Because then
she
was kissing
him.
Softly. Not at all like how he’d intended to kiss her. Not at all like he normally kissed, period.
Yet it was the most memorable kiss he’d ever experienced.
“Just because we can’t have sex doesn’t mean you can’t keep trying to convince me otherwise,” she whispered against his lips.
Hot damn. Everything male in him lit up to all systems go. He blinked down at her smiling face, not sure whether to be amused or turned on. Past experience dictated the two were mutually exclusive emotions for him. Not so with Abby. “You’re that confident in your ability to resist me?”
“Of course not. But resisting you and sticking to what I say I’m going to do are two completely different things.”
“How do you figure?”
“I could, and very likely may fail at the first, but there isn’t anything you could possibly do to make me fail at the second.”
“Challenge accepted.” He’d never been good with folks telling him there was something he
couldn’t
do.
She smiled. “I was simply stating a fact. But if you want to take it as a challenge, feel free. Just so you know, if you do, it becomes a two-way street.” So saying, she slid open those long curvy legs of hers and pulled him flush against her body. “Still up for the challenge?”
Now, he wasn’t so sure. A second later, when she was kissing him again, he
definitely
wasn’t sure. The way she kissed. Hell. It wasn’t that she did some fancy new tongue trick or anything like that. It was just…nice. And outrageously arousing.
“I better go pack,” she said, pulling away well before he was ready for the kiss to end. “I’ll see you in the morning, Connor. Thanks for having dinner with me tonight. It was fun for me, too.”
Well, shoot. Looks like this was going to be a lot harder than he thought.
“So this bad boy reputation of yours—did it start in your personal life and bleed over into the courtroom or vice versa?”
Connor frowned as he helped Abby carry the last of her luggage up to his biggest guestroom, the only one that could accommodate the huge desk from his study.
At first, when she’d arrived at his house with three gigantic suitcases, he’d been shocked and a bit disillusioned. She hadn’t seemed the type. But now that he saw them each flipped open and filled to the brim with books and folders, and stacks of Xeroxed sheets and scribbled notes, he realized the small duffle bag on her shoulder was the only thing not carrying her research.
Now that seemed much more Abby. She really was cut from a different cloth.
He belatedly considered the question she’d asked. “That depends on who’s doing the commenting about my reputation, I guess. Why?”
“I just wanted to see how accurate I was. Seems you have an unofficial coalition who thinks your licentious ways are going to be your downfall at the firm. I argued it couldn’t possibly be, not with those very qualities being the ones that turned you into the kickass lawyer that’s probably bringing in more money than over half the lawyers in the firm. Combined.” She smirked at the memory. “I don’t think those women like me very much now.”
He leaned against the dresser and scowled, upset not on his behalf but hers. “Who were they? Was this on the night of the cocktail party?”
“Yup. A small group of corporate wives, one of whom I think might be an actual vampire, all rushed over to warn me away from you almost immediately after they saw you talking to me.”
He discharged an irritated breath. Cassandra and her minions. She was more a shewolf than a vampire but it was still an apt description. She certainly had a reputation for sucking men dry. Why his colleague Edward had thought it prudent to become husband number three for her was a complete mystery. “I don’t get why those women gossip about me. I’m not really all that interesting.”
“They seem to disagree. They went on and on about pool hall brawls and sex clubs.”
“The first is only partly true and the second not at all.”
“Aw. Brian will be so disappointed,” she teased. “He’s been making cracks about all your sexual conquests for at least the last decade or so.”
Oh, he has, has he
? He made a mental note to kick Brian’s ass later. “Yeah, well my brother tends to have a flair for the dramatic.”
“Really? So no plundering or pillaging to speak of?”
Trust an English professor to get him all hot and horny with choice vocabulary words. “Nope, sorry,” he downplayed.
“I don’t think I believe you. In fact, I think you’re going to have to let me be the judge of that.” She hopped onto the bed and propped herself up on a pillow, heels kicking in the air as if they were about to exchange sleepover stories. “Tell me the most wicked thing you’ve ever done.”
“I am
not
having this discussion with you.”
“Why?” She lowered her gaze down to his zipper, which seemed to be moving telekinetically. “Uncomfortable?”
He crouched over a bit more.
“C’mon. I’m curious about your hedonistic ways,” she kept on, clearly amused by his discomfort. “Are we talking secret society orgies with whips and chains?”
“What?! God, no.”
“Backdoor action? Threesomes?”
He averted his gaze to study a missed stitching in the rug he never noticed before.
“Seriously?” That quieted her, and boggled her eyes quite a bit. “Were they with two women or are you a ‘Devil’s Three Way’ kind of guy?”
Where the hell did she learn that term? Attempting to clear his throat was suddenly very difficult. “Uh…both.”
She let out a faint whistle. “Wow.” Okay, she looked far too
curious
now for her own good.
“But I haven’t done either in a while. It was all pretty much consolidated to one year of my life a long time ago.”
“You didn’t enjoy it?”
“I didn’t say that.” He shrugged. “Honestly, it was fun and exciting at the time but it got old fast. It’s a ton more work than pornos make it out to be.”
“What if it were me and another girl satisfying your every carnal desire? Would you still feel like it was work?”
He nodded. And meant it. “Another woman would just end up getting in the way. Plus, she’d get all pissy that I’d be focusing solely on you and that’s never fun.”
She bit her lip, a reluctant smile peeking through regardless. “What a sweet, utterly disturbing compliment.” Her expression turned contemplative then. “Well what about you, me, and another guy?”
