“Hey!” she said, stung.
Sam pulled his earlobe. “That came out wrong. I just meant that I wish it wasn’t my best friend’s baby sister whose lingerie I can’t stop thinking about.”
“Huh,” she said, not bothering to hide her smile. “So guys really are suckers for black lace.”
He gave her a curious look. “Don’t you know?”
Riley’s smile slipped. Right. A sex goddess would know that.
Backpedal, backpedal …
“Don’t try to change the subject,” she said. “If I were someone else … if you weren’t already one hundred percent confident that I was going to put out at the end of this, what would you be doing now?”
She tried to keep her tone light and conversational, but Sam Compton had known her far too long and gave her a knowing look.
“Riley McKenna, are you asking me to put my moves on you?”
She pretended to consider this. “Your moves … I’m pretty sure I’ve seen all of those when you’ve been with Liam. That’s like where guys stare at boobs and grunt, right?”
Instead of getting defensive, Sam merely grinned. “Honey, you’ve never seen me in action.”
And why not? she wanted to ask. I’ve been right here the whole time.
“So show me what Sam Compton looks like in courtship,” she said boldly.
He shook his head. “Too late for that. Your whole let’s-have-sex-so-I-can-write-about-it proposal threw off my timetable.”
“What, is your whole routine scripted or something? Did you miss the crucial cues?”
“The only cues I missed from you were the boring ones. I caught on to the ones that mattered. Like the flaunting of a guy who was all wrong for you in my face like a red flag in front of a bull.”
Oh, well done, you. It only took you ten years.
“So what’s next?” she asked, letting the tip of her boot “accidentally” brush against his calf as she inched closer. “Let’s pretend we did this the slow, boring way, and have jumped through all the dull courtship hoops. What now?”
Sam tossed back the rest of his drink. “I thought you’d never ask.”
His lips took hers.
The kiss was more restrained than the first one, given that they were in a public place, but it was no less potent. He kept his hands to himself, keeping her close with the sheer skill of his mouth against hers.
It wasn’t the kiss of a man exploring a new woman.
It was the kiss of a man who knew his woman—knew what she liked.
And Riley liked it all. She liked the way he tasted like whisky and mint, liked the way his kiss was slow and unhurried.
But mostly she liked that it was Sam on the other end of this perfect kiss. It was a moment she’d dreamed about since she was seventeen.
It blew her fantasies out of the water, and he hadn’t even gotten his hands on her yet.
This was the moment she’d waited for for so long. That moment when a kiss wasn’t enough. That moment when she wanted more, and wanted it now.
Sam pulled back long before she was done with the kiss, and it took her a full thirty seconds to reorient herself.
“So?” he asked. “How were my moves?”
She lifted her cocktail glass to her lips, careful not to look his way. “Not bad.”