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Cisco raised a brow, still leaning over the table. A slow smile tilted the corners of his mouth upward. “I didn’t take you for a coward, Hilly.”
“A coward?” she repeated, glowering. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do,” he continued to taunt. “You find me just as fascinating as I find you, but instead of going with those feelings, you’re convincing yourself that it would be a big mistake to explore what might be between us. I think it’s a defensive thing you probably do quite often.”
Hilly didn’t like being called a coward, nor did she like Cisco’s insinuation that she routinely sabotaged pending connections…even though he was spot-on.
What should her response be? He was clearly waiting for one.
With one sharp inhale, she thrust away her fear, leaned across the table, grabbed Cisco’s cheeks between her palms, and laid the kiss she’d been fantasizing about smack dab onto his chiseled lips.
She almost groaned as he softened beneath her touch, and when his mouth parted slightly, Hilly couldn’t help but inch her tongue forward to take a deeper taste.
The growl that emerged from Cisco’s chest woke her up, and with a gasp, she pulled back, putting feet between them again, appalled at how forward she’d been.
Cisco’s eyes were closed when she moved, and remained that way until he eventually sighed. “That was…great. Really great. But why do I have a feeling you’re going to tell yourself it was a mistake?”
“Because it was,” Hilly rasped.
She rose on shaky legs. “You’re you, and I’m me,” she attempted as a way of explanation. “We’re at opposite ends of the spectrum where… things like what just happened are concerned. I’m sorry if I’m giving you the wrong impression, but it seems like you were trying to provoke me into doing something, and?—”
Cisco’s dark eyes snapped open and instantly held her captive. “Yes. I was trying to provoke you, Hilly. Because I had a feeling if I made the first move, I’d scare you off.”
Hilly huffed, still shaken. “There you go again, calling me a coward.”
He chuckled wryly. “If I’d known that was all it would take to get you to react the way you did,” he replied with what sounded like honesty as he looked up into her eyes, “I would have done it yesterday, at camp.”
A staccato laugh escaped around Hilly’s clenched jaw. “And if I’d responded then, the way I did just now, I wouldn’t have dared show up here today.”
“Why, Hilly?” Cisco asked with such sincerity, she felt compelled to answer.
“Because I don’t let people into my life without thoroughly vetting them first. And because I’m not the most practiced individual when it comes to…this kind of stuff.” She pointed a finger between them. “I had one long-term boyfriend in college, and he assured me our mediocre physical relationship was all my fault.”
“Then he was an ass,” Cisco told her, scraping back his chair and standing up. He waved a hand at the front of his sweats, bringing her attention to where a significant tent had been erected. “Do you see what you’ve done to me with only a single kiss?”
Hilly felt color wash up her face in massive waves. Shit. The man did not just indicate his massive hard-on? Massive. Who did that?
“You…you must be reacting like that solely because I’m someone new,” she managed to squeak.
“Someone new, and someone good,” he responded without hesitation. “Now tell me, Hilly, if I walk you to my front door and try for a second kiss, are you going to shut me down?”
If Cisco could read her mind, he’d know that not only did she want to feel his lips again, she wanted to rub all over that fine protrusion he was sporting. She just wasn’t that bold, so…
“If you really want to,” she answered, staring at her feet, “I won’t stop you.”
He threw back his head and laughed, and Hilly brought her gaze up, watching, fascinated, as the muscled cords of his throat flexed with his movement. She’d never thought of a neck as sexy before, but Cisco’s was beyond lickable.
“That’s quite an endorsement,” he finally managed, wiping away a tear of mirth that had appeared at the corner of one eye. “But I’ll take you up on it, and see if I can’t do a better job of impressing you this time.”
He rounded the table, took her elbow gently with his hand, led her back into the kitchen, then toward his front door.
“Is there anything you need to get before I put my arms around you? Because that’s where they’ve been itching to be since the minute you showed up.”
“I…don’t think that’s a very good idea,” Hilly found herself answering in a very small voice. “You’ll hurt your chest.”
He scoffed. “I guarantee my chest won’t feel a thing. Especially with the interest that will be piqued in another part of my body.”
Damn. Cisco didn’t hold back with the graphics, and Hilly found herself liking that. A lot. It’s what she’d felt was missing with Brad. Mental titillation to make the physical side of things work better.