That, that he hated himself for.
“Don’t ever, and I mean ever, do that again.” She straightened her shoulders, took a deep breath, and let go of the counter behind her. Though he supposed she was trying to look tough, she looked about as menacing as a peewee hockey player who hadn’t learned how to handle a stick yet.
He might hate himself for pushing her there, but he wasn’t going to let her see his regret, his guilt. “I’m an easygoing guy, Mel, but if you keep pushing my buttons, I will damn well keep pushing back.”
“Yeah, well, unbutton my buttons and prepare to lose some anatomy you hold dear.”
He hated to lose his temper, didn’t like to feel all that rushing regret after he went off the handle or did or said something stupid. Because there was a voice inside his head telling him to step back, cool off, but the anger and frustration pumping through his veins made listening to that voice impossible.
So he stood toe to toe with her, and purposefully touched the top button of her shirt. He brushed his thumb across the hollow of her throat. “That so?”
Her eyes held his. She didn’t shiver under his touch, didn’t melt, didn’t slump or cower and make him feel like a total dick. She stood there. Still, yes, but like some untouchable thing. Like some goddess trying to decide if she’d deign to let him continue to think he could touch her.
“You know what?” she said, not moving, not looking away, not anything, her eyes boring into his. “This is stupid.”
“I agree.” Except he had no idea what he was agreeing to. He only knew she wasn’t swatting his hands off her, and she wasn’t stepping back. She was standing there and any insecurities or weaknesses from earlier had disappeared.
The woman in front of him right now looked like she could knock him flat with one blow. One word.
Instead, she knocked him flat with one kiss.
Chapter 6
Mel had never in her life made a mistake that felt so good. A shocking punch of melted heat centered at her core. The rough bristle of his chin scraped her skin, causing her to shiver, but the heat made her insides feel like liquid.
No kiss had ever made her feel this good. So good, she couldn’t even regret it. Because it meant Dan’s mouth was on hers, his big hands gripping her hips with all the strength and precision of someone very used to being in charge.
She would let him be in charge. She wouldn’t even question it, because his hands held her exactly where she needed to be for his mouth to explore hers.
Her palms flattened down his smooth, bare back with a mind of their own, and something growly escaped his mouth as he pushed her back against the counter until she couldn’t go any farther.
She was a woman who rode horses and faced down cows and clomped through all manner of labor-intensive chores every single day. So much so that she never felt small or fragile or dainty, but somehow, being pressed to the counter, feeling the definite outline of Dan’s erection against her stomach, she felt…
Like a siren or a seductress. Someone soft and curvy and beautiful who could bring a man to his knees with a whisper instead of a blow.
She had never in her life wished so desperately for a man to take off her clothes. To feel big hands stroke over her skin. She had never felt an ache this sharp, this needy. Never in her life considered making a mistake so…enthusiastically.
She wanted this mistake like she wanted survival. The thrill. The release. Something that wasn’t weighty. That didn’t squeeze around her lungs and her heart.
Here it was. In her reach, against her mouth, pressing up against her entire body. Here was the mistake she’d never allowed herself to make. There was no responsible, sensible part of her brain surviving this.
So she accepted it. The heat. The desire. Even the desperation. The way her blood throbbed in time with need. She let his tongue explore, take. She let go.
She ran her hands up over his shoulders and then down his chest, letting her fingertips absorb every shock of attraction, every exciting inch of his warm skin, but he caught her wrists halfway down, stopping her before she got to his stomach. “I’m a little soft these days,” he said against her mouth, interrupting the kissing.
She blinked at him, her mouth still all but pressed to his. Her body definitely pressed to his. Which was not soft. At all.
He was famous and had money coming out of his ears. He was gorgeous, and that little flicker of self-consciousness over his not one hundred percent in shape hockey body—even though in her book he had to be sitting at a 99.9 percent—undid her. She didn’t want to dwell on what it said about her that his weaknesses were the things she couldn’t fight.