Taking On The Billionaire (Redhawk Reunion #1) - Robin Covington Page 0,18

Tess ran her tongue along his bottom lip and she felt rather than heard his groan at the touch. Adam tugged her around to face him, his large hands on her hips as he pulled them flush against each other. He slanted his mouth over hers, tongue now invading as he deepened the connection between them.

The noise around them faded into a blur of music and voices as they sank into each other. He tasted of beer and heat and the promise of something darker. Her hands wandered over his chest, the softness of the T-shirt fabric covering the hard muscles underneath. Tess was dying to lift his shirt and find out what was hiding under the clothes but this was not the place, although they had decided that it was their time.

Adam broke the kiss, his hands lifting to frame her face, fingers tangling in her hair. “I’ve got something I want to show you.”

“I’m pretty sure I want to see it,” she answered, allowing the leer to coat every word.

Adam took a step back and held out his hand, the dimple showing when she slipped her hand in it. “Well, then, let’s go.”

Seven

“This is not what I expected you to show me.”

Adam hooked the helmets on the back of the bike, turning to watch Tess as she paced the length of the long patio behind the Lick Observatory. It was clear tonight, the stars brilliant against the dark sky, so bright that you didn’t even need the huge telescope housed in the observatory building just to the right of where they stood to see them.

“Well, one of us needs to get their mind out of the gutter,” he said, sputtering out a laugh when she whirled around, green eyes wide and hands on her hips in indignation.

“Oh really?” Tess sauntered toward him, her stride half dangerous swagger and half sensual invitation. “If you haven’t noticed, this place is closed. Are the cops going to show up and arrest us for trespassing?”

Now it was his time to swagger, and it was easy when being with Tess made him feel ten feet tall. He moved toward her, meeting her in the middle of the patio, reaching out to pull her flush against him. Adam loved her curves, her breasts, hips and ass reminiscent of the pin-up girls of the 1940s. But what made her absolutely mouthwatering was the way she owned her body, the utter confidence she had in her power as a woman.

Women in his family’s wealthy circles lived as though their money or connections gave them what Tess had naturally. They hid behind designer labels and expensive vacations that were handed over to them on a platter and never had to fight or scrape for their place in this world.

But Tess was a self-made woman, independent and strong, and he didn’t even have to know all of her story to know that she’d had a rough time of it. She was everything he wanted and even more than he was sure he could handle.

But he’d be damned if he wouldn’t give it his best try.

“We don’t have to worry about the cops.”

“Sure about that?” Tess asked, running her hands up his chest and over his shoulders, her fingers tangling in his hair. Her touch was electric, lighting him up from the inside out, brighter than any star in the sky.

“I’m as sure as a half-million-dollar donation to the observatory foundation last year.”

“And I thought my twenty-five-dollar donation to the fire department was living large.”

“Did I tell you that this is one of my favorite places?” Adam asked, taking her hand and leading her over the stone wall running along the edge of the overlook that led to the wooded valley below. He stood behind her, one arm wrapped around her waist and the other gesturing toward the broad swath of sky surrounding them.

“I used to come here and stare at the stars. We came here on a field trip in school and I fell in love with the way this sits so high above everything. It reminded me of the mountains where I lived when I was little and how you could hike to the top of the ridge and the stars seemed like they were so close you could reach out and touch them.” He pointed to a different area as he named each constellation in turn. “The Big and Little Dipper. Orion’s Belt. The North Star. I could come here and I knew that the