“Oh
hell
no.” He scowled. No way was he inviting some other man to see her, let alone
touch
her. A low growl rumbled in his chest. No, just no. The thought of it made him...jealous. An altogether unfamiliar and extremely unpleasant feeling.
“Oookay. Then how about the other thing? The…you know?” She turned a sweet shade of pink and shook her heinie in the air.
Holy hell, but the woman was trying to kill him. “Abby, you don’t have to do any of that for me. Contrary to what the rumor mill spews out, I’m not some kinky sex fanatic. When you and I eventually get together, it’s going to be plenty hot, believe me. We won’t need any of those bells and whistles.” As he said it, he realized how true a statement that was. Just kissing Abby last night had been ten times more intoxicating than some of the more down and dirty romps he’d had with other women in his past.
“Hmm.” She rolled over onto her back and stared up at the ceiling, silently thoughtful, a small smile playing on her lips.
Good god, what was she thinking now? Already, this kinky interview from hell had him ten degrees past aroused. His own fault for coming in here, really. It was way past time for him to leave.
But just as he stood to go grab what was undoubtedly going to be a very cold shower, she sat back up.
“Hey, can you toss me my lotion?” She pointed at the dresser behind him. “My legs get so dry here in the summers.”
Such an innocent request and yet…not. He was sure this was going to be a look but don’t touch deal with her lathering up those gorgeous legs of hers while he sat there like schmuck. He narrowed his eyes and began listing all the ways he was going to pay her back for this when her two-week stay here was up
.
Slapping an unaffected look on his face, he passed her the lotion, forcibly blocking all the erotic lotion-inspired images that were attempting to take over his brain.
Evil woman
. Only a day into their no-sex agreement and already he was closer to begging than he’d care to admit.
While avoiding direct eye contact with the skin smoothing extravaganza, his gaze strayed to the partially open plastic bag sitting atop her dresser. It was over at the other end but he recognized the hot purple logo on the bag immediately.
Just like that, every muscle in his body stopped working.
Well, save one, that is.
The bag was from an adult novelty shop his friend Kim owned just a little north of here. He could only make out two of the items in the bag but they were enough to send his blood pressure skyrocketing—the tiniest pair of sheer white panties that would effectively cover nothing and, Lord help him, a silver bullet vibrator. He was going to have a stroke.
Stifling a groan over how the word ‘stroke’ instantly made him think about rubbing one off, he gripped the edge of the dresser like a man possessed. The door was just a few feet away. He could make it. But first he needed to get some much needed air into his lungs.
Breathe, you moron!
He dragged in a breath…and that’s when he heard it.
The tiniest whisper of a giggle.
“Why you little—”
Connor lunged at Abby as she shrieked out in laughter and tried ducking around him to make for the door. Snatching her around the waist, he hoisted her cackling body over his shoulder and tossed her back onto the bed. “You set me up.”
Her giggles effervesced, the unliddable glee in her eyes giving zero credence to all her perfectly scandalized denials.
He trapped her under him, burying his grin against the curve of her neck to soak in the unfamiliar experience of having fun with a woman in bed without sex being a factor. Skimming a smile over her collarbone, he
felt
the gasp she couldn’t contain like a shot of spiked adrenaline racing through his veins. Heading straight for his heart.
It took more effort than usual to block its path.
Thankfully, the feel of her hands sliding tentatively across his back was a strong enough distraction to shut off his over-worried brain. He focused instead on grazing his mouth along her soft skin once again, teasing her nowhere near as much as she was teasing him.
“You planted that wicked little bag-o-fun there for me to find. Didn’t you?”
The woman could’ve won an Oscar for the gasp she flung back. “Now why would I go and do something like that?”
Connor tamped down his urge to laugh and nipped at her earlobe instead. “To drive me up the freakin' wall? Send me bursting through my zipper?” A grin broke through on its own accord. “Though I guess I should be flattered to be the reason you bought all that stuff.”
The cutest derisive snort he’d ever heard shot out of her then—like an impeccably aimed torpedo. “Late breaking news, Connor: scientists have in fact discovered that the earth
doesn’t
revolve around you; women buy toys for themselves all the time.”
He grit his teeth and did everything short of reciting tort law to avoid thinking about Abby having any sort of toy-based fun. It took a while, but when he was eventually able to find his voice again, he crossed his arms and declared sternly, “Foul.”
“What? On what grounds?” Her obvious war between indignation and amusement wasn’t lost on him. Damn, he was having fun.
“When I agreed to your little who-can-resist-who stint, you didn’t say anything about weaponizing our attacks.”
She blinked innocently. “Weapons? You make them sound so sinister. I’d say they’re more like…private tools. Survival tools, if you will. For my time here. Naturally, you were never meant to see them.”
“Bullshit. Next, you’ll tell me the snowflake masquerading as underwear in that bag is worn strictly for comfort. Hell, I’ve seen more fabric on the teeny doilies in Skylar’s toy tea sets—”
“Ohhh,” she cut in softly with a smile. “I remember those. Whenever I’d babysit, she’d always go on and on about how her ‘bestest Uncle Connor’ hosted the fanciest dress-up tea parties.”
“I wore suits,” he clarified gruffly, “and don’t change the subject. Why buy sexy lingerie if not to have them be seen?”
By me.
He didn’t have to say it out loud, they were both thinking it.
And his ego was celebrating it.
Abby’s chin lifted stubbornly. “What do you mean, why? Easy access, of course,” she answered, straight-faced. “You know what they say…better felt than seen.”
His imagination went nuts.
Picturing Abby wearing the microscopic scrap of lace he saw earlier for easy access
in private
unhinged him, propelled him to shackle her wrists above her head with one hand and begin tickling her ribs with the other. “Another foul.”