Page 341 of The Trouble With Bad Boys

“Sounds right up your alley.” She glanced around. “Do you have a cutting board? Where do you keep your pots and pans?”

In his refurbished kitchen he showed her the lay of the land, and where she could find everything she needed. He also grabbed a bottle of wine from the small collection that hung in a crosshatch frame beneath a cupboard. He used a wine key to uncork the vintage he pulled and poured them each a glass.

“What about you?” he asked, half-sitting on a stool at his island counter, taking a sip of wine. He leaned forward, intrigued. “Where have your passions led you?”

A puzzled expression claimed her features. “What do you mean?”

“You were quite the photographer. You always had your grandfather’s old camera around your neck. You’d take pictures of your family, kids in the neighborhood doing skateboard stunts or sidewalk chalk art, and me with my jam buddies at garage band practice down the street from Isaac’s house. We had big plans of using your photos for the cover of an album we were never going to make.”

“I loved that neighborhood,” she said wistfully, chopping the tops off bell peppers on a cutting board, then slicing the colorful vegetables into thin strips. She added them to a pan she drizzled with olive oil and added a few spices before she wiped her hands clean on a kitchen towel. “I rode my bike there almost every day after school. Mom worked her second job four nights a week, and I had so much freedom. I still have photo albums stuffed with those pictures. I developed them in photography class before the school lost interest in funding that ancient relic of a room and everything turned digital. Then I set up my own developing lab in my basement.”

“I know.” A wealth of innuendo infused his voice.

I was there.

Lara could practically hear those unspoken words, obvious in his sultry expression, the inviting tilt on his handsome lips, the smoky look in his eyes.

Be careful, she warned herself. Don’t fall for him again. He’s not the commitment type.

The next thing she knew, he’d risen from the stool to come around the island and smoothly glide behind her. He planted his feet on either side of hers. His hands flattened on the countertop, and she noticed muscles rippling in his strong forearms where he’d casually rolled up his shirtsleeves.

“We were standing together like this,” he said, “in your darkroom. You were showing me the trays with different chemicals you used to develop the photos. Something about seeing you share your passion under that dim red light…I had to touch you.”

Mirroring his motions from that steamy long-ago moment in time—forever branded in her memory and emotions—he stroked his hands along her sides, shaping his palms to her contours. She swallowed a sigh of longing.

His attention still felt thrilling, enticing, dangerous in a daring way. Something about an unavailable bad boy never failed to make a rule-following good girl swoon. Pure, volatile temptation.

“I swept your hair to the side like this,” he said, reenacting the experience in real-time, “before I kissed the back of your neck.”

When his lips touched her, Lara shivered. Her skin tightened pleasurably from her scalp to her toes curling in her high-heeled boots.

How could he still have the same compelling effect on her, all these years later?

Now, like back then, she completely forgot what she was doing, lost all awareness of her surroundings. Distracted by the heat coursing through her veins and the fluttery sensations swooping through her belly.

He set her on fire.

The fingertips of his other hand trailed up her arm and goosebumps scattered. Her body betrayed her determined detachment when desire curled through her abdomen invisibly beckoning her.

“Have you ever fantasized about how it would feel, again, if I kissed your neck like this?” He dragged his open mouth down the column of her throat. His hot breath coated her neck in a fine mist.

The tip of his tongue flicked a pulsing vein. She held onto the steadiness of the counter since her knees had turned to slush.

“Because I have. I remember your taste, how good you feel in my arms.”

He gripped her hair and tugged until her head rested on his shoulder. His free hand traveled a bold path over her ribs, between her breasts, and the tips hardened in response. His thumb dipped into her cleavage before his fingers swept up to nudge her chin toward him.

His forearm flattened against her hip bones, pressing her back against his hard body. Damn him and his wicked charm, his uncompromising seduction.

No mistaking the ridge of his powerful erection. Her mouth went dry with yearning. Despite their sensual explorations years ago that had introduced her to pleasure for the first time, they’d never been naked together.

Would that change tonight? Did she want it to?

She leaned into him, cupping a hand around the back of his neck, and pulling him toward her. “I’ve missed you.”

“What did you miss?” he asked, holding back instead of delivering the kiss she craved.

She turned into his arms. “Everything about you?”

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