“Complicated like we’re very, very over. He’s moved on. But every time he catches wind of me doing the same, he crops back up in some capacity. Like, apparently, he saw a clip on TV of me giving you the thumbs up in Pine Lake and that was enough for him to start sniffing around.”
Rhett’s head drops down closer, erasing whatever little respectable space there was left between us. His eyes are trained on mine. Staring at me in that way he always does. With unmatched intensity. “That event wasn’t televised. Which means he’s going out of his way to figure out what you’re doing and probably searching the events on YouTube for footage.”
That night, when Rob told me he’d seen my gesture, I didn’t even question it. But Rhett is right. I know which events are televised—Kip has been very exacting about that—so there’s no way Rob just happened upon the footage. But Rhett is right, and I can’t believe I didn’t catch the lie.
“Shit. That’s...creepy.” I blink up at Rhett, who’s opposite hand cups my elbow now, turning me in toward him.
“Maybe we should give him something to creep on. Do you think he’s in that car?” The rugged man in front of me smirks in a way that has my entire body humming. “Rather than kissing your magazine pages, you can try out the real thing.”
“You’re an idiot,” I mumble, but I also don’t move away.
Would I do this? My heart races so hard that it drowns out the sounds around me. All I hear is that dull, rushing sound of my pulse in my ears.
“What if someone sees? What if this gets out?”
Rhett’s thigh presses against mine while the hand on my lower back slides down to the waistline of my jeans, his fingers tightening in a way that has the spot just behind my hip bones aching.
He moves in close, his scent surrounding me as his wild hair fans down around us. The air between us hums and I stare at his mouth, wondering what the roughness of his beard might feel like on my lips, on my body.
I’ve never kissed a man like Rhett.
“You know, Princess,” he rasps, and I should hate that goddamn nickname, borne of mocking me for being who I am, but suddenly it feels like a shot straight to my core. Like praise. Like worship. “I’m finding I don’t really care what people think where you’re concerned.”
That comment strikes me speechless, and I momentarily let myself imagine a world in which I didn’t care what people thought. Where I didn’t constantly work to keep everyone around me appeased. Where there wasn’t this ever-present need to make up for being born a burden. What might that kind of freedom feel like? To do something I want without worrying about every possible fallout.
And something about Rhett’s impulsive ways and rugged good looks makes me want to embrace it for one wild moment. I deserve a moment like that.
I swallow hard and nod once, getting lost in his glowing amber eyes. The hand on my elbow slides up, sending goosebumps out over my skin. The cool metal of his ring on my skin as that same hand glides over my shoulder, traces my collarbone, and slides up my throat.
And I’m on fire.
For all the times I imagined his hands on me, I never imagined my body reacting like this.
It’s when his lips come down, only a hairsbreadth apart, and his knuckles graze my cheekbone that I notice the driver’s side door of Rob’s car shoot open from the corner of my eye. And it’s then that I murmur, “Okay. But this means nothing.”
In response, Rhett growls and dusts his lips across mine. Tingles shoot out like electricity, like every bristled point that touches me sends a spark dancing, twirling across my skin. Singeing every nerve ending.
His hands are possessive on my body. Pulling me tight against him almost aggressively, while cradling my skull so delicately, and kissing me so carefully. He lights me up. He burns me down. And I bask in his heat.
The buzz of the hospital around us fades away when his lips come back and press down more firmly this time. The people, the sirens, Rob’s presence. It all blows away like dust on a dirt road as I kiss Rhett back.
I shouldn’t. I really shouldn’t be kissing this man. This client. I definitely should not be kissing him back. But sometimes being responsible is exhausting, especially in the face of someone as irresistible as Rhett Eaton.
It’s me who pushes my tongue into his mouth. It’s me who steps even closer, feeling his hand slide down to my ass as he crushes me against the steely bulge in his pants. It’s me who moans when he presses it against me even harder.
The knowledge that I do that to him makes me wild. It seems unlikely. We seem unlikely.
And yet I’d have to be an idiot to deny there’s a connection here. The bickering. The jokes. The goddamn teenaged crush.
His thumb trails down the column of my throat as his silky tongue tangles with mine. He wields it so well. He makes me weak in the knees. Suddenly, I want him closer—I want more.
And as I squeeze my thighs together and feel my core clench, I realize my body wants that too. Which is a problem. Because I still need to spend several weeks with this man. Alone with this man. Which means this needs to stop.
I pull back, panting. My hands are clenched, fisting the front of his shirt, and our hips still line up in a way that is entirely inappropriate for the main entrance of the hospital.
Rhett is breathless too, back to staring at me.
His eyes flit past me, and I follow them, not wanting him to look away yet. We glance over just in time to see Rob’s coiffed head of golden hair slip into his fast car. The sound of his door slamming makes me jump. And then I’m staring back up at Rhett, whose jaw is clenched hard enough that it looks like the bone is trying to escape through his skin.