around her waist. The result was that she looked like one of those forties movie starlets. Somehow, even devoid of makeup and expensive clothing, she still exuded class. As if she’d been simmered in wealth since childhood and now it fairly seeped from her pores.
She eyed him suspiciously, her gaze dropping to the orchids and then back to his face. “What are those for?”
Since she didn’t seem inclined to invite him in, he elbowed past her into the apartment. “They were my excuse to get in the building. One of your neighbors was leaving. I told him I was here to apologize for a date gone bad so he’d let me in.”
“And he believed you?”
“What can I say? I was persuasive.”
After a moment of indecision, she closed and bolted the door. “Don’t worry. It won’t happen again. I’ll hunt him down and kill the jerk.”
“Don’t do that. If you’re mad at me, take it out on me.” While she considered his words, he surveyed her apartment. A dingy kitchen led off from the living room and he headed there with the flowers. “Do you have a vase?”
“I thought the flowers were just a ruse.”
“That’s no reason not to enjoy them. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find flowers at midnight on a Friday night?”
He grabbed a vase out of one of the cabinets. It was an ornate job with elaborate curlicues. As he filled it with water, he waited for her response. She always seemed to have some snappy comeback.
It was her silence that alerted him something was wrong. He dropped the flowers into the vase and turned, thinking maybe she’d retreated to her bedroom or even left the apartment. Instead he found her sitting on the living room’s sole sofa with her elbows propped on her knees and her face buried in her hands.
His nerve endings prickled with alarm.
He sent up a silent prayer. Please don’t let her be crying. Between his three sisters, Patrice and Suz, he’d faced down his share of weepy women.
The one thing his vast experience with crying women had taught him was that running like hell would only make things worse.
“Hey,” he began awkwardly. “What’s—”
Then Kitty stood, her eyes red, but dry.
No tears. Thank God.
She crossed to stand before him, her posture stiff with anger. “What’s the matter?”
She got right in his face, stopping mere inches from him. “I’ll tell you what’s the matter.”
She shoved a hand against his shoulder. Surprise bumped him back a step. “You are the matter.”
She bopped him on the shoulder again. This time he was ready, but she was stomping forward, so he backed up a step anyway. “You come here and push your way into my company. Into my life. Into my apartment. You push and you push and you push.”
With each push she shoved against his chest and with each shove he stepped back, trying to give her the room she needed. But she followed him step for step.
“Maybe it’s time someone pushed back.”
By now he was—literally—up against a wall. With his back pressed to the living room wall, he had nowhere else to go. She stopped mere centimeters away from him, her hands pressed to his chest, her eyes blazing with anger.
“I’m—” he began.
But she didn’t let him finish. “Don’t you dare say you’re sorry. Sorry won’t cut it. Sorry doesn’t even begin to cut it.”
“I—”
“Well?” she prodded.
He gripped her shoulders, resisting the urge to shake her. “Stop. Interrupting. Me.”
Her chin bumped up and she glared at him through stormy eyes. “Well?” she demanded again.
“I—” What?
Suddenly, he couldn’t remember what it was he’d been about to say. All he could think was that this was what he’d wanted for the past two months. He wanted to see her again. To sleep with her. To strip her clothes off her, lay her bare before him in a proper bed and spend hours worshipping her body.
“‘I—I—I—’” she copied, mocking his stammer. “Is that the best you can do?”
Man, she was annoying sometimes.
“No,” he said. “This is.”
Cupping her jaw in his hands, he shut her up the best way he knew how. He kissed her.
Five
What exactly did she have to do to insult this man? She’d sneered at him. She’d acted like a tease. She’d ditched him in the middle of their date. She’d insulted him and made fun of him. And now he was kissing her?
What was wrong with him?
Worse still, what was wrong with her?
A hot and heavy make out session with Ford was the last thing she needed right now. She wanted peace and quiet to process the events of the night. She wanted to kick Ford out of her apartment. She wanted him out of her life. She wanted to go on kissing him forever.
After months of living on memories, he was actually kissing her. Months of pretending she’d forgotten him, of believing she’d never see him again, of shoving him out of her mind during the day, but then dreaming of him when she slept. After months of waking in the middle of the night, panting, heart racing, body moist and heavy with need. After months of that, he was here. In her apartment. Kissing her.
His tongue nudged into her mouth, tracing the sensitive skin behind her lip. She shuddered, opening herself fully to him. He tasted of smoky Scotch and heat, of neediness and lust. So familiar, even though she’d only been with him once. Her body sparked to life beneath his touch.
Suddenly it didn’t matter that he’d sneaked back into her life uninvited. It didn’t matter that he’d deceived her. That he pushed too hard. That she couldn’t intimidate or control him. All that mattered was that he just keep kissing her.
Her body remembered his touch as if it were yesterday. No matter what lies she’d told him earlier, she remembered. She remembered every second of their time together. As if for those few hours they’d been together she’d been more alive than at any other time in her life. As if she’d been more herself than she was in real life. The way he’d kissed her then. The cool night air on her skin when he’d kissed her in the parking lot of that god-awful bar. The heat of his hands against her flesh. The cold metal of his truck door pressed against her back.
His fingers had fumbled as he pulled her shirt over her head. She’d lost an earring. Yet when he’d touched her breasts, he hadn’t been clumsy. His touch was deft. Gentle. His fingertips rough as they’d pinched her nipples, sending fissures of pleasure through her body.
He’d
