Naughty Tonight(5)

What the hell was that supposed to mean? What, exactly, had he missed here?

“Let’s go.”

“Like hell!” Cheers took her side in the matter.

Damn her! Damn them! She’d all but created herself a mob! “Like hell you’re staying!”

She wrenched and fought his grasp as he plowed her from the room and through the nearby kitchen door, down the opposite hall. “Are you crazy? Let me go!” she screamed, and when he didn’t, she called on her crowd, “Help!”

But no one tried to stop him. In the end, everyone knew—Kimmy was his and that wasn’t something to mess with.

“Stop!”

Jackson did just that, pinning her to the wall in the dim corridor lit only by one small overhead light, just out of public view. Only then did he realize he was rock-hard, breathing heavy and jealous as spit. “What am I doing? What are you doing?” Never feeling more possessive over a woman, he flicked her silky bra strap. “What is this?”

Kimmy didn’t wear shit like this. Didn’t act like this. That’s what made her Kimmy. Made her safe.

Safe? Ha! Right about now the girl should have a warning flare wedged between those two luscious, soft breasts… Breasts she’d spent the entire day showing off and driving him mad with.

“Well?” he demanded, wrenching his mouth-watering gaze back to her face and falling head over heels into those bewitching brown eyes of hers. That sumptuous mouth.

“Um, a bra.” Angry irony laced her breathy chuckle and that heated gaze rolled upward, mocking him. “Mission accomplished, I guess…”

“Jesus! I know it’s a bra!” The steel wall he’d constructed against age-old desire went weak, threadbare. His control waned, his cock straining against his slacks. His need suddenly, painfully intense. How, how did he want her so much, so instantly? “Don’t get cute with me, Kimmy! You’ve got to be drunk! And what the hell do you mean, mission accomplished?”

Did she want him to want her?

No. Please no.

But deep down, the truth glared like high beams on a dark road. Kimmy, wearing that damn blouse today. Putting on lipstick. Asking him out.

As if she weren’t hard enough to resist in the first place!

“You know, I absolutely hate when you call me that.” Shoving free of him, she sauntered all of two steps down the hall before he caught her by the upper arm and dragged her back into place, trapping her beneath his body. “And don’t pinch my cheeks, either! I’m not a little girl. And I’m not drunk!”

“Obviously!” If she were, he wouldn’t be so close to hiking up those legs and ramming into her against the wall. Fucking her furiously and easing the beast deep within, taking control, needing to control her. His best friend. The one woman in all the world he trusted to be close to him. The one woman he vowed never to touch, for she meant entirely too much. “Do you have any idea how those guys were looking at you?”

“No. But I know how you were looking at me. Go ahead, lie about it.”

“What’s that mean?” Jackson’s hand clasped her biceps involuntary, squeezing in resistance to what was occurring between them—and shouldn’t be. Couldn’t. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Knew you would.” Boldly, she placed her free hand to the steel shaft lodged in his slacks, laying her palm to his width, fingers curling in claim. Electric currents shot from his balls up his spine.

Oh God. Jackson shut his eyes to what was happening, unable to believe it. “Kimmy, don’t do this.”

Still, he allowed her to cradle his length, to stroke tenderly. Nothing had ever sounder sweeter than her eager response. “It’s already done.”

Hope battled reason, clashing swords with desire. Want her he might, but he knew better. Kimmy was his friend. He cared about her. If they slept together, that would all be over. She wasn’t the type of girl he could just cast aside. One kiss, one night, and they’d have a relationship. That word alone made Jackson shudder.

Sex might be great. But love, that kind at least, could ruin them.

“It’s not already done.” Determined, Jackson reached between them and peeled away her hand and held it tight. “You’ve no idea what you’re getting into. I don’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t,” she promised, clueless. “Jackson…I’m in love with you.”

Just like any other woman…blinded by preconceived notions of happily ever after. Shit.

“Kimmy, this will ruin us.” Jackson had seen what a so-called happy marriage could twist into. Had felt his parents’ union  —and the violent war they called a divorce—as deeply as if a knife cut out his heart. Sixteen years and his mom hopped into bed with some guy as if his dad meant nothing. Sixteen years and his dad felt no remorse, taking her by the hair and throwing her naked from their home.