Page 12

chapter

six

Scar Tissue – Red Hot Chili Peppers

CAMPBELL

Feeling as stunned as she looked, the bag of peanuts slipped from his fingers.

A surge of raw desire jolted through him, hardening his cock beneath threadbare denim he knew wouldn’t hide the reaction.

“You’re either crazy, Hellcat”—grabbing her elbow, he hustled her into a deserted equipment shed—“or you’re fucking desperate. ”

“Maybe I’m desperate for a?—”

“ No .” He shook his head, studying her as flecks of dust floated down through the slice of sunlight piercing the tin roof. Hunger surged through him, so intense he had to fight the urge to shove her against the shed’s wall and show her exactly how desperate he was.

Still, the faint beam of light revealed Fontana’s flushed cheeks and the way she nervously chewed her bottom lip, as though she’d just blurted out something dreadful. Skilled enticement, it was not.

Her unease froze him in place, pulling his focus from his body and into his mind.

Relief washed over him, though he couldn’t explain why. “All I can say is, you don’t know what you’re asking.”

Her chest rose and fell with a deep breath, her incredible eyes never leaving his. Yes, I do , they seemed to say.

She wasn’t like his stepmother, a woman who’d offered sex as casually as money at a drive-thru window.

Lust he could control; anger, he couldn’t.

“But I’ll tell you this much: you’re playing with the wrong man.

I’m neither virtuous nor honorable. Never have been.

I played the gentleman once, but don’t push your luck.

I don’t like to go too many days without. ”

She smiled, the tilt of her lips faint and uncertain. “If you were virtuous, do you really think I would have asked?”

For a blind, blazing second, Campbell entertained the idea of accepting her insulting proposition.

It was too easy—far too easy—to imagine her lean, long-limbed body beneath his, her lips parting in a cry of pleasure as he sank deeper than he’d ever allowed himself, those throaty moans circling his ear, wrapping around him like a spell.

Sassy and defensive, with a sharp thread of intelligence stitching together her gaze, she wasn’t typical—or his type.

Senseless, but he knew the combination would make for a mind-blowing lover.

He took a step back, never having been attracted to unsophisticated women, no matter how beautiful they were.

And this one was gorgeous without even trying.

Considering her gall, maybe he was foolish to think she was innocent, but something…

goddamnit, something , tugged at his last remaining moral chord.

Vulnerability shimmered off her like sunlight on the surface of a lake. Fontana Quinn would’ve been mortified, he imagined, to know it.

While he stood there, reasoning, her hands fisted in his sweatshirt as she backed him into the shed's wooden wall. It rocked with a harsh creak, scraping his calf and knocking his cap to the ground. His Hellcat was stronger than she looked.

And determined.

Up on her toes, her lips pressed to his before he could take a breath—or close his eyes to enjoy it.

Campbell muttered a weak denial against her mouth, but she took advantage of it, slipping inside.

The kiss was hesitant and not quite... right . As though neither of them knew what to expect.

But it didn’t matter.

The teasing flavor of her hit his tongue as the scent of honeysuckle rolled over him like a wave.

No matter her suspected inexperience, she knew her way around a kiss.

Desire surged, igniting an instant, fierce reaction.

His dick hardened with the quick rush, his chest burning with want .

He tilted her head, deepening the contact, bringing her into the cradle of his arms. She melted into his touch, and he pulled her body flush against his, fingers tracing the soft line of her jaw as he kissed her with a desperation he couldn’t control.

Fontana tasted of mint and soda, crisp fall mornings and aching artlessness.

His hands slid into her hair, releasing the silken strands to tumble over her shoulders, a sensual shroud.

She moaned, arching into him, pleading without words.

He answered, drawing her closer, their bodies a sizzling press from chest to hip.

Her fingers circled his shoulder, clung, then tangled in his hair as she breathed her agreement against his lips. When her nails scraped his scalp, his control shredded.

A guttural sound escaped him as his mind flooded with images of all the ways he could take her. Sparks fired his brain, peppered his skin. But the flutter in his stomach, the powerful swell of affection, of belonging , had him gripping her shoulders and pushing her away.

Dragging his lips from hers even as he hungered. Yearned .

Campbell concentrated on her hand, clenched in the folds of his sweatshirt, smears of dirt streaking her skin.

Slender fingers, ragged cuticles that looked like she chewed on them, a crescent-shaped scar on her thumb.

