Excerpted from STOLEN SEDUCTION
Copyright Elisabeth Naughton (January 2010)
Dorchester Love Spell
ISBN: 978-0-505-52795-0
“I hope black’s okay,” Shane said. “I’m all out of milk.”
“That’s fine.”
Shane set the cookies on the coffee table and watched as Hailey brought his favorite Cubs mug to her full lips, sipped and smiled with a sexy little sigh that jacked up his hormones and supercharged his blood. She turned towards the family picture from Christmas. “I love how all the women are grinning and the men are scowling.”
He scratched the back of his head. “Stressful day. Holidays basically suck in the Maxwell household.”
She laughed again. Sipped. Moved down the wall to look at something else. He loved watching the way she moved, as smooth as a dancer with her long legs and slim frame, but with purpose and self-confidence. Suddenly she stopped, and her cobalt eyes grew wide. “Oh, my God. Is that…”
He set his mug down on the coffee table and walked up behind her, looking over her shoulder at the framed fifteen-year-old snapshot on his mantel. “Yeah, it is.
“No way.” She put her mug down and reached for the frame. “How the hell did you meet Jon Bon Jovi?”
“Funny story, actually. It was years ago, as evidenced by my baby face in that shot there. I was working patrol at the time and this guy comes flying down Lake Shore Drive just as my shift’s ending. I pull him over, read him the riot act, and turns out its Jon’s drummer. They’d just finished a concert at the United Center.”
“How fast was he going?”
“Ninety, ninety-five.”
“On Lake Shore Drive?”
“Yeah.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “It’s like one in the morning, the streets are deserted, I’m convinced he’s blitzed. Turns out he wasn’t, just blowing off steam from the set. After a while I give him a warning, I’m too tired to deal with the paperwork anyway, and to say thanks he invites me to this party he’s going to. I wasn’t gonna go but…” He smiled, shrugged.
She flicked a look over her shoulder that was so damn sexy, he curled his fingers in his pockets to keep from reaching for her. “A warning? For ninety-five in the city?”
He shrugged again. “I plead insanity. I mean, it was Bon Jovi.”
Her grin was wide and awe-filled as she turned to trace her finger over the photo. “That is so cool.”
God, he loved the way she smiled. With her whole face, not just her plump, perfect lips. As he watched the shadows play across her features and toned body, he had a sudden urge to see her smile at him like that.
Not a good idea. Remember the last time you had that urge?
The little voice chanting in the back of his head brought reality back into sight, but he worked like hell to ignore it; was sick and tired of living his life by the push and pull of that voice even though he knew it was the only thing keeping him alive these days.
“Kinda ruined me,” he added, hoping to get her looking at him again as he moved dangerously close to her.
“Why?”
His smile returned when she shifted those glittering blue eyes his way once more, the ones that looked like the Caribbean on a cool day and reminded him of what he’d wanted to do with her in Puerto Rico. “I was like twenty-three when that happened. It was just after I’d joined the department. I thought that was normal. Imagine how shocked I’ve been that no other rock stars have been beating down my door, intent on dragging me off to their wacked-out parties.”
There it was, that sparkle in her eyes and that broad smile that showcased her tempting kiss-me lips. Only this time she was looking at him, not a piece of paper. “Wild night?”
“The wildest.”
His groin tightened at the way she was studying him, and he knew he was walking a thin tightrope with her here, now, like this. Not only had it been way too freakin’ long since he’d been with any woman, but she was the trigger that seemed to shut down his brain. Realizing that fact was part of the reason he’d walked away from her three months ago in Puerto Rico. An even bigger part of the reason he hadn’t dragged her upstairs to his hotel room after his sister’s wedding and stripped her out of that clingy black dress with his hands and teeth and toes like he’d wanted to do that whole damn day. And the only reason he hadn’t contacted her since.
Her eyes slid to his lips as he moved just a fraction of an inch closer. “I should probably go,” she said. But she didn’t move.
“You haven’t finished yet.”
“Finished what?” she asked, never once looking away from his mouth.
“Your coffee.”
“Oh. Right. That.” A hint of disappointment edged her words, and when she licked her lips in a suggestive move that made him visualize her mouth running down his bare chest and abdomen, all the blood in his head went due south.
He knew then, without a doubt, that she was feeling a little of the mind-numbing arousal he was. And hell if that didn’t jack him up more and shove the rational side of his brain to the wayside.
Don’t do it.
He rubbed his finger across her cheek and felt her tremor all the way in his feet. “I’ve got one question.”
“Just one?”
Her need-filled voice wasn’t helping. But before this went any further, he needed to know for sure. “Did you pick that bar at random, or did you know Players was my neighborhood hangout?”
“Lisa might have mentioned it. Once or twice.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.”
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