Against the Fire by Kat Martin Page B

the way. He liked her on top most of the time, liked her to satisfy him. She’d loved him and she wanted to make him happy, but she got little out of the experience herself.
    The few times she’d had casual sex had been equally disappointing. She simply wasn’t cut out to be a passionate lover. Sex with Gabe would probably be equally disappointing—for him as well as for her.
    She said nothing as they walked across the parking lot, nothing as he waited for her to use her electronic key to unlock her car. At the sound of the mechanism releasing, he reached down and pulled open the door.
    “Good night, Mattie.”
    “Good night, Gabe. Thanks for supper and for trying to help Angel and Enrique.”
    “Supper was my pleasure and we’ll see what happens with the boys.”
    She started to get into the car, but Gabe lightly caught her shoulders, turning her to face him. Lowering his head, he very softly kissed her.
    Mattie had no notion what to expect from such a casual kiss but one thing she didn’t expect was the bottom dropping out of her stomach. The softest male lips she had ever encountered settled lightly over hers. They melded, blended, captured. Gabe coaxed and tasted, the kiss completely undemanding, and yet her insides trembled.
    She wanted to slide her arms around his neck and lean into him, to part her lips and let those soft male lips ravish her. She wanted him to taste her all over, wanted the kiss to go on and on.
    She whimpered when Gabe pulled away.
    “Good night, Mattie,” he said gruffly, his intense blue eyes holding her a moment more before he turned and started walking away.
    Mattie dropped down in the seat of her car. Her hands were shaking so badly she could barely shove the key into the ignition. She didn’t enjoy sex. She merely tolerated it. At least that’s what she’d always told herself.
    She saw Gabe sitting in his pickup, waiting for her to start the car and pull out onto the street. He wasn’t the kind of man who left a woman alone in a parking lot at night.
    She took a deep breath and managed to compose herself enough to start the engine. Shifting the BMW into gear, she slowly pulled out of the driveway. Gabe followed her to the entrance to her underground parking lot, then headed off down the street.
    Recalling the heat she had felt in that simple good-night kiss and the fierce way she had responded, Mattie closed her eyes, amazingly grateful she had said no to Gabe’s dinner invitation.
    And terrified she would weaken and call him, tell him she had changed her mind.

    He shouldn’t have kissed her. He should have respected her dismissal and let it go at that. Instead, he couldn’t resist just a little taste of her.
    A little taste, Gabe discovered, wasn’t nearly enough.
    He sighed as he parked his truck in his designated parking spot in the lot next to his condo and turned off the engine. He could still feel the shape of her mouth under his, recall the scent of spring flowers that clung to her skin. That single little kiss had fired his blood, stirred a hunger he hadn’t known in years. It had taken sheer force of will not to drag her into his arms and kiss her until neither of them could think.
    He smiled. He could only imagine her outrage. Or maybe she would have clung to him the way she had when he ended the kiss. There’d been fire in her response, not indifference. No matter how hard she denied it, something was there between them, simmering like a pot on the stove, ready to boil over.
    As he walked into his condo, Gabe released a breath. He had to know if he was right and Mattie’s passion was simply buried. He had to know if the wild attraction he felt for her was returned, as he believed.
    Shrugging out of his sport coat and tossing it over a chair, he poured himself a shot of single malt scotch, hoping it would relax him, take the edge of his unsatisfied lust.
    He carried the glass over to the comfortable brown leather sofa in front of the stone fireplace and sank