Page 70 of Hard to Handle

But he just stole my breath with the simplest of kisses, and I’m not quite sure how to feel when I know I want to feel everything.

So when he releases one of my hands and runs his fingers down the side of my cheek before kissing me again, I don’t fight him like I should.

I don’t think of KSM and what’s right or wrong professionally. All I think about is wanting to forget.

Who I am. Who he is. The possible repercussions, and the throwing my own principles out of the window to just enjoy the moment.

The warmth of his lips.

The tenderness of his touch.

The taste of him on my tongue.

The sense of calm mixed with desire that he’s evoking in me.

How is it possible to want all of this without there being any fallout—professionally or emotionally?

The kiss ends, but the whirlwind of emotions sparking back to life inside me doesn’t.

“Now who’s playing dirty?” I murmur, my mind as scrambled as my hormones.

But when desire darkens his eyes and turns up the corners of his lips, I realize what we’re doing. Here. In the snow. One hundred feet from where his teammates could be coming out of the club at any moment.

I’d like to think reason takes hold, but it doesn’t. Nerves do. Pure, flustered nerves have me saying, “Snow angels,” in a spontaneous burst of words as I roll out from under him.

“What?” He laughs the word out as he runs a hand through his hair to shake the snow out of it and shifts to sit on the ground.

“Snow angels,” I repeat, “Come on”—I tug on his arm—“make an angel with me.”

“There are a million things I want to make with you right now, Dekker Kincade, and making snow angels isn’t one of them.”

Our eyes hold as I’m mid-angel—arms above my head, legs spread out—but I love watching his defenses crumble. I love that he gives in to the moment and plays with me when he flops on his back and starts making angels.

Our laughter is loud as it rings through the night, dotted only by the sound of buses air brakes and a horn way off in the distance.

The sound of our swishing stops and silence descends over the park. We stare at the stars in the sky above, clouded intermittently by the curl of white from our pants of breath.

“Christ,” he sighs, as his frozen hand finds mine at my side in the most casual of ways. “Why was that so fun?”

“Because being a kid again is always fun.” I giggle without caring how stupid it sounds.

“It’s easy to forget.”

“You know . . .”

“And here it comes,” he says. How easy it is to get his defenses back up.

“Nothing is coming.” I pause to choose my words as best as I can. “In fact, you don’t even have to respond, but if you need a friend, I’m here.”

His silence is deafening, but then again, I didn’t expect him to up and spill.

But I said it and I’ll let it rest. I know by the tightening of his hand on mine that he heard me.

“Truth.” One word. It’s all he says, and a part of me dies at the sound of it.

“Nah. I’m not playing this game with you. I remember what happened the last time you asked me that,” I say, and I do. It was the first time we hooked up. He asked me if I thought people could do friends with benefits. I told him no. He told me I was stubborn and questioned my resolve. The insults we flung at each other were heartless, the angry sex we had afterward, mind-blowing.

Truth.