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But the only thing Sloane could think about was the outline for the other story, and before she’d been able to even blink twice, she’d cranked out another chapter and a half.
“I do enjoy the process,” she started slowly, liberating her wine glass and moving to sit across the table from Gavin’s inquisitive stare. “But it’s not always that easy. Book ideas move fast, and they don’t always obey the laws of logic or reason. Sometimes, the end result arrives first, and it’s right there in my brain. If I don’t rush for it, it might disappear, or change, orsomething,and then I’ll miss it entirely.”
“So, you just keep your eye on the prize and never stop moving.” He cut his chicken with surgical precision, each stroke swift and efficient, and Sloane wondered how something so mundane could be so unexpectedly sexy.
“I can’t stop moving,” she said, emphasizing her point with a shake of her head. “There’s too much to soak in. If I go slow, I’ll lose my groove.”
Gavin took a few bites, his brow pulled low in thought before he said, “Did you ever stop to think that if you go too fast, you might miss what’s right in front of you?”
Sloane took a bite of her own, and not even the rich, earthy flavors of the food could distract her from the irony of it all. “If that’s the case, then I can’t win either way.”
“Not necessarily.” He settled his gaze on her, and her muscles gave an involuntary tug around her bones as his words darkened with suggestion. “It’s possible that you could have the best of both worlds.”
“How’s that?” Sloane managed, but her heartbeat had already kicked into full hammer mode. A small part of her warned that she still didn’t need the distraction of getting involved with someone, even casually, right now.
But the part of her that wanted him to kiss her until she could no longer stand canceled that other part right out.
“You just have to strike a really good balance.” Gavin pushed back from his spot across the table from her, and there was no mistaking his destination. She stood so fast that she forgot to put down her fork, and he took it from her fingers with a lazy smile.
“If you slow down just enough, I bet you’ll find what you’re looking for.”
Reason flooded her senses now, reminding her that she could blame sleeping with him once on a flight of fancy, a mutual heat-of-the-moment thing. But sleeping with him again—hell,feelingthe way she felt right now—well, that bypassed impulsive and went right for the heart of stupid. Five weeks from now, she’d be living out of a suitcase, writing an exotic novel and saving her hard-earned career.
But right in this moment, she wanted his hands on her.
Sloane arched toward him in one swift motion, searching and finding all at the same time. Gavin’s breath left him on a heated exhale while he slanted his mouth over hers, diving in for just a brief taste before cupping her face.
“We need to work on your idea of balance,” he murmured, smiling against her lips. She fought back the whimper being generated by her chest—and a couple of parts due south.
“But, I don’t want to miss what’s right in front of me.” She pressed closer, dying for the electric feel of his touch, but he drew back just before she made contact.
“Then slow down and find it.”
Gavin tilted her face so their lips met again in a soft rush of skin and heat. But rather than coaxing her mouth open to deepen the kiss, he moved with soft intention, letting the place where their mouths came together rise to a slow simmer. When she parted her lips in encouragement, he didn’t give in. Instead, he slipped a palm around her neck, stroking her sensitive skin with just enough pressure to make her bite back a moan.
He swept his tongue over her bottom lip, drawing it gently between his teeth before letting go to start over again, and holding back went from unlikely to impossible. Urgency flared, deep in Sloane’s belly, and it guided her arms around the leanly muscled landscape of Gavin’s shoulders. His body tensed under her hands, but—to her frustration—he refused to be swayed. Instead, he kissed her with just enough pressure to move the breath from his body to hers, teasing her lips and tongue with a dark suggestion that made her body spark to life.
Sloane arched up even higher, tightening her hands into fists over his navy blue T-shirt. Gavin pulled back, just far enough to look at her, shaking his head.
“If you keep that up, going slow isn’t going to be much of an option,” he said, not advancing, but not pulling back either. Oh, God, his chest was as close to her body as it could be without touching, and the anticipation forced her to close the space.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Her murmur fell into the spot where his collar met his neck, and she turned to trail eager kisses along his jaw. She skimmed her lips back toward his, searching for more, and the friction of his freshly emerging stubble beneath her hyper-sensitive mouth tightened her nipples to hard points.
“It’s not a bad thing.” He caught her face between his palms, his eyes glittering. “But I don’t want to rush. Not this time. Not tonight.”
Gavin placed the barest hint of a kiss on her mouth like a promise. “I want to show you what’s right in front of you, Sloane. But you’re going to have to let me. What do you say?”
20
“Yes. God, yes.”
Sloane whispered the affirmation against Gavin’s mouth, and even though he hadn’t thought it possible to want her more than when she’d shown up unexpectedly on his porch, flushed with cold and yet so blazingly hot at the same time, his body proved him wrong. The idea of finally being able to have her slowly, to learn and re-learn what she sounded like when he touched the gentle hollow above her collarbone, skimmed his fingers around the dip of her navel, grazed his teeth over her bottom lip with just enough pressure to make her gasp—all of it made him hard without so much as a touch from her. The look on Sloane’s face as she’d talked about plowing through life at warp speed had only made him want to slow her down all the more.
Starting right here in the kitchen.
With his chest still pressed to hers, Gavin swung her around. He guided her backward through the kitchen until they reached the first available flat surface, which turned out to be the refrigerator.Good enough,he thought, angling Sloane against the smooth expanse of stainless steel, gently trapping her body there with his own.
“Oh!” Her cupid’s-bow mouth parted as he pressed her more tightly to the cool surface, and he dropped his lips to hover right over her ear.
