“Old haunt,” she shouted before the fully throttled engine drowned out any possibility for further conversation.
She navigated the streets with ease, merging onto the highway without hesitation or fear, passing cars when she needed to, but never remaining well within the speed limits and road rules. A beautiful woman who could tame a Harley was a woman to be admired. Well, he had to assume she was beautiful. Her body was certainly smoking. Coupled with gorgeous lips and luscious dark hair that teased his face like feathers, he imagined this woman was a heartbreaker.
Or had she had her heart broken? By him?
Twenty minutes later, they exited into a familiar neighborhood. The trees were a little taller and thicker and the roads had been repaved, but the stately brick mansions and estates that flanked St. Aloysius High School were too arrogant and ostentatious to be forgotten.
She slowed down before she jumped a curb and motored down an unpaved drive that ran parallel to the school’s six-foot stone wall. He hadn’t been back to the scene of his many crimes since graduation and he certainly never expected to return with an anonymous classmate with unclear intentions.
Though as far as intentions went, the mysterious kind were often the most interesting.
“Glad to be back?”
Now that the engine no longer roared in his ears, he heard a familiar cadence in her voice. Oh, yeah. He knew her. He knew a lot of girls back in high school, both casually and biblically—usually both. And yet, somehow, he didn’t think she was one of his many conquests. Something about the confident way she engaged the kickstand and slid off the leather seat told him she was more of a mystery than a blast from his past.
He hopped off and stared down the dirt path. The access drive at St. Aloysius High School, barely wide enough to accommodate the golf cart he’d regularly appropriate from the ground’s staff, had been the scene of quite a few memories, both good and bad.
“I couldn’t get out of this place fast enough,” he confessed.
She laughed. “I remember that about you.”
She unhooked her helmet, but didn’t remove it.
“Wish I could say what I remember about you.”
“Maybe you won’t remember me at all,” she said, but he could hear the tease in her voice.
That voice.
While he dug deep into his memory to place the familiar sound, she grabbed a low branch and pulled herself up onto the stone wall in three easy moves. She straddled the wall while he wrestled with a suspicion that couldn’t possibly be true.
Could it?
Rip grabbed the branch and propelled himself onto the fence beside her. He mimicked her position, scooting forward so that his jeans scraped against the rough texture in a not-unpleasant way. When their knees touched, she pulled off her helmet and let it drop to the loamy ground.
A curtain of dark hair cascaded past her shoulders. She combed her fingers through her slick locks, then faced him, looking at once mussed and perfect.
“I’m the last girl you expected, aren’t I?”
He tried to reply, but barely managed a nod. She further sealed his silence by grabbing his cheeks and tugging his face to hers so that their lips were less than an inch apart.
“Then prepare for the unexpected.”
Of all the girls he’d gone to school with, of all the women he’d enjoyed since he’d ridden out of town, he’d never in a million years expected to be face-to-face—or lips to lips—with the girl most likely to turn his ass down.
2
SHE KISSED HIM. SHE didn’t think, didn’t overanalyze, didn’t overorchestrate the touching of lips that she’d been anticipating for over nine months, ever since Scott “Rip” Ripley had checked the Yes box on the invitation to their ten-year class reunion.
The planning was over—and the party had begun.
With her mind, body and soul open, she surrendered to the dizzying sensations that came from finally taking what she had wanted for so very, very long.
Just as she expected, he tasted like sweet cola and freedom and forbidden lust. The warmth of his tongue as it swirled around hers possessed enough heat to melt asphalt.
She gripped tight to the stone wall beneath her. Grit bit into her skin with an exquisite pain that kept her from going too far, too fast. Not that she hadn’t already gone further and faster than she ever expected.
“Erica,” he murmured, his mouth still pressed to hers.
“Mmm?”
“Holt?”
“Mmm-hmm,” she verified.
“What are you doing?” he asked, skimming his lips across her cheeks, down her chin, and then along the ridge of her jawline.
God, he was good. Oh, so good.
“Kissing you,” she replied.
“Yes, you are.” He wiped his hands on the thighs of his jeans, then speared them into her hair and repositioned her face so that she had no choice but look at him directly—without lip contact. “But why?”
She blinked. Was it her imagination, or was his jaw more square-shaped now than it had been all those years ago? His eyes looked even bluer. As it had been in the past, his hair was longer than the St. Aloysius dress code requirements allowed—and it still suited him.
“Why?” she repeated. “Because it’s long overdue.”
She kissed him again and for a second time, he didn’t resist. Ten years clearly had changed the man. When she’d tried this last time, he’d pushed her away and forever ended their secret, albeit totally platonic friendship.
The memory shouldn’t have been so fresh, but ten minutes or ten years couldn’t erase what had become a singular moment in her senior year. She could feel the bite of the torn leather booth against the back of her thighs and could still smell the greasy pepperoni and cigarette smoke in the South Side pizza parlor where they’d met for her French lessons.
