“Do you also remember how we decided this”—she looked at his mouth, which was a breath away and descending with purpose—“would complicate things.”
“Funny, the only thing I remember is what you taste like. Which makes this suddenly seem simple.” His voice was low and gravelly and made her tremble in the best kind of way. So did the way his hands slid down her back to her silk-clad bottom, pulling her flush against him, until he couldn’t even breathe without her feeling the rise and fall of his chest.
Oh my God, he was going to kiss her, right there on the patio on their first date and it was going to be amazing. The kind of caught up in the moment, waiting for the rush to take over, like you’re free-falling from thirty thousand feet without a chute kind of kiss.
He smelled incredible, and she knew he’d taste even better. Like hot, sexy, turned-on man and—be still my heart. She had to close her eyes to be sure, but she did and it was. Adam smelled like freshly baked peanut butter cookies and sex. Her mouth watered at the thought.
She felt him shift closer, and that tingle of hers grew to a full-body hum. Then she opened her eyes and saw the kitchen window behind him, and that was when the last important realization set in.
Or maybe it was a reminder. Of what this was and exactly what this wasn’t.
“Adam,” she said, trying hard to keep the hurt from her voice. “If this is for show, then we don’t have to do this. I don’t think anyone is watching.”
“Nothing about this is staged.” He pressed her against the table with his body, and there was the hard proof that this was real. “As for watching, you just go on and keep your eyes open, and let me know when it gets complicated.”
Sweet baby Jesus, it was already complicated. At least the rhythm her chest had taken up sounded like a college marching band, because his mouth lowered that final breath and slowly, ever so slowly, captured hers in a way that was all gentle steel. The kind that scrambled a girl’s thoughts and soothed her fears until she forgot that this wasn’t real. That he wasn’t collectible.
So instead of taking a step back, like a smart girl would have done, Harper kept her eyes wide open and melted—into him and that promise she tasted on his lips. Because in that moment, with him holding her as if he were vowing to never let go, he felt like hers.
And, God, how she wanted to be his.
Adam felt the moment Harper gave in. To the chemistry and to him.
Even though he had no right to, he let her fall. Warm and wildly sexy Harper who couldn’t enter into anything without giving over her entire heart and soul. And he watched her hand it over and didn’t say a damn thing.
He couldn’t. It felt too good.
From the second she had walked back into the station, her little blue dress had been doing a serious number on his head. The way it shifted and danced across her body did truly amazing things from his vantage point. But it was her smile that did him in. Full, real, so damn bright it was infectious.
He’d flirted with her because of that dress, but he’d kissed her because of that smile. Now he didn’t want to let go. Not when her body was shrink-wrapped around his and her hands were playing a dangerous game of hide-and-seek. And especially not when she was making those breathy little sounds that drove him crazy.
Hell, everything about her drove him crazy. From her cute freckles to the polka dots painted on her toes, Harper did something to him that he’d long ago dismissed as fiction. She was sweetness and fire, and he was addicted.
His internal alarm told him as much, warning him to proceed with caution. To step back and assess. But he’d done that and it had landed him right back here. In her arms. And if facing down some of the most dangerous wildfires had taught him anything, it was that sometimes you had to walk into the flames to gain some control.
Only karma disagreed, flipping him the bird by blasting her own warning, just in case he had any idea of continuing this . . . here.
“Shit,” he said, resting his forehead against hers.
Harper pulled back, her lips wet and warm from his, her eyes lit with hunger and confusion as the red light above the patio strobed in sync with the ear-piercing bell.
“Time to go.” And there they were, the last three words he’d ever said to Trent, seconds before the flames engulfed them both. The same three words that defined the rest of his life—and Trent’s death.
Three words Harper would get real familiar with if she let this continue.
Promotion or not, Adam’s career would forever send him into some of the most heated shit storms, personal and professional, without a moment’s warning.
Harper wanted stable, and his life was as unpredictable as a wildfire.
Only instead of peacing out, like any normal woman would do—like Harper should do—she gifted him one of those smiles and said, “Be safe.”