Page 12 of If Love Had A Price (If Love 3)

His disbelieving laugh filled the air. “You’re joking.”

“I don’t joke.”

“You’re seriously making me sign an NDA?”

“I have a fifty percent deposit waiting for you—in cash—after you sign.”

Five minutes later, Nate handed over the signed contract and NDA in exchange for $7,500 worth of green. He split up the hundred-dollar bills, tucking some in his wallet, the inside of his jacket, and even his socks.

Instead of weighing him down, the money buoyed him up. How many shifts would he have had to take at the cafe to earn that kind of money? Too many. And now, he’d gotten it without having to do anything except scribble his signature on a few documents.

He’d looked the contract and NDA over—they were straightforward enough. It wasn’t like Nate was planning to tell anyone about his and Kris’s agreement, anyway.

After a night of agonizing over whether to accept her offer, he’d concluded that he would be an idiot to pass up the opportunity. Black-and-white morals were a luxury when you had a family to feed and a roof to keep over their heads.

Besides, Nate could get Kris her incriminating pictures without having sex with her father’s fiancée. The right angle captured at the right moment could work magic on a person’s imagination.

As for breaking up someone else’s relationship…

Nate felt a stab of guilt. He was no home wrecker. But if he had to choose between his family and someone else’s, he’d choose his. Every time.

“Paranoid, aren’t you?” Kris watched him stuff the last of the cash in his left sock.

“You can never be too careful.” He smiled a slow smile. “I’m missing one part of my payment, though.”

“I told you, I’ll pay you the rest—oh.”

Kris had agreed to Nate’s One Kiss stipulation—not verbally, but in the contract. It had been one line, buried in the middle of legal mumbo-jumbo, but it had been there.

“Fine. Get your kiss.” Kris lifted her chin.

Nate stepped closer until they were mere centimeters apart. She smelled like warm amber and lush florals—rich, sensual, and so damn sexy he wanted to bury his face in her hair and fill his entire being with her scent.

He grazed his knuckle over her cheek and along her jaw. Her skin was softer than velvet, and he’d bet his last dollar that having all that softness wrapped around him while he pounded into her would feel like heaven.

Kris had concealed the earlier heat in her eyes with a concrete wall. Those big dark irises betrayed no emotion, but there was no mistaking the faint pink tint on her skin or the quick, shallow rise and fall of her chest.

She wanted him to kiss her.

Nate curled his hand around her back of her neck and leaned in until their lips almost touched, and Kris’s eyes fluttered closed.

He wanted to devour her. To throw her on the ground, shove her dress up, and take her right then and there, witnesses be damned.

Who knows, maybe the teenyboppers over there would learn something.

Instead, he moved his mouth to her ear and nipped her lobe.

Quick. Gentle. A promise of future pleasures to come.

“Not yet,” he whispered. “I’ll kiss you when you’re begging for it.”

A wicked grin slid across his face when Kris’s eyes flew open and she shoved him away.

Anger and a hint of frustration touched her features before she shut it down. “That’ll be never.” She tossed her thick dark hair over her shoulder. “Not that I care. You’re the one who insisted on a kiss. If you don’t want to claim it, that’s your problem.”

“Oh, I’m going to claim it.” Nate slouched against the stone column, confidence oozing from every pore. “And when I do, you’re going to remember it for the rest of your life.”