In his old neighborhood, no one would recognize them. No one who saw them together would talk or spread rumors or better yet, intrude. No one who’d witnessed her spontaneous attempt to kiss him—which he’d spurned before her lips had touched his—would ever report that St. Aloysius’s good girl had attempted to seduce the ultimate bad boy.
And had failed.
But she wasn’t failing now. This kiss was everything she’d wanted ten years ago. Tentative, yet passionate. Unexpected, yet natural. Forbidden, yet undeniable.
Until he broke away.
Again.
“You’re playing with fire,” he warned.
She smiled. “God, I hope so.”
She moved in for another kiss, but this time, he caught her by the upper arms.
“Holt, you need to slow down.”
She narrowed her eyes. “And you need a new script. That’s exactly what you said to me our senior year before you stopped returning my calls.”
He scooted away from her, swung his leg over so that he was facing the school grounds and after throwing her a wary glance, launched himself onto the carefully tended lawn.
“I did you a favor,” he insisted, punching a finger in her direction.
The gesture pushed her over the edge—literally and figuratively. She jumped off the wall with a little more force than necessary and when one heel caught the ground at an odd angle, she dropped to her knees, blindsided by a burst of pain in her ankle.
He was beside her in an instant, cursing even as he braced her foot.
“Can you move?”
She inhaled and exhaled until the tiny bursts of light in her eyes disappeared. “I’m fine. I just twisted it a little.”
“Let me check.” He felt around for the zipper that ran up the back of the boot, but as much as she didn’t mind having his hands on her, she wasn’t done being angry yet.
She yanked out of his grasp and rubbed her joint through the leather. “I said I’m fine. Did anyone ever tell you that you’re bossy?”
He scowled at her. “As I recall, you cornered the market on bossy a long time ago.”
“And what? You find bossines
s unattractive?”
“Right,” he snapped, “like anything about you is unattractive.”
Erica grunted when her fingers dug into a sore spot. “Well, you were all hot and ready to go on a wild adventure with the sexy, anonymous biker chick. You even climbed a damned tree to find out who I was. The second you saw it was me, you put on the brakes. What am I supposed to think?”
“Not the second,” he countered, dropping from his knees to his ass, as if her pointing out the truth had thrown him off balance.
Well, maybe it had. She had very little idea about what his life had been like since graduation, but she knew he hadn’t joined the priesthood or become a monk. His aunt and uncle still socialized with her family, so she knew he’d served in Afghanistan and had returned unharmed. She knew he’d graduated from college and that he lived in New York City.
Beyond that, his life was a mystery as much as hers likely was to him.
But it had been that mystery that had inspired her to jump completely out of her comfort zone. Around the same time she’d learned Rip was coming to the reunion, Erica had watched her normally cautious, infinitely serious best friend, Abby, lose her mind over a mysterious man from her past. At the time, Erica had thought Abby was making a huge mistake opening her heart to a man with a shady past—but in the end, Abby had found the love of her life.
She’d taken a risk. She’d gone against conventional wisdom and as a result, exchanged loneliness for delirious happiness.
Erica didn’t expect the same outcome for herself. She wasn’t looking for a soul mate. For tonight, for the weekend, she just wanted to have some fun.
Even though she was one of young Chicago’s most sought after event planners, Erica’s life was anything but entertaining. She worked twelve-hour days during the week and on the weekend of a wedding, charity gala or anniversary dinner, a sixteen-hour day was a luxury. In her pitiful free time, she’d searched for love in all the right places—in college, at the clubs, during the parties she planned for doctors, attorneys, bankers and corporate CEOs. She’d even been engaged—three times—but she’d never made it down the aisle.
Without a lot of time for a social life that wasn’t bought and paid for, Erica had chosen the same kind of guys she dated in high school. The kind she had no trouble taking home to her parents. But though her fiancés had all been great friends, none made her life different or better.
She didn’t want the same-old, same-old. She wanted more.
With Rip, she could get that—if only for a weekend. Fresh off a wild, sexy experience, she could break her bad dating habits in a big way. She wasn’t looking for an engagement ring or a trip to the altar.
She wanted to shake up the foundation of her life, starting with the sex.
When she’d first made up her mind to pursue Rip, she’d been invigorated and anxious, just as she had when they’d made their secret pact for him to tutor her in French. Now, she felt exactly the same way that she had on the humiliating afternoon when he’d refused to kiss her.
Stupid, unattractive and out of her league.
“I’m sorry,” she said, pushing his hand away when he tried to help her stand. She got herself into this ridiculous mess; she was going to have to get herself out. She tested her ankle and as she suspected, the pain had diminished. At least the expensive boots had been worth the cost. She wasn’t so sure about the ultimate price to her ego.
“Don’t be sorry,” he said. “I’m the one who’s acting like an idiot. Old habits die hard.”
She locked her gaze with his, trying not to let the sheer beauty of his baby blues distract her from gauging his honesty. He wore repentance well. But then, he probably had a lot of practice.
She shifted her weight to one hip and crossed her arