Page 24 of Wild Card

“Holy God,” he muttered.

I love you, her soul sighed back.

“Well, there’s a fantasy crossed off my list.”

She turned, propping her chin atop her folded hands, enough to watch the recessed lighting tease into his mesmerizing gray eyes. “Which fantasy would that be? Getting to play with this starship disguised as a bed?”

“Close, but no.” He twisted her hair around his finger while biting his bottom lip, then lifting a shit-eating grin. The look was so hot, she swore she was wet again. “Gettin’ the chance to put my personal signature across your gorgeous backside.”

Yep. Wet. Officially.

She pulled in a breath, closing her eyes. “It was…very nice.”

Sam pushed the pillow higher under his head, using the new angle to contemplate her more closely. “You mean that, don’t you?”

She let her smile widen. “To be honest, my own fantasies have danced a little around it.”

His gaze turned the color of smoldering charcoal. “A little…or a lot?”

“Depends.” She met his stare directly, sensing he still didn’t fully believe her. “If it was one of my daydreams, then just a little. But if you caught me alone at home, thinking about you in bed…”

“You’ve thought about me? In bed?” When she nodded again, he pressed, “And…daydreams. You’ve thought about me at the office, too?”

She stalled for a moment. Maybe one more. Shit. Talk about blabbing oneself into a corner. How much did she reveal before it was too much?

Or was anything too much?

What was the worst thing that could happen? That she spilled her heart tonight, then things turned bizarro-kitty for Sam and her? Wasn’t like they’d have to endure the weirdness forever. Two weeks and he was bugging back to Scotland for good.

Fourteen days. Somehow, two weeks of the awkwardness tango seemed a tinier price to pay than the lifetime after: the disgusting what-if of never saying anything at all.

“You’re a damn hard one not to think about, Sam Mackenna.”

The corner of his mouth jolted up. It was a look he’d flashed a thousand times before, part bashful and part resolved, but never had it carried tonight’s extra element: utter sensuality.

“And you’re an impossible one not to think about, Jenny Thorne.”

While she dealt with the flying senses and gooey bloodstream from that, his features twisted with a new expression. It didn’t make her uncomfortable but it sure as hell wasn’t easy to take in.

“Is that…a problem?” she asked tentatively.

“The fact that I cannot stop thinking about you?” A fraction of his grin returned. “No, mouse. Not that.”

“Not that?” The echo didn’t lend a molecule of insight. “But there is a problem?”

He pointed to the foot of the bed, where the cuffs still dangled as proof of the pleasure he’d just given—and taken from—her. “That was fairly much my fantasy. But now that you’ve admitted it met a few of yours, we’re sittin’ at an impasse.”

“Why?”

He cupped the back of her neck. Massaged his long fingers upward, against her scalp. “Because now it’s your turn.”

“For what?”

“For fantasies bein’ granted.”

She laughed. Loudly. Couldn’t be helped. “Is that so?”

The corners of his eyes and mouth tightened. “Hmmm. Yes. Impasse.” He rose to his haunches, once more giving him the advantage of height over her. Height—and the authority leant by that damnably gorgeous kilt. “But you should be forewarned. I’m wicked good at conquering impasses.”

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