the way she had been when he’d first arrived.
“There’s just one little problem, though,” he said.
She struggled to concentrate. “What’s that?”
“What happens when a kiss blows our mind? What happens when it isn’t enough? Because I’m pretty certain that’s what’s going to happen.”
“You are?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, you’ve been so honest with me. And I have to be honest in return. We can’t sleep with each other. It would complicate things. But this...maybe we can have this. And hope that’ll be enough?”
He didn’t agree with her. She hadn’t been expecting him to. And though she’d said the words, though she’d meant them and knew they had to be said, she didn’t quite believe them herself.
“Well, here goes...” he said.
And covered her mouth with his.
* * *
KISSING NINA WHITAKER felt fresh.
New.
Like he’d never kissed a woman before, and for a man of Simon’s experience, that was saying something. It troubled him at first. Made him hold back. But when she seemed to melt—her mouth parting, her body relaxing into his—he couldn’t hold back anymore.
Groaning, he opened his mouth, slanting it to get at her better. Deeper. His tongue didn’t so much invade as it took with confidence of its welcome. She’d admitted she wanted him. Hell, she’d initiated and justified this kiss even as she’d warned him he couldn’t have more. That thought grated at him. Spoiled the pleasure he was experiencing more than he wanted to admit. But he forced himself to push his agitation away.
Here. Now. They could have this, she’d said. And he was going to take advantage of every last second of it.
God, he’d missed this. The closeness of a woman. Her softness. Her scent. They highlighted his strength and cautioned him to be gentle even as they urged him to let down his defenses. Yet even as he wallowed in the familiar feeling of intimacy, he was acutely aware, once again, that this was different. She felt different. Tasted different. Smelled different.
Better than anything or anyone he’d ever had before.
Her tongue tangled with his, rubbing almost shyly against him, and he lowered his hand to the small of her back, urging her closer. Her breasts pressed against his lower chest, and though he’d thought something about her car and then her house didn’t quite fit, that wasn’t true for their bodies. They fit. Divinely.
He was breathing fast and his skin prickled and he wanted more. He wanted to strip her. He wanted to pick her up and carry her to her bedroom. He wanted inside her. Now.
“Simon,” she gasped, and he became aware of her hands, not pulling him closer but holding him away. He pulled back. Or tried to. His body didn’t cooperate the way he was expecting it to.
Not that he could blame it, really.
His hands had fallen even lower to cup her ass and his lower body was pressed tightly against hers. That warm, sweet juncture between her thighs cradled his erection and without his conscious thought, he was pushing into her, as if he could get through the barriers of their clothing and into her warm moist heat by sheer will. Her eyes were wide. Slightly shocked.
And he felt that same shock rippling through him.
Holy fuck. What was this? He’d been planning on enjoying a kiss. He’d been looking forward to challenging her statement that a kiss wouldn’t lead to anything more. But he hadn’t been expecting to be swept away by his own passion for her. Forget passion. By his own need.
He couldn’t need her. He wouldn’t.
But he wasn’t an idiot, either.
Working together was going to be damn difficult. Even more difficult than he’d anticipated.
Forcibly, he uncurled his hands from her flesh and took a step back.
He cleared his throat. “You said we can’t sleep together because it’ll complicate things, right?”
Slowly, she nodded.
He took a deep breath. Released it. “I think we already hit complicated and dove straight into a fucking mess.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ON MONDAY MORNING, Simon pushed back from the old newspaper articles he was reading and cursed.
Nina Whitaker wasn’t just rich. She was connected. Well connected.
She was the daughter of Charles Whitaker, a former governor of South Carolina.
He shouldn’t be surprised, he thought. Even without the Pacific Heights mansion, she screamed class and pedigree and affluence more than any woman he’d ever met.
Yet part of him had been surprised. Because of the car she drove. Because of the porn flick she’d been carrying when he’d first met her. But mostly because of what she was trying to accomplish. Why wasn’t she in South