Sun-Kissed by Laura Florand

bareness of her arms in the chill, how glad she was for that heat of his arm over her shoulders, the heat of his body against her side. She couldn’t go for a walk with him like this.
    “I’m tired,” she said. Not that she wanted to admit a weakness, but it was better than openly waving a flag of retreat. “I’d just as soon get straight to bed.”
    “Me, too.” Mack grinned, deliberately wicked.
    And heat lanced through her again.
    She rolled her eyes and headed under the arch. Even though the way she walked did not in the least invite his arm to stay across her shoulders, he managed it anyway, tightening his hold and matching his pace to hers.
    He managed that even when she climbed the steps to her front porch. Even when she keyed in her code. “Mack.” She sighed, turning. “Look. Tomorrow, I’m going to do you a favor and pretend none of this ever happened.”
    “Oh, good ,” he said, with a sudden angry, fierce delight, as he dropped her shoe and crowded her right back against her door. “Well, I can do one hell of a lot of things right now, then, if this is all just a fantasy.”
    And he kissed her.
    Just flat out kissed her. No careful approach, no slow dip in to make sure she was okay with it, no testing the waters. He just took her mouth and took it over, like she was a damn company and he was pissed off.
    Like he was just going to seize all her assets and restructure her.
    She felt that way. Seized. Restructured.
    His mouth molded hers, dipping straight into hers, his arms tightening on either side of her body until she was locked between his forearms on the door. They pressed against her sides, and then they were curving around her back. And then they were hauling her up into him, as he kept on kissing.
    Kissed her until she couldn’t think or breathe, until she couldn’t get her hands to either pound on him for freedom or grip him to capture this invader and punish him for his invasion.
    He kissed her until she was kissing him back, until when he finally raised his head, she had no strengthleft. What the hell was she supposed to do without her strength? She always needed it.
    Mack was breathing hard, his face all angles and danger in the lights and shadows of the porch. “Anything else you want to pretend never happened tomorrow?” he asked, with that hushed, wicked anger.
    She stared up at him, trying to breathe, trying to wet her lips.
    “Because I’ve got a few more ideas.”
    And suddenly she was so furious she was almost shaking. She could swear the fury was why she was shaking. “Go away,” she said fiercely and shoved at his chest. “Go away. You’re drunk. Go away. ”
    Mack backed a step, his arms falling away to free her. But he didn’t stop holding her eyes. “I’m not drunk, in fact. Anne.” He reached to touch his thumb to her lower lip.
    And that lower lip felt so vulnerable, so exposed and unprotected, that she jerked her head and bit him . A fierce, warning nip of the tip of his thumb. “You are, too. If you had to drive home, I’d confiscate your keys and call a taxi. Now go away . Before you do something we’ll both regret.”
    He pulled his thumb back to safety. “There’s nothing I could do that we’d both regret, Anne.”
    She folded her arms over her body and glared at him, trying so hard not to shake, trying not to let him see. She hadn’t felt this desperate and vulnerable since they’d announced that she’d be spending six months in prison. At least she’d had time to prepare for that. It had been pretty obvious how much everyone in that courtroom but Mack and Kurt hated her and how much they wanted to see her go down. She’d tried to get Mack to force Kurt out of it, so he wouldn’t see her as the whole world’s goddamn prey, but Kurt, grim-faced, had refused to go.
    “Because I wouldn’t regret anything,” Mack said, and sucked that bitten thumb into his mouth, absently nursing it as he watched her.
    “Leave me alone.” Anne whipped around