Page 55 of Dirty Fighter

“And maybe being kissed by a gorgeous guy who lands somewhere between stranger and—” She shakes her head as I wait on the edge of my seat for her to finish that sentence.

But she just shrugs. “Maybe you are exactly the kind of escape I need.”

Holy shit.

Slow down, asshole. She said, maybe.

“But what I don’t need,” she says, something in her eyes shifting as she slow-motion pushes a finger into my sternum. “Is some overprotective”— her middle finger lands in a poke two inches higher in a push I can’t help liking just a little —“hockey boy…”

Oh, no she didn’t.

“Hockey man,” I correct pointedly, leaning into that single finger just so I can feel the pressure seeping into me and watch as her eyes flare, their focus sharpening inside the span of a single beat.

“Hockey man,” she concedes with a slow curve of her lips that feels more provocative than if she’d stripped naked in front of me.

“Who are you?” I ask before my brain catches up to stop me.

That sexy smile takes on a playful edge that’s somehow even hotter than before, underscoring the contrast and contradictions to everything I believed about her.

“Someone who doesn’t need you”— another poke —“or anyone else”— and one more —“making my decisions for me.” She hooks her index finger in the neck of my shirt, twists and— oh hell, yes —tugs me down to within an inch of her face. “Got it?”

That quiet challenge wrapped up in her defiant softness?

I’m. Done.

Catching her by the hips, I pull her in. “Got it.”

“So you want me?” she murmurs, releasing her hold on my shirt to brush my bottom lip with her thumb.

From the minute I saw her standing alone after that game nearly ten years ago. “Like my next breath, Rowan.”

I touch my tongue to the pad of her thumb and then catch it between my teeth to give it a slow lick.

Her lips part on a soft gasp and, Christ, that low rumbling growl emanating from the center of my soul couldn’t sound more possessive if I thumped my chest and grunted “Mine.”

“Gonna die if I don’t get my mouth on you again.”

She’s a scant whisper away, close enough that I can feel her breath washing over my lips and chin. She smiles again. “Better kiss me, then… Motive is a thing.”

19

Jason

A huff of laughter I never would have believed I was capable of in this moment gets lost in the press of my mouth against hers, swallowed by this crushing wave of rightness and relief. Our lips slide together, brushing back and forth in a deliberate, slow tease that is the opposite in every way of that frantic kiss I took in the rain… Starting with the fact that this time, Rowan looks like she might stab me if I don’t give it to her.

But also… I’m in control.

Of each taste of her I take.

Of every measured sip of her lips.

There’s no rushing. No uncertainty. Just the insane feel of her fingers sifting into my hair as mine bunch in the denim at her hips, pulling her in as close as I can.

She gives up this little moan that tells me she likes it, that she wants more.

Anything.

I touch the corner of her mouth with the slow drag of my tongue.