Hot Contract by Jodi Henley

He
was shaking and shaking, and she was shaking, but she didn’t know
why and when he leaned his forehead against hers and looked into
her eyes, she still didn’t know what was wrong, only that it was
bad.
    “I don’t have a condom,” he said. “God, this
is so wrong.”
    He turned away; fists planted down on the
breakfast bar and closed his eyes, shoulders up tight around his
ears.
    “I thought,” she said finally, after a long
buzzing silence. “You know....God, you are such a bastard. I
can’t believe we’re having this conversation naked.”
    She trailed off, horribly aware of her lack
of clothes. Jen stood and dragged the sheet up over her shoulders,
knotting it in front of her, this time with a double knot. It was
obvious he didn’t want anything more to do with her.
    Keegan turned and spun Jen to face him,
pushing his face right down in hers, looking in her eyes, pinning
her against the table with his hard on. She was sweet poison and a
one way ticket to Hell, but nothing about their attraction was
logical. He wanted to lift her up, get rid of the sheet and slam
himself home.
    “Can’t you see what you do to me?” he asked,
the longing tucked down so deep he could feel it clawing at the
base of his spine.
    Her eyes were dark, her mouth tight, and he
willed her to understand with everything in him, willed her to
look—really look—into his eyes and see what he couldn’t put into
words.
    “I don’t carry condoms with me. And I don’t
think you do either.” But maybe he was wrong? “Do you?” Lots of
women did. He could be wrong. He wasn’t sure how he’d feel if he
was wrong.
    “No,” she said.
    And Keegan knew he was screwed, because they
couldn’t get it on and he was freaking happy? What was wrong with
this picture?
    “I don’t carry condoms,” she said, hands
opening to touch him.
    “I’m, uh...glad.” He managed to look away,
every cell in his body screaming to life at her first, tentative
caress.
    “Can we get one later?” she asked, still
touching him.
    “Yeah,” he growled. He held his arms down at
his sides, wanting to touch her in return, but knowing if he did he
wouldn’t stop there.
    “Can we—”
    “No,” he said, very firmly, because the note
in her voice was just a little too husky. She leaned against him,
between his thighs, against him, against that part of him that
wanted her so damned much it wasn’t ever going to go down, even
though he was slamming more will at it than a tri-athlete at the
wall.
    She gave him a little laugh, cheek turned
against his chest, hair spilling down to his hips. “My legs are
shaking,” she whispered.
    Welcome to the club. “I have
marshmallows.”
    “Uh, that’s nice?” she asked, looking at him
uncertainly.
    “Very nice. I’ll start a fire and we can
roast marshmallows…and talk, ok?”
     
     

Chapter Ten
     
    Jen rotated her stick, one hand tucked into
her scratchy polyester blanket. The marshmallow was stale and hard.
She hadn’t really thought Keegan’s team flew around with
marshmallows in their luggage. He said he’d found a bag in the
supplies. After a few minutes, they softened up nicely.
    “I don’t know why yours turn out so well,” he
said.
    Keegan sat next to her on the small picnic
bench, the press of his thigh against hers almost as much of a
distraction as the way he kept dropping marshmallows into the fire
and having to scoop them out again before they turned into
explosions of charred fluff.
    “I’m a volcanologist,” she said. “I can
handle the heat.”
    She worked the hard golden crust off over the
still liquid core and eyed it critically.
    Keegan swore. “These things never stay put.
They get soft and drop.”
    “It’s because you’re holding your stick
angled the wrong way, you need to hold it straight out, here.” She
showed him. “Just move your hand.”
    The marshmallow oozed around Keegan’s stick
and fell into the fire. Keegan pushed it over to the side and
flipped it out into