her every independent thought!
The corner of his mouth quirked up a degree and something about his smile, one she’d seen countless times before and knew promised pure mayhem, put all her senses on alert. Her stomach jumped and she tried to escape.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” she gasped, backing down the hall with Nate matching her step for step, still holding her hands captive within his. She glanced over her shoulder, and nervous laughter erupted with the realization she’d somehow ended up moving toward the ballroom rather than away. Stupid.
“Come on…trust me.”
That grin!
“I don’t trust you,” she shot back, her pulse rocketing in response to the predatory intent blazing in his eyes. She’d be a fool to trust a man leering at her like that—as if she’d made his week with this little game of cat and mouse.
“You should,” he cajoled, this time taking a step into her space. “I’ve got a knack for making things work.”
Payton peered up at him as he drew her closer—to the point where their feet tangled, legs touched. He was so bad. So incredibly, unrepentantly bad.
“You’re arrogant,” she accused, laughing as she nearly stumbled into his chest.
“You like it,” he challenged, with a pointed jut of his chin, just daring her denial. But, God help her, she couldn’t. She’d always loved his crazy confidence. Nate’s unwavering ability to fly in the face of convention and come out on top. He was free and, contrary to popular opinion, didn’t take himself too seriously…so neither did she. Only, if Nate pulled her any closer, “serious” would become inevitable.
Her hands moved ineffectually to his chest. “What are you—?”
But then the door to the ballroom pushed fully open and, with an expertly maneuvered tug, Nate caught her up against the hard-cut planes of his body in a hold so provocatively intense she couldn’t think of anything beyond the miracle of its fit. Ice-blue eyes slid over her in a chilling caress that left her skin pebbled with goose bumps.
Flashing a quick wink, he caught the back of her neck. “Trust me. I’ve done this before.”
Lips parted in protest, Payton didn’t manage a word before he moved in and, with deadly accuracy, captured her mouth beneath his.
Chapter Three
THE kiss was blatant and intense, a showy play of passion that bowed her in a delicate arch, caged by the unyielding iron and steel of Nate’s powerful frame. Firm, smooth lips moved over hers in a back and forth rub so skillfully seductive she could only sigh under their assault. Give into the idea that, if she wasn’t going to escape the spotlight as she’d planned, there were plenty worse things than being exposed while discovering what it was to be kissed by Nate Evans.
It was all consuming.
There was something undeniable in his touch, something chemical, instinctual and wholly unexpected. She didn’t understand it—couldn’t defend against it as, locked in his hold, her body and mind pushed into overdrive.
Eyes closed, fingers flared at his shoulders, she tried to brace against the curl of anticipation licking through her belly. Remind herself that Nate’s mouth sliding against her own was just for show. For whomever had opened the ballroom door—the door that remained open if the volume of the music spilling into the hallway around them was any indicator. It was a kiss for the gossips. For their individual self-serving interests. But not for their hearts or souls or even their libidos. Only the deafening rush of blood speeding past her ears—the heat of it surging through her veins, awakening her body in ways she couldn’t deny—suggested otherwise.
Any second he would stop. Pull away and take this fantasy, a lifetime in the making, with him. But until then…
Payton clutched at the hand-stitched lapels of his jacket, her body curving into his. She’d call it a good show, call it anything Nate needed to hear, but the honest truth was no fantasy had ever measured up to this moment and, audience or not, she couldn’t control her physical reaction to a kiss she’d dreamed of since she was thirteen.
Her fingers skimmed over the contours of his broad shoulders, following the column of his neck until they threaded into the thick silk of the curls at the base of his skull. The forbidden luxury of her hands in his hair, coupled with the seductive pull of his mouth against her own, was too much—too good, everything and not enough all at once—and drove a soft, pleading moan past her lips.
Nate stilled, his mouth fused with hers.
Oh, no, he’d heard her. Heard the sound of desire in a kiss scripted for deceit. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe—couldn’t quell the frantic beating of her heart or her desperation to take this insanity further.
And then a breath, warm and wet, slipped between her suspended lips, carrying the gruff response to her needy plea. “Payton.”
Tension charged the air around them, a current jumping from each point of contact to the next.
What was this?
The arms that held her circled tighter, slipping into something wholly different than the embrace of a moment ago. Into a slow, sensual exploration of his hands across her body.
Heat radiated from his touch like a hot claim, waking her every nerve. Every sense. Every desire.
She needed to stop.
Nate obviously read her renegade moan as a call to spur him further. To up the charade. Only Payton was already in over her head. Her body couldn’t decipher the real from the imitation. And—as his tongue licked at the corner of her lips, eliciting a shudder that racked her from top to toe, had her opening wider to the exquisite sensation of Nate Evans seducing her with his mouth, his tongue, his teeth, and the soft rumble of his groan sounding between them—she slipped beneath reason, drowning in need. She wanted him. More than his kiss. She wanted everything he could give her, show her.
Only, already it was ending. His lips eased from hers by degrees until only the barest brush of skin and breath kept contact. That lingering touch, suggesting he, too, was hesitant to break away.
A kiss so carnal, so hot, couldn’t have been—
Don’t be stupid. Of course, it could.
She was dealing with notorious Nate, playboy extraordinaire and on a worldwide scale as she heard it. She was out of her league. Out of her mind. And potentially spoiled for life because of one insane, staged make out she hadn’t had the sense of self-preservation to defend against.
But Nate had caught her off guard. And within the decadent span of that kiss, every fine strand of lingering attraction toward the boy he’d been wove and wound itself into an indestructible tether to the man he was now.
Oh, she was in such trouble.
Breath ragged, she tried to focus on the shadowed planes of the face only inches above her. Taking in the harsh drawn features she knew so well—the strong cut of his jaw, chiseled lips, that once-broken nose—she couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes. To see his thoughts or risk he’d see hers.
Gaze
