Page 58 of New Orleans Rush

Her awareness of the past he’d endured and the masculine firmness below her hand banished her ridiculous worries. Her nose twitched, but she didn’t sneeze. His breaths grew more ragged, matching hers.

His hand drifted under her loose hair, grazing her sensitive ear. He cupped her neck. “Beatrice.”

She purred at the sound of her name and shifted against him, tilting her head to see every scar and line that shaped his handsome face. Fierce hunger sharpened his cheekbones. Barely-contained wildness lit his eyes. He leaned closer, and her desire spiked. When he finally angled his mouth toward hers, she couldn’t resist.

She closed her eyes, and oh—the feel of his lips finally brushing hers was intoxicating. They both moaned. His kiss started soft and delicate, then his lips pressed harder. His fingers dug into her scalp. She answered with equal voracity, tugging him closer, letting her tongue tangle wildly with his. The kiss was hot and demanding, the type that broke ancient curses and turned frogs into dashing princes.

She tried to drag him closer, but he pulled away. Too close to gauge his expression, she whimpered her disapproval and moved to kiss him again.

He held her firm and whispered, “Ten days.”

She fisted his cotton shirt. “Who’s playing with fire now?”

“We have an agreement, Honeybee. One I intend to keep.”

Deep down, she knew this was the smart thing. Her heart believed Huxley was as honest as they came, but her head had mutinied only minutes ago. That didn’t change how charged her body was. “It’s not what a romance hero would do.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

He was full of it. “He’d ravage me. Turn my world inside out.”

He brushed his nose against hers. “Do you want this hero to break his promise?”

She released her punishing hold on his shirt. “No.”

“Do you want him to give in to his desire, knowing it will ruin things in the long run? Or do you want him to torture himself by holding back, because the woman in his arms is worth the torment?”

“It’s not fair,” she said on a sigh. She was the reason he’d pulled away. Her issues had undermined them this whole time.

And he’d totally read a bunch of Harlequin novels.

He pulled her head to his chest. “No. It’s not. But my last poker game is Saturday. If I keep kissing you, stopping will be even harder. And if we sleep together, you’ll resent me going. We’ll start this relationship with doubts. After the game and next week’s revenue, I’ll have enough to cover the construction, which means I’m taking you out Thursday night. And after I take you out, I’ll perform the type of magic trick that will turn you boneless.”

That dirty promise exacerbated her arousal. Based on the thick line stretching his denim-clad crotch, his anatomy was as mutinous as hers. His willpower was also astounding. Maybe it was his superpower: kryptonite-resistant self-control.

Her phone buzzed from the coffee table, providing her a welcomed distraction, unless it was her father from a new number, or Big Eddie. She never welcomed those distractions.

She extricated herself from Huxley’s hold and picked up her cell, just in case it was Della about work or her mother texting a new selfie. Last Bea heard, Molly Baker was in Japan, living it up with a band called Crispy Caterpillars.

The text wasn’t from her mother or Della.

It was her father, from a new number, with his usual ruse: help.

She groaned. “I should finally change my number. He’ll never give up.”

“Who won’t give up? Is a guy bothering you?” Huxley’s dark tone matched his darkening eyes.

“Not a guy. Well, yes—a guy. Just not that kind of a guy. My father.” She tucked her feet under her, the phone heavy in her hand.

Huxley, now a healthy distance away, hooked his ankle over his knee. “He’s been contacting you?”

“He knows I want nothing to do with him, and that I never answer his calls, so he texts the word help, which usually breaks my resolve. Then he asks for money and I picture him dead in a ditch somewhere and cave in. I blocked his last number, but he must have a new phone. His persistence is impressive.”

She stopped herself before she explained about Big Eddie and the drama chasing her. She’d mentioned the loan shark offhandedly a while back, when Huxley had taken her for lunch and asked about her lack of mug shot. Going into detail now might make her feel better, but she didn’t want to be a CSI character, predictably sucking people into her troubles, dragging them all down. Those characters were as bad as the horror movie girls who wandered into the dark alone.

“Then why haven’t you changed your number?” Huxley asked.

She flipped the phone in her hand. It was nothing but a metal box. It didn’t tease her or make her laugh, or feed her belly and soul, but it connected her to the two people responsible for her existence. “I don’t like my father, but I love him. I like my mother, but I don’t love her. I didn’t choose my parents, but my mother left some guy she cared about to be with my dad, which means they were once in love. They chose to have me. Not knowing where they are, or if they’re okay, would be worse than seeing their texts, especially my father’s.”