hand she toyed with the fastenings on his old button-down shirt.
Whoa whoa whoa all over again. Her absent fiddling was way too close to undressing for someone like himself, made stupid by lack of sex. He caught at her fingers, his eyes widening when she winced.
Frowning, Tanner turned over the slim hand. Her palm was scraped and cut, the wounds fresh.
Oh, God. Here it came, roiling up from his toes, over his knees, filling his chest. He took a breath, hoping there was still room to be found in his lungs. His protective streak was as wide as the Pacific Ocean, and ten years in the Secret Ser vice had only deepened all the instincts he'd been born with and then been raised to uphold. Heroism might have skipped this Hart so far, but not the drive to protect and serve.
"What happened here?" snapped out of his mouth, in true agent style - clipped and commanding. "How'd your hands come to look like this? Who hurt you?"
"I - I fell. Twice," she said, her eyes all big on his face.
Ooooh, great, Hart. Now you're scaring the ladies. Shit. He gentled his hold. Lifted her palm so he could press a butterfly kiss on the worst of the damage. "Did someone cause you to fall?"
Her gaze still glued to his, she shrugged.
He took it for a negative. "Okay. Good. Fine." Touching his mouth to her hand again, he tried to relax, but the adrenaline was still in him, stiffening him...everywhere.
God, just when he thought he couldn't get any harder.
"Um...uh..." she started, her gaze still glued to his face.
He held himself still, waiting for her to finish her thought. Maybe she wanted to know if there were Band-Aids on the premises. Or if he ever planned on letting her up from the little love nest he'd created with his body.
At the thought, for some stupid reason his senses, his urges, his damn dumb brain screamed in protest. But really, it was for the best, right? He'd held on to celibacy for eleven months, and once he completed this little favor he was starting for his former boss tomorrow, he'd be able to get back to his old job. Finally, he'd be in charge of his own life again.
There was no sense in taking the chance of fucking that up to night with a woman. He couldn't afford to be late, distracted, or even smelling like some other chick's perfume when he met Hannah Davis the next day. For the sake of his future, it was imperative he make a stellar first impression on her.
Tanner released an inward sigh. "Deborah" looked too Goody Two Shoes for a one-night bang anyway, and that's all he had the time or inclination for.
"Uh, Finn?" She appeared to be steeling herself for the big, Get lost, handsome.
So he steeled himself to grin and hear it. "Yeah?"
"Is there someplace we could...uh, go? You know..." She ducked her head. "...just for tonight?"
The American Rose peeked at him through lashes with a look that was half innocence, half seduction. And Tanner was already more than half a goner, just with that. Then he remembered more. God, had she really said it had been four years for her?
That clinched the decision.
To hell with everything, he decided, pushing her off his lap, but keeping his tender hold on her hand. To hell with his good intentions, his vow of celibacy, tomorrow's important meeting. After all, what could one night hurt?
And anyway, the whole goddamn world knew that Tanner Hart was no hero.
FROM THE DESK OF HANNAH DAVIS
Things I Hate about New year's
My noisemaker never goes off.
Chapter 4
Perched on a corduroy-covered couch, with a half-downed tumbler of white wine in her hand, Hannah realized that if someone made a movie of this episode of her life, they'd run a warning across the top: Do Not Try this at Home.
But that was the whole point, she reminded herself. She wasn't at home. She was hundreds of miles from there, and from the Hannah who had never made an unapproved choice, let alone released a single inhibition.
She was also a little drunk (more than a little?), but she wasn't going to use that as an excuse...or as an excuse to leave. Though without a doubt she would have advised a friend against going to bed with a stranger -
Just then her stranger walked back into the living room of his small bungalow and her stomach jumped up and down like a preteen presented with her