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Watching her phone screen, she took a step back to get a better shot of the splintered floorboards. Her heel popped through a weak spot in the floor and she stumbled backwards. She flung her arms outward but it was too late. Gravity wasn’t about to let her go.
Mateo’s strong hands gripped her waist, pulling her back from the brink and up against his hard chest with enough force to nearly knock the breath out of her. At least that was the excuse she was using to explain why she let her cheek rest against his soft cotton shirt for a few beats longer than needed and took an extra-deep inhale of his spicy cologne. It was all medically necessary.
“Thanks.”
“No problem.” He set her back on her feet but his fingers lingered on her hips.
Not that he had to hold her there. The force keeping her glued to the spot didn’t have a damn thing to do with physical touch. It was all about him. He dipped his head lower, his eyes unfocused and hungry. She licked her lips, needing the sensation and anticipating more.
His grip tightened and he froze, inches away from his intended target. “I don’t need a model’s pity kiss for saving a damsel in distress.” His hands dropped back to his side and he took several steps away.
The words, said so low she barely heard him over the blood rushing in her ears, didn’t process at first. Then her brain made all the right connections.
“You are such a jackass.” Her cheeks pulsed and her heart knocked against her ribs like a felon with a tin cup in a black-and-white jailhouse movie. “I don’t pity you. No one needs to pity you because you’ve got that down to a science already.”
“If it wasn’t pity, then what was it?” He snarled the question.
“Temporary insanity.” That still had her in its razor-sharp talons. “You are the last man in the world I’d ever want to kiss.”
He strutted over, his boots sending up small clouds of dust as he crossed the center’s littered and cracked hardwood floor, stopping half a foot from her. Predatory. Dangerous. Confident. God, the man was her crack and her kryptonite wrapped up together in one muscular package. Her body practically vibrated with need and she parted her tingling lips without meaning to. It just happened.
No. That was a lie. Her right-thinking brain just couldn’t keep up with her bad-behaving body.
“The last man you ever want to kiss, huh? Oh honey, we’ve done a lot more than that.” He framed her cheeks with his strong hands and tilted her face up toward him. His hazel eyes darkened to the color of shaded moss as his gaze traveled to her trembling mouth. “Anyway, you’re a shitty liar.”
God help her, she was, because when he leaned down and kissed her, the last thought she had before her br
ain turned to mush was: Hell, yes.
She fell into the kiss, embracing it with the pent-up need of a woman who’d been denied for an eternity and finally had a peek at heaven. His strong lips teased her, tormented her, tantalized her as desire turned her languid. She wasn’t in a hurry to explore this man. She wanted to take her time to rediscover every hard line and rigid plane.
He groaned against her before taking the kiss deeper, seeking out her tongue with his own. It was as if he’d poured gas on a bonfire as her body turned molten. Forget going slow. The all too familiar desire pulsing between her legs gave her other ideas. Needing to touch him, she reached out and glided her palms up his shirt, her fingers finding the buttons and releasing the top two.
Mateo’s strong fingers wrapped around her wrist like a vise and he broke the kiss. An air of right-on-the-edge-of-out-of-control wildness surrounded him. His gaze dropped to her kiss-swollen lips and her eyes began to flutter closed.
He brushed his thumb across her bottom lip. “You are nothing but trouble.”
If he’d meant it to censure her, then he had the wrong girl. Trouble wasn’t a dirty word when you were a Sweet.
“Maybe you need some of that in your life.” She drew his thumb into her mouth, swirling her tongue around its tip.
His body went rigid and his eyes darkened with desire but instead of kissing her again, he mumbled something in Spanish under his breath, spun on his heel and strode out of the veterans’ center.
Olivia didn’t try to stop him. She’d let him think he’d won this skirmish, or at least that it was a draw. Truth be told, she’d gotten under his skin. Tracing her fingertips across her still-tingling lips, she had to admit, he’d gotten under hers as well. And that hadn’t been the plan at all. He’d already broken her heart once. She wasn’t about to let him stomp it to smithereens again.
Chapter Seven
Silence wasn’t just golden, it was all Mateo wanted in the world—especially after he’d spent the past few days ducking Olivia, her tempting-as-hell lips, her flowery-smelling shampoo in his bathroom and her fundraiser plans. She’d left at first light with Luciana. Not that he was keeping track of her movements, it just made sense for him to stay in the know—not because of what that jackass Hawson, but because it made it easier to keep himself on guard.
Now he finally had all the silence he could want, but not for much longer. The soft breeze carried the sound of gravel being crunched under tires in through the open kitchen window. Steaming cup of coffee in one hand and conches blancas pastry in the other, he padded across the varnished oak floors to the large bay window overlooking his half-mile-long driveway.
The cabin sat at the peak of a long gravel drive and tall pine trees stood guard on the other three sides. Thanks to Mother Nature and the way sound carried up the hill, no one could get within two miles without him knowing.
The list of people he never wanted darkening his doorstep was a long one, but the man heading his way was near the very top. The mayor’s Cadillac barreled toward the house, spitting out gravel from beneath its tires and coming to a stop at the bend in the circular paved parking area big enough for six cars. Mateo finished off the pastry as he watched Hawson, jaw set in a determined line, hustle up to his door. The mayor was a man on a mission.
The pounding on the thick oak front door boomed through the cavernous foyer, echoing through the blessedly empty cabin. Mateo took a sip of coffee and waited. The mayor hammered on the door some more. Someone wasn’t going to be avoided today. Wasn’t that just his luck? Trouble dogged his feet more than that mangy mutt Luciana had taken off his hands this morning for some adoption event. He set his mug down on the granite kitchen counter. It could be worse. It could be Olivia.
He crossed the foyer in time with a third set of heavy-fisted raps from Salvation’s insistent mayor and jerked open the door. Hawson had one hand raised as if about to knock again and a blue piece of paper crumpled in the other.
