Courting Innocence. Kimberly Dean

      ‘Erin,’ he said patiently.

      Grabbing his tie, she pulled him to her. ‘I just put out. You owe me dinner, Colton King.’

      He started to look away again, and she did the only thing she could think of.

      She kissed him.

      She pressed her mouth to his and felt him flinch – and then freeze. It gave her an opportunity she wasn’t going to miss. Coming out of the corner where she’d plastered herself, she moulded her lips more intimately against his. For as stern as his mouth could be, his lips were soft.

      Erin’s senses sang.

      A shudder went through him, but then he pulled away. She followed, cupping the back of his head and sliding her fingers through his silky black hair. Hesitantly, she brushed the tip of her tongue against the seam of his lips.

      A hiss left his lungs, but then he was kissing her back.

      Tilting his head, he brought their mouths into full, open contact. His tongue glided against hers, and need surged inside her. Erin felt so light, it was a wonder she didn’t float right off the seat. She had to get closer, needed to feel the press of his body. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she rose higher on the seat. One of his arms snaked around her, and it was only natural for her to climb on to his lap.

      With a tug and a turn, she straddled him as he sat with his legs spread wide in the middle of the expansive back seat of the Town Car. What had started as a soft, tentative kiss was bubbling into something hot and barely under control. Their lips clung as they bit and rubbed at one another. Erin slid her hands under Colton’s coat and felt his hard chest. His heat poured through his dress shirt. She slid her hands down to feel just how far that hardness went.

      His hands weren’t still either. They’d caught her about the ribcage to help her move onto him, and the balls of his hands pressed into the sides of her breasts. He ground into the softness, but then his hands skimmed downwards. They closed over her hips, and Erin let out a moan.

      She was still tender down there.

      The sound was enough to break through to Colton, and he jerked his touch away. ‘Erin,’ he said, his voice raspy as he pulled out of the kiss.

      He caught her hands against his stomach before they could do any more damage.

      Erin looked at him, her eyes heavy-lidded. He was beautiful. His hair was mussed, his eyes were dark as night, and his lungs were working like bellows. That muscle in his jaw had relaxed, and his hands, although firm, were holding hers in place instead of pulling them away.

      Happiness made her chest ache. Years of wanting, aeons of unrequited longing, and she’d finally had a taste.

      She leaned in for more, but he stopped her. ‘We can’t do this.’

      ‘Yes, we can,’ she whispered. And they should. It was good between them. Lightning and thunder and magic.

      Nina had said they were a perfect match.

      Before he could do his lawyer thing and argue her into submission, she reached for the communication controls.

      ‘What are you doing? Stop –’

      She laid a finger over his lips.

      ‘Driver?’ she said, her voice unnaturally smoky. ‘We’ve changed our mind. We’d like to go to dinner.’

      She rubbed the pad of her forefinger gently across Colton’s lower lip. ‘I’m hungry.’

       Chapter Five

      Colton tied one on that night, intentionally and almost desperately.

      He sat in the living room of his row house with the lights off, nursing a Jack Daniel’s. He’d stripped down to only the dress pants he’d worn on his ‘date’, because he still felt hot all the way through. He eyed the amount of liquid still in the bottle. Actually, he wasn’t nursing it all that well. He was pounding it back hard. Tomorrow was going to be hell.