Page 56 of Body Check

Not when I’m coiled so tight that I’m on the verge of snapping.

Ofbeggingher to reconsider and give us another chance.

“Answer me this.” I sound gruff, voice cut from stone. The tip of my finger goes to her chin, lifting gently so that I can look into her blue eyes. Get a read on her—on everything she’s thinking but won’t allow herself to say out loud because that’s who Holly is, who she’s always been.

I was the first to bring the L-word into the conversation.

The first to mention forever.

And then the one who looked into her gorgeous blue eyes and read what I knew she wouldn’t say out loud: she wanted a divorce.

Fuck that.

“Answer me this,” I hear myself repeat, no less gruffly, “how many times have you thought about what happened in that hotel room?”

Her lids fall shut, severing our connection as though it’s too much for her to take.

Not happening, sweetheart.

I grip her chin, then slip my hand to curl around the nape of her neck. My thumb glosses down the smooth column, the shadows of the night kissing the very same skin that I touch. “Don’t you dare retreat.”

At my low command, her eyes spring open and her fingers yank hard on my T-shirt. “Please, Jackson.”

Dropping my mouth to the fragile skin I’m caressing, I kiss her neck. A gentle nip. A soft tug on her ear. A scrape of my teeth that has her breath rattling loudly in my ears like a white flag of surrender.

Her free hand jumps to my bicep, her nails digging into my muscles as her head falls back, a sultry moan slipping from her lush lips. “Oh, God.”

Not God.

Just me.

The patient man who knows exactly what she needs to drop her steel armor and let him inside.

Letmeinside.

“Answer the question, Holls.” My thumb swoops low, along the underside of her jaw to tilt her head just the way I want it—at the perfect angle to catch my kiss. I hover my lips over hers, refusing to eliminate those final few inches to heaven on earth until she answers. My control slips, the rapid tempo of my breathing slipping into a tight race with the thunderous roar in my head. “Answer. The. Question.”

Her warm breath washes over my lips. “Every day,” she whispers, “I’ve thought about that kiss every damn day.”

“Good. Now you can think about this one, too.”

19

Holly

Jackson’s kiss is seduction in its purest form.

And the irony isn’t lost on me: the man kissing me now is the warrior who plays on the ice, the man who elicits fear from his opponents, the man who commands a room simply by existing in it.

He tempts me like no one else ever has.

Slays me with nothing but his dark eyes on mine.

Sabotages my plan to keep things platonic and easy and uncomplicated by backing me up against the side of his car and devouring my mouth with his.

I want to hate him for it.

Instead, I cup his face with my hands, thumbs tracing his stubbled jawline, and sweep my tongue along the seam of his lips.

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