Page 80 of Hottie on Her Shelf
“I like how you think.” Fitz was still grinning as he lowered his mouth to hers.
Hallie rose up on tiptoe to meet him halfway, because she threw herself into sex with the same focus and interest that she attacked a stack of books. It was adorable—and arousing as fuck.
He lifted her off the ground with one arm around her waist, twined his hand through her hair to angle her head just so, and then devoured her. It had to be fast. They could be discovered any second.
Fast and hard.
Their teeth clinked a couple of times. Finesse was out the window. It was all need and heat and lust. Their mouths fused together into one long, unbroken kiss. Fitz was so turned on he thought he might burst through the zipper on his pants.
Hallie twined her legs around his, both her hands cupping his skull as if to prevent him from moving so much as a millimeter away from her mouth.
Like that would happen. Not when Fitz was engulfed in its sweet warmth. Hallie tasted faintly of the chardonnay they’d been drinking. She smelled of flowers and citrus, and she felt like heaven melting in his arms, moaning, and rubbing against him with a fervor that ought to be striking literal sparks from their clothing. Fitz ran the tip of his tongue along the satiny inside of her lower lip, and then finished off with a nip of his teeth.
God. He wanted to sink his teeth everywhere. To give…yeah, to give the first hickey since he’d accidentally left his last one on Maria Silverman under the bleachers during freshman homecoming. Leave a mark so he wouldn’t have to be so nonchalant to the world about Hallie.
So that everyone would know she was his.
Damn it, that was a stupid instinct. Stupid enough to throw cold water on the moment. Fitz eased back, set her on her feet. “When you go back to the table, tell them I had to take a call. That’ll give me time for this whole situation,” he gestured to the tenting at his crotch, “to disappear.”
“Pick up where we left off later?”
“You’d better believe it.”
…
Okay. Fitz’s kisses had fueled her up. Hallie could take whatever nastiness the Montgomerys dumped on her. They were his parents, they loved him. That had to count for something, right?
Maybe she should ask them to tell funny stories about him as a kid, and abandon trying to have a decent conversation about the town and maybe being mayor and just play to their strengths. Because they clearly weren’t budging on the whole your last name must end in -gomery to know what is best for Swan Cove.
“Good that Fitz didn’t come back first,” Caroline said as Hallie sat down. “We’d like to broach a subject with you.”
Excellent. Hallie crossed her arms on the table and leaned in with a big, open smile. “That’s why I’m here; to discuss any topic you care to put on the table.”
“Information has come to us regarding your parents.”
Hmmm. Come to them? A spy pigeon flapped through their window with a note taped to its foot?
Doubtful.
More likely they’d done opposition research. More likely that…oh! “Is there any chance a certain ex-campaign manager brought this to you?”
Preston drew himself up even more ramrod straight. The I-beams holding up this restaurant had nothing on the spine of a self-righteous man. “Fitz had no right to fire Derek. He’s savvy and knows far more about campaigns than my son. Just because he sent him packing doesn’t mean Derek’s not still working on the campaign behind the scenes.”
This was bad. Fitz would go ballistic. Should she tell him? Should she wait for him to find out organically? Maybe wait until after tonight’s promised sex, when he was loose and practically comatose and then tell him?
With a raised eyebrow, Hallie asked, “What does Derek thinkhe knows about my parents?”
“That they’ve declared bankruptcy,” Preston said in a flat tone.
Disbelief washed over Hallie, followed quickly by worry, bookended by anger. “First of all, you shouldn’t pass on rumors like that unless you’re certain they’re true.”
“Derek heard it from the lawyer who filed their papers.”
That was very, very bad, for all sorts of reasons. “Then he should be disbarred. What about lawyer-client confidentiality?”
“The man’s handling a bankruptcy. No doubt he feels confident your parents aren’t in a position to sue him.” Preston’s whole attitude screamed who cares about the little people. It was infuriating. “Besides, no names were used. It was all couched in vague terms and hypotheticals.”
“Then it sounds like nothing more than an ugly rumor to me.”
