She lifted a shoulder, distinctly unimpressed.

Huh. This wasn’t going quite as planned. He decided to try her favorite thing-words. “Okay, here’s the thing. I’ve never been much of a romantic. Honestly, I’ve never had to be.”

“Because women always throw themselves at you.”

Well, yeah. In the past, that was definitely true, not that he was stupid enough to say so. “Does it count that there’s no one, no one I’d rather be with right now?”

She opened the door a few more inches, standing there all whiskey-eyed, her lips shiny with lip gloss that smelled like…watermelon.

He loved watermelon.

“Right now,” she repeated. “As in you might change your mind a minute from now? To what did you call it? Scratch the itch?”

Okay, he was beginning to sense an attitude. “I’m sorry. I’m…really sorry. But it’s been a helluva long day, and I’m dead-ass tired, and to be completely honest, I’m out of practice at seduction. You are sweet and beautiful, and you have a way of being positive no matter what the hell is going on. It’s sexy as hell, you’re sexy as hell, and I just want to be with you.”

“Well, there you go,” she murmured. “The magic password.” And she opened the door all the way.

He smiled in relief. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Look, I know I’m leaving, and this is just fun, but I didn’t want to be like all the other women who’ve been in your life. In and out. Gone and forgotten.”

“You aren’t. You won’t be.”

She stepped aside for him to come in. She wore jeans and a long black sweater, with bunny slippers. Her hair was loose and shiny. Everything about her stirred him up, but he had to ask, “You like that I’m out of practice at seduction?”

“Uh-huh.” She stepped close, smelling like heaven. “Our first time, on the rocks, it wasn’t practiced or old hat. It was real. And so was afterward, when you came to my cabin when you thought you’d get me out of your system.”

He let out a long, shaky breath when she pressed up against him. “Apparently it didn’t take.”

“Which is unusual for you,” she said.

“Yeah.” When she locked her arms around his neck, he ran his hands down her back and did his best to inhale her in, deep inside, where she always, always made him feel good.

“I told myself whatever happened here with you, I just wanted it to be real.” She looked at him, really looked at him, the way only she seemed to do, and he knew she saw things that he couldn’t hold back, things he didn’t show to anyone else. “And it was,” she whispered. “Real.”

She was sweet and hot, and more than a little crazy, and she completely slayed him. “I thought you wanted it to be great.”

“Oh, I think we’ve got that part covered as well.” Pressing her face to his throat, she breathed him in, too, as if she needed that as much as he did; then she sighed in pleasure. “Cam…” Her mouth was near his, her hands sliding beneath his shirt, her fingers-frozen solid, thank you very much-running over his flesh. “Maybe we should do what you came here for.”

Yeah, maybe they should. Bending his head, he rubbed his jaw to hers. Everything about her felt new for him. New and wild and just a little bit out of his control. Yet somehow she was also slow and steady, more than any presence in his life. Her hair was all around him like a soft, silky cloud, and he closed his eyes and just kept breathing her in like she was his lifeline. “I wanted you all damn day. For days. I wanted you all hot and sweaty and panting my name.”

“Tell me no one’s going to need you for the next few minutes,” she said breathlessly.

A few minutes. That’s the best she thought he had. He had to laugh; then he kissed her, filling himself up with the scent of her shampoo, her warm skin, loving having her soft curves pressed up against him. “This is going to take longer than a few minutes.”

Her glasses fogged, and he pulled them off, getting his mouth on hers again. She opened for him, but he didn’t deepen the kiss, not yet, because the high of the anticipation was flowing through him now, and for the first time in his life, he was enjoying it instead of trying to race it, because it all made some sort of crazy sense.

Being with her was making crazy sense.

He’d been so careful with himself, holding back, not giving anything of himself away. Building defenses one layer at a time.

But she’d stripped those layers away, one at a time, painstakingly, leaving him totally and completely bare.

And still he stood there, holding her. Wanting her. “I plan to take my time with you, Katie.”

Her breath shuddered out. “I don’t think-”

“Perfect, go with that,” he murmured against her mouth, picking her up.

“Your knee-”

“Is fine, now shh. No thinking. Nothing but this. Hope you’re not tired.”

Her breath caught. “It’s going to take that long?”

Not if she kept looking at him like that. So he leaned in, murmured “all night,” and then kissed her, waiting until her eyes fell closed before closing his.

Chapter 23

Katie’s heart executed a slow rollover in her chest as it exposed its underbelly.

All night…

All night worked for her. Yes, it did.

“Your room,” Cam murmured huskily in her ear, his arms tightening around her as he carried her across the cabin.