He exhaled slowly through parted lips, steady, deliberate.

But the faint fragrance clinging to her, subtle yet persistent, sent his head spinning.

If he waited another minute, he could let her go and mean it.

“Why did you stop?”

He blinked, lifted his head. Fontana’s azure eyes, wide and unguarded, brimmed with curiosity, suspicion, anticipation…lust. Offered up like an unwrapped gift.

She didn’t even know how to play the game.

He’d gotten so jaded, he didn’t know how not to play.

“Fuck,” he whispered, stepping into her, his lips finding hers without hesitation. She rocked into him, against him, her sigh echoing through the small enclosure. Zero to sixty in seconds—tongues tangled, battling for control.

Campbell would have given it up, didn’t care, as long as she didn’t let him go . The thought burned through him, melting his ardor, exposing something raw beneath it.

Something that felt a lot like fear.

Stumbling, he kept his gaze anywhere but on her as he snatched his cap from the ground, flicked off bits of pine straw, and tugged it on.

“I’m already booked. Did you happen to notice the blonde on the field?

She and I, well…you know what they say, getting the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than getting it in. ”

He heard her swallow as she backed away, each step driving something sharp through him. “So, the charmer I met by the roadside has decided to save his perpetual hard-on for someone else.”

He glanced up, praying the rush of heat didn’t mean he was blushing when he’d gotten a handle on that years ago.

But, he was lost from one look. Sapphire eyes blazing, slim shoulders squared beneath her butt-ugly shirt, lips swollen and rosy, and her nipples— ah, shit —hard dents he just couldn’t ignore. No bra for this woman.

All at once, she was real. Much too real .

Every woman in his memory paled, crumbled to dust, and blew away in the breeze.

He might have bought her tough act if not for the tremor in her fingers, the way her hands suddenly clenched into fists.

Striding back to her, his fierce whisper echoed off the walls. “What kind of trouble are you in?”

“I’m not in trouble. Not really.” She dipped her chin, looking utterly defeated. “Not anymore.”

He lifted his hand, and in a move he would never, ever forget, she flinched, rearing like a frightened filly, before he could trace the curve of her jaw. All he’d intended.

“Fontana? Did you…” He lowered his arm, rage surging through him. “Did you think I was going to hit you?”

“No.” Breathless. Dishonest. A lie. “You moved so quickly and I—I wasn’t looking. You startled me, that’s all.”

His jaw tightened. “I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t care what you believe.” Her fingers traced the edge of her sleeves, pulling them down—a defensive gesture that spoke volumes.

Two measured steps carried her away, then she paused.

What it cost her to look back, he couldn’t calculate.

“You asked me what else you can do. Love your brother. And your grandfather. They need you.”

Troubled and confused, Campbell ducked out of the shed as Fontana headed for the gravel parking lot, her hair catching the breeze, a slight limp throwing her stride off balance.

His stomach clenched, hollow except for a few sips of soda.

The fool woman had offered her body but refused to call him by his first name. Worse, she flinched like an abused? —

Realization dawning, he scanned the liquid blue horizon, seeing nothing and absolutely everything.

Who had touched her? And why did the thought of it make him want to kill the bastard?

He slammed his fist against the side of the shed, cursing whoever had put Fontana Quinn’s hunk-of-shit Jeep in his path.

If he’d left Atlanta an hour earlier, he wouldn’t know. Wonder. Care .

The very reason—no matter the cost—he refused to take photographs of people.

Pain, misfortune, grief seeped like sweat from the skin in a photograph.

He’d shouldered enough of his own, and he had no desire to see anyone else’s.

Through a viewfinder, it all came out. At least it did for him.

Looking at Fontana moments ago had been almost as bad. Both of them stripped down to a base layer, sensitized to each other in a way he knew wasn’t the norm. Covered in sharp edges that sliced if you let them.

Campbell pinched the bridge of his nose to ward off a headache and prayed no one came along to talk about fucking baseball. His emotions were raw, his skin tender from her touch, the scent and taste of her tangled inside him. They’d been locked together like two puzzle pieces, a near-perfect fit.

And…he’d seen her.

For a few fleeting seconds, he had seen the woman beneath the sturdy veneer.

Dropping his chin to his chest, he realized something had happened to him that had never happened before.

He’d stepped inside another person’s soul without a camera standing guard between them.