Page 18 of Turn Up The Heat

It was right in that moment that time slowed way the hell down, and Shane realized that her face was less than a couple of inches from his. Her green eyes glinted as he looked into them, and he was struck again by the very odd sensation of not wanting to look away. Insane as it was, he wanted to be closer.

He wanted to kiss her.

Shane cleared his throat, not moving. “How many fingers am I holding up?” The lag time between his brain and the rest of him made him wonder if he sounded like an idiot.

Her eyes crinkled around the edges, and she smiled a little even though it looked like it hurt. “None.”

Affirmative on the idiot thing.

“Looks like you’re fine,” Shane said, his voice low. His fingers were still on the side of Bellamy’s face, and somewhere in his brain, a voice screamed that he should move them.

But she looked like she didn’t want him to.

“Mmm hmm,” she agreed.

It was a really terrible idea, but Shane didn’t care. Something high-powered, almost magnetic, was in charge of his actions, charring his free will like toast right there in the alcove.

He placed his lips on hers in the barest hint of a whisper, and for a second, she didn’t move. Tracing her uninjured cheekbone with the pads of his fingers, he curved them beneath her chin and tipped it carefully upward, increasing the contact between their bodies. Bellamy sighed into him then, parting her lips to accommodate his, her soft skin opening to reveal enticing heat.

Not wanting to hurt her, but not willing to let go, Shane swept his tongue across her bottom lip, letting his teeth follow in the gentlest of grazes. Bellamy arched up to him, her tongue darting into his mouth tentatively at first, then filling him so boldly that he wanted to do a whole lot more than kiss her. He slid his hand around the back of her neck, cupping her hot skin, getting tangled and lost in her soft golden curls, until…

“Bellamy? Are you back…oh, shit!”

Bellamy’s entire body seized beneath Shane’s hands, and he pulled away from her in a flash.

Stifled laughter lifted over the muffled background noise of the bar beyond where they stood, while Bellamy wrapped her arms around herself and blushed, clearly embarrassed. “Yeah, I, uh…” She trailed off, unable to finish.

“God, we’re sorry.” The friend who had picked Bellamy up from the garage earlier eyed both of them with a half-smile as she stopped short in the dim hallway.

Bellamy’s expression went from embarrassed to mortified in less than a breath. Well, shit. Who could blame her? Her high-brow friends had just caught her kissing the lowly car mechanic. What had he beenthinking?

“We just wanted to make sure she was okay”—her friend took a step back—“but it seems…well, that she is. So we can just, um, give you some privacy.”

Desperate, Shane shook his head. “No, no. It’s a good thing you came along. Bellamy hit her head, over there by the pole and I was just taking a look.”

Bellamy’s expression morphed into a glower before she averted her gaze from him completely.

“Oh, God, Bellamy! Are you okay?” The girl Shane hadn’t met, a short redhead, came rushing over to Bellamy, and the awkward circumstances of their run-in seemed to be quickly forgotten by her friends.

“I’m fine. It was a total idiot move, really,” she muttered, a swath of blond curls falling across her injured cheek as she tried to hide her face. “I guess I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.”

In the low light of the alcove, Shane could see the look of despair that crossed her pretty features, and he remembered the admission of her bad week. Bellamy opened her mouth, presumably to elaborate on what had happened, but he cut her off.

“It was totally my fault.Iwasn’t looking where I was going, and I bumped right into her. Knocked her off course, I guess. She really needs some ice.”

Bellamy’s head jerked up in surprise, and her eyes narrowed in confusion for a split second before Shane looked away.

This was his out, and he was taking it. “So, if you two can wait with her, I’ll go get some ice from the bar.”

Translation: I’ll send someone back here with some, and then I’ll hightail it out of here as soon as Bellamy is taken care of. Not the bravest of exits, but he had no business getting within a nautical mile of a woman like Bellamy, let alone brazenly kissing her.

As Bellamy’s friends fussed over her, gasping at the mark on her face, he knew she was in capable hands.

He never should have kissed her. And judging from the way she’d glared at him and was now refusing to look in his direction, Shane wouldn’t be making that mistake again even if he wanted to.

He’d be surprised if Bellamy Blake would touch him with a ten-foot pole.

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