.” He sounded confused.
That got her vocal cords working again. “Definitely not.”
“But you were trying to pick me up. And when I left, you dropped it.”
Definitely right.
He stared intently at her eyes, then dropped his gaze, taking in the extra tight shirt and painted-on jeans that Callie had convinced her to buy. His jaw flexing, he murmured, “You know, you look familiar. I just can’t imagine you’re someone I would have forgotten meeting.”
Oh, if only he knew. How little the man must have truly looked at her the two times they’d met at the nursing home. It had only been six weeks since he’d last seen her. And she hadn’t changed that much. Just her clothes. Hairstyle. Contacts. Makeup.
Okay. Maybe she had changed a bit and could give him a break.
“Now, back to my question,” he said, a note of urgency—and, if it didn’t seem so crazy coming from a superstar, maybe even vulnerability—in his voice. “Tell me why you were after me.”
His words were a cross between a firm demand and a sweetly purred plea. And the genuine depth of interest in his tone reminded her of why she’d come up with the crazy seduction scheme to begin with. Because, whether she’d had the confidence to admit it, deep inside, she’d knew she’d been right all along. There was something between them. Heat. Awareness. Attraction.
He might not have acted on it. But that didn’t mean it did not exist. “We’re standing here like this and you really need to ask?” she said, leaning closer, falling deeper into the magnetic well of sensation between them.
His hand moved to the hollow of her throat and he traced the back of his fingers across her collarbone. Janie hissed, wanting more. Wanting to press into him and invite him to touch her much more thoroughly. Wanting his hands and his lips and his tongue and that mouthwatering ridge of arousal she could feel, hard and huge, against her hip.
She moaned as her nipples hardened against the cotton of her shirt. The sensual reaction wasn’t caused merely by his touch, his crazy-sexy whispers or the feel of his warm breath against her cheek. But also because of her certainty that everything she’d fantasized about was real.
Riley Kelleher wanted her. Badly.
Riley glanced down, obviously able to tell she wore nothing beneath her shirt. His jaw tightened and his breathing grew more labored. For a second, Janie thought he was going to give up the talk and proceed directly to action. But she wasn’t that lucky.
“I know why you want me now,” he admitted, his mouth so close his lips brushed her temple, hinting at a kiss she could almost taste.
God, she was so lost.
“I want to know why you wanted me then, from the minute you walked into Diamond tonight. If you weren’t out to pick up any guy who made you hot—only me—tell me why. I need to know.”
She was losing the fight to keep her sanity with every featherlight breath, each delicate caress on her skin. Losing thought and reason and discretion. Which was why she finally leaned up and said, “Would you please just shut up and kiss me?”
His eyes flared in surprise. Having him this close, and knowing she might never have the chance again, Janie wasn’t going to let him back away. Not without sampling, at least once, that incredible mouth. So she took a kiss. Stole it, seduced it from him, whatever it might be called. Twining her hands in his thick hair and curling her body against his, she pulled him down until their mouths met. Licking at the seam between his lips, she sighed as he parted them to meet her tongue in a wet exploration.
Riley had stiffened ever so slightly when she’d surprised him by making such a blatant first move. But he quickly relaxed, as if he could resist no more than she could. He dropped his arms to her waist, tugging her closer.
Lord, the man was so aroused. So big. The realization sent a flood of desire through her, making her weak. She moaned into his mouth as that thick ridge in his pants pressed against the juncture of her thighs. He responded by lifting one of her legs in his hand, tilting her hot, damp center directly against him. The pressure from her tight jeans and her swollen sex—smooth and vulnerable—made her arch harder.
He shifted a little, his lips moving away from hers for a second, as if he might end the kiss. She was in no way ready to let it end, knowing, deep down, that she might have only this moment. This one brief, delightful moment when she could believe she was about to have a wild, steamy affair with a man who literally took her breath away.
She just couldn’t let him stop kissing her, couldn’t let his brain reengage. “More,” she moaned. “Please, more.”
A throaty laugh told her he wasn’t nearly finished, either. His words confirmed it. “Much more.”
Riley returned his mouth to hers, this time taking control of their embrace. He slowed things down, capturing her frenzy and turning it into a lazy seduction of thrusts and licks, as if he found her utterly delicious and couldn’t get enough of her taste.
Janie honestly couldn’t remember an experience in her life as pleasurable as this one. With his broad chest pressed against hers, one hand dropping to cup her bottom with sexy familiarity and his glorious mouth kissing her as if he needed her tongue to go on living, she gave herself over to it. To this perfect, heady, purely sexual feeling, knowing there was nothing she wouldn’t do to make love with him, here and now. Even with the knowledge that come morning, he would think of her as just another groupie and would never want to see her again.
This was what she’d wanted all along, wasn’t it? To be the flavor of the month…of the night. Only she would not be vanilla. Tonight she’d be something much more tasty and decadent.
Tasty. Oh, God how she wanted to taste him. Before proceeding to stroking him, feeling him, riding him.
“You smell amazing,” she whispered against his lips, her head filling with his masculine scent. Her body was reacting, growing even wetter as she recognized the familiar—delicious—physical aromas of desire, sex and carnality.
He moved his mouth from hers and tasted his way across her jaw, licking, sucking, biting lightly. “You, too.”
He wasn’t pulling away. Wasn’t ending things. So she went a step further…taking more. Daring one more touch, wondering how
