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“Why? Because you’re a strong, domineering quarterback?” I challenged.

I didn’t know why I was provoking him, only that the hours we spent upstairs not touching, drove me insane. I wanted him more than I wanted him last night. I sang, knowing his eyes were on me, burning into my skin, and reminding me of everything we did together.

He pulled me against his chest, pinning my arms behind me, roughly. “Call me adorable again,” he dared me.

> I studied the strong jaw, the cut of his cheekbones and those green eyes that haunted me all day. “Adorable,” I whispered. “You’re adorable, Luke Canton.”

His lips crashed on mine, and his mouth moved wildly, sucking, biting, twining his tongue deep in my mouth. He let go of my hands as I reached up to wrap them around his neck. His hands snaked under my shirt, clawing at my back.

“Oh, God,” I moaned. I was going under again, being pulled by my animal need for him.

He bit my lip. “Can we go back to your place?” He nipped at my throat, grabbing a handful of hair at the nape of my neck.

“I checked out this morning.” I breathed. I looked around for a place to hide. A place to be with him. But we were in the bottom of a parking garage. There was nothing down here but concrete and cars.

“My place.” He kissed me harder, reminding me how tender my lips still were from last night. It was a beautiful kind of torture.

I nodded. “I have some time before we fly out.” I couldn’t let go, though. My lips were seared to his in a heated kiss. I swear there was fire in his lips. They were glazed in cinnamon.

Somehow my one-night stand, my one night to fly my hellcat sex flag, had slowly started turning into something else. Luke had compassion under that tough exterior. Under the tattoos and the chiseled muscle he wasn’t selfish. And as much as the bad boy image had drawn me to him, I knew the new things I was learning about him were the reason I wanted to stay longer. There was more to him than the dangerous fire he lit inside me.

I clung to him, wanting all of it. The kisses. The fucking insane sex. I wanted my body gliding over his. We had to get back to the ranch before we both burst into flames.

“Luke, I want you,” I whispered.

“Me too. Last night all over again,” he growled, his hands dragging through my hair. “I want to fuck you here, Alexa. Right here.”

I moaned, feeling him press his erection against my hip bone. He was hard as steel. Steel that knew no limits. I wobbled on my knees thinking of how he could use that steel to make my toes curl. To make my limbs tremble. To make me claw out for more.

“Take me home, now,” I urged.

And then we both heard it and saw it. The flashes. The clicks. We had been so lost in our own world we hadn’t heard the footsteps or the whispers.

We froze. I stared into Luke’s eyes. Whether we wanted it out or not, the world was getting ready to find out I kissed Luke Canton in the basement of the newly christened children’s hospital.

“I’ve got this,” he whispered.

He threaded his fingers through my hand and pulled me behind him.

“Come on, I’m parked over here.” He took off, tugging me after him. I ran, trying to keep up with his long stride.

But we could hear them. The press was behind us. I thought they had left through the front entrance of the hospital after I posed with the nurses and doctors. It was the final picture. Jake had checked to make sure they had cleared out before he let me venture near the parking garage, but somehow they had outsmarted my devilish manager.

“Lexi!”

“Luke!”

“Are you two dating?”

“How long has this been going on?”

“Lexi, do your fans know?”

“How are they going to feel about this?”

I felt his hand clamp down harder on mine as we got to his truck. He unlocked it with his remote, shuttled me into the passenger side, and we peeled out of the parking garage. I didn’t know what to say, and looking at Luke I realized what he meant last night when he said he didn’t talk.

We both stared at the road, neither one of us able to come up with the first words. I didn’t know what I felt. The shock had wrapped around my body. Luke still held my hand tightly, while he drove with the other on the wheel. That felt like something. He was some kind of anchor. But was it the kind that was going to make me sink?