Can’t Fight This Feeling by Miranda Liasson

He got in her face. And oh, those big brown intelligent eyes up close, those chiseled cheekbones, so much more defined than her own, which really were such a waste on a man. That thick, pitch-black hair, so thick a woman’s fingers could get lost in there.

She tried to back up a step, but he moved forward. “Maybe. Let’s start by being honest with each other. Do you want me, Maggie?”

“We’re not talking about—that. Back off already.” She pushed on his chest a little. A mistake. Because it was hard as boulders and made her knees go weak. “Besides, you just—flinched when I touched you.”

“I think we need to do what you said, talk about it. I flinched because I felt what I think you feel too. That there’s something going on between us. What are we going to do about it?”

She flipped her hand dismissively. “It’s all that touchy-feely stuff we’re doing in front of your family. That has to stop.”

“This has nothing to do with playacting,” he said quietly. “And I think you know that. “That kiss on the court… It was real.”

“That kiss was…impulsive. Heat of the moment, fueled by our hard-won victory.” Joking now was not stopping the shivers that were running up and down her arms. Or the hot and cold coursing through her veins. Somehow, she sensed how it would be between them. Wild. No holds barred. And God help her, she wanted that.

She tried to pull some common sense out of her sex-addled brain. It would be a very bad idea on both their parts to forget their troubles with a sweaty round of sex, wouldn’t it?

Yet wasn’t that what she’d wanted? To get her life going again? To have an opportunity to meet someone she could maybe share her life with and make a family for Griffin, even if she wasn’t anywhere near expecting the soul-binding love she’d experienced with Corey.

 “I—I’m not in the right place for a relationship,” she said.

“And yet you were ready to have a fling with Greg the Fireman.”

“That was different.” She sensed danger with Drew. The ability to drill down to a place deep inside her that she’d buried for a very long time. And she was terrified to let anyone in that far. “I don’t even really know you,” she said. For some reason, her voice came out in a whisper.

“You know enough.” His gaze was piercing right through her, hot and quick, and all her willpower started circling the drain like Griffin’s bathwater in their ancient claw-foot tub.

There were so many things about him she didn’t know. She had no idea what he’d ever seen in Sondra. Or many details about what had happened between him and Anika. But maybe she didn’t care.

“We could keep it casual.” He shrugged his elegant shoulders. “A little fling could be good for both of us. Release all that tension.”

“Absolutely not.” But his words were velvet, conjuring images of his body and hers, his lips roaming over her, his hands…

He was very close now, staring at her lips, moving in for the kill. And her head was humming and her knees were wobbly and her heart was fluttering crazily. He was so close, she could reach out and touch those big shoulders of his. Run her hands down his powerful arms. Circle his sweet neck with her arms. She didn’t even care that he was a little sweaty. And dear God, she was so, so sex crazed, she wasn’t sure she could control herself. But, like a magnet drawn to the fridge door, she could not turn away.

Finally, he snuffed out the space between them and lowered his mouth to hers.

Oh, his wonderful mouth. His lips were soft and seeking, tentative at first as he took his time learning the feel of hers. He tasted like cookies and tea and his own uniquely intoxicating taste. From the start, these kisses were completely different from the ones they’d done for show in front of his family. Needy, more aggressive, unleashed.