He landed flat on his back with a hard thump. She rolled to her hands and knees to face him, grinning with victory. But he lay with his eyes closed, unmoving.
“Gavin?”
Nothing, just the slightest rise and fall of his chest.
Oh hell. What if she’d hurt him? Waiting for him to catch his breath grew worrisome. “Hey,lightweight,” she teased, anxious, “wake up.”
When he still didn’t move, she hurried to his side and looked for possible injury. She put a tentative hand on his neck, and he pounced.
Gavin rolled her under him, pinning her to the floor with a triumphant smile on his stupid, handsome face. “Well, well. How the tables have turned.”
“You cheated,” she sputtered.
“Oh? Really? I was just taking a cue from my supposed victim.” He settled against her, and he felt heavy, solid.
She squirmed under him, as much to distance herself from the arousing heat building inside her as from his actual presence.
He snorted. “Really? This is how you escape from a jerk bent on harassing you?” To his credit, he didn’t lower his whole lower body to crush her, yet he held her too easily.
“We never got to floor work,” she muttered, unable to look away from his eyes. Lord, they really were smoky, mysterious, alluring… “So what do you suggest, Professor?”
He glanced from her eyes to her mouth, then leisurely back up to her gaze. “I suggest you try to distract me again. Then you should definitely knee me in the balls.” He grimaced. “So let’s say you did, and I’ll get off you now.”
She clutched his shoulders when he would have moved, and he tensed. “You mean, like this?”
He immediately dropped like a rock and shoved his thighs between hers, so that her knees splayed on either side of his muscular legs. A nice move. No way to knee him this way, she thought with a moment of humor. Then she met his gaze and stopped breathing.
The look he gave her… She was afraid of going up in flames.
“Like what, exactly?” he asked, his voice husky, his face so close she could count each individual eyelash. And man, he had a forest of them, shuttering the sudden brilliance of his stare.
“Huh?”
His lips curled. “You said, ‘You mean, like this?’ Like what, Zoe?”
The rumble of his voice vibrated through his chest to hers. Caught like a doe in the eyes of a hungry wolf, she dared not blink.
Then she amended her analogy.More like a hungry she-wolf staring up into the eyes of a rangy buck. You’re mine this time, Smoky.“This,” Zoe whispered, as caught in his spell as she’d ever been. She tugged him closer, until she felt the warmth of his mouth against hers.
Zoe didn’t do spontaneous. She didn’t kiss men she didn’t know that well. She didn’t instigate passion until she’d thought through every possible outcome of such a union. Aubrey lived for the moment. Her twin had grabbed life by the tail and pulled with all her might. Yet Zoe couldn’t stop herself…and she couldn’t find it in her to care that she was acting so contrary to her nature.
Like magic, she melted under Gavin, lost in his taste, his touch. To her delighted surprise, he didn’t turn aggressor. Rather, he followed her lead. She deepened the kiss, then heard him groan and yanked his shoulders closer, pressing them together as tightly as two people could be, running one leg against a muscular thigh spreading her wide.
She teased with her tongue, sliding inside his mouth, stroking, licking, and clutching the steel-hard biceps that had gone so tense beneath her hands. To her astonishment, she felt light-headed. And not just from a lack of air.
Whoa.Hel-lo, chemistry. She ended the kiss and blinked her eyes open. He leaned his head back, his eyes closed, as if savoring the moment.
Her entire body tingled, with an express heat centered squarely between her legs, where he pressed most insistently. He had grown more than happy to see her, and that shocking fact sparked a return of the old Zoe.
Did he make out with all the girls on the floor of the gym? Was this par for the course when being “courted” by Smoky Donnigan? Did rolling on the mats lead to rolling in his sheets? Big assumption for Gavin to make, despite her instigating the kiss.
He’d played possum before going on the attack, but no playing pretend now, not with that lead pipe nudging her in just the right spot. She shivered when he did it again. Jesus. She wanted him to mount her right here, right now.
So not standard procedure for Zoe York, dateless extraordinaire.
He opened his eyes, and the pale brilliance snared her. Then he cleared his throat and said in a husky voice, “Great moves, Zoe.” He ran a finger over her cheek, and that unexpected tenderness threw her. “So what now?”
She could handle sexy, raunchy, carnal. But gentle? That unnerved her. So she smiled up at him, then surprised him for the second time that day. She ran her foot up and down his leg again. Unfortunately, that had the side effect of shoving him harder against her.
