Page 45 of Ruff and Tumble

“I didn’t notice it until right before you got here,” she said, showing him the white spot on her wrist.

“I don’t care about your damned pajamas,” he said, grumbling in a way that only made her want to start laughing again. She didn’t think she’d ever heard him that irritated before—not even in those postgame interviews where they asked deeply offensive questions about why he lost. “This is the second time I’ve been interrupted in the middle of kissing you, and I don’t like it now any more than I did the last time.”

She pulled her lower lip between her teeth and did her best to look solemn. “I’m sorry?”

His laugh came out in a chuff of warm air. “You are not. If you were sorry, you’d kiss me back instead of treating me like the guy who guesses people’s weight at the fair.” When she didn’t say anything right away, he added, “No one likes the guy who guesses people’s weight at the fair.”

“His mother probably does,” she pointed out.

Something she said must have pushed him over the edge again, because he once again fixed his gaze on hers, the laughter mingling with something more—something that caught in her chest and tugged.Hard.

“Hailey Lincoln, for the third time, I am going to kiss you. Not—as you are about to incorrectly guess—because of your pajamas or because I have inappropriate reactions to things but because I find you adorably and irresistibly charming. It was bad enough when you stood in front of me and told me all the ways my game is lacking. When you sit there and tell me all the ways it’s not, I cannot and will not be held accountable for my actions.”

Hailey’s eyes opened wide, the tugging in her chest now more of a hammering.

“And if you dare—dare—to laugh at me this time, I will continue kissing you until neither one of us can stand on our own two feet. We’ll roll to the carpet, a mess of our former selves, and not get up again for hours.”

This was such a nonsensical thing to say that Hailey was in perilous danger of laughing again. She might have done it, too, except one of Cole’s hands moved down the side of her neck, his fingers trailing along her skin in a way that left nothing but shivers and sensation behind.

“Understood?” he asked, his eyes boring into hers.

She swallowed and nodded. It would have been so much better to give him back his own again, to call his bluff and see how far he’d take his threat, but words were beyond her. No one had called her adorably and irresistibly charming before. No one had looked at her quite like that before, either.

“Good,” he said and kissed her.

This kiss wasn’t at all like the other two. There was nothing tentative or gentle about it, no light exploration of his lips against hers. There was heat and there was pressure, and then Hailey stopped being able to think about much of anything at all.

Feelings, however, were everywhere.

She felt the glide of his tongue along hers, playful at first and then increasingly demanding. She felt his hand tangle deeper in her hair, his fingers winding through the strands until their separation wouldn’t be an easy thing. She felt him shift so he hovered more possessively over her, felt the heat and the strength in every part of his musculature.

She also felt her own response to the kiss, mortifyingly passive as she struggled to accept that this was really happening. Fortunately, she felt no desire to laugh this time around. A woman didn’t laugh when a man was kissing her as though he’d never felt anything as good as her mouth opening up to his. A woman didn’t laugh when her entire body had turned to hot, throbbing gelatin, apparently unable to lift a hand but more than capable of emitting a soft moan that he captured with an even deeper kiss.

“That’s the exact same sound you make when you’re embarrassed,” he murmured, the words pressed against her lips and then the side of her mouth and then—dear God—along the curve of her jaw toward the sensitive prickle on the side of her neck. “I like it.”

She gasped as he pressed a kiss just below her earlobe—hot and wet and impossibly soft. Her whole body jerked in reaction to it, the intimacy and the unabashed pleasure, the way it set off a series of sparks that traveled insistently toward her belly.

Hailey had never been more grateful for anything than that kiss. Something about the thrill moving up and down her spine finally brought movement back to her limbs.

The first thing she did was twine her arms around his neck, latching around and pulling him down so he had no chance of escape. The second thing she did was draw him close for another round. She paused just before she touched her mouth to his.

“You like it when I’m embarrassed?” she asked.

“I like it when you’reyou.”

And there it was. She was done for. Any chance she might have had of making it out of this moment—out of this entire situation—in one piece was gone. She wasn’t foolish enough to believe that Cole Bennett saw her in a seriously romantic light, but it didn’t matter. Her heart had always been like that. Too soft and too unprotected, too eager for love and acceptance to care that it was being used. She couldn’t count how many men she’d scared away by the strength and immediacy of her feelings, how many just plainfriendsshe’d scared away the same way.

Life would have been so much easier if she’d just learned to wall up her stupid heart when she’d had the chance.

It was a good kiss, their tongues meeting in the middle and their bodies pressing with equal urgency against each other. The hot sweep of his mouth over hers was matched by the willing press of her own. His low groan of approval had nothing on the increasing sighs and moans that she was unable to hold back. Just when Hailey couldn’t remember the last time she’d breathed, her whole body awhirl with sensation and pleasure, Cole yanked himself upright.

“Holy mother of God,” he said, staring at her. His hair was slightly messed up and his eyes a deeper blue than they’d been before, but other than that, he showed no signs of exertion.

He wouldn’t, of course. He was a trained athlete, a man who could spend three hours running up and down a field without growing fatigued. A hot five-minute make-out session wouldn’t have the same effect on him as it did her.

Which, if she was being honest, seemed to be the physical equivalent of running a marathon. Twice.

“What?” she retorted, breathless and so flushed that she could feel the heat throbbing in her cheeks. “You started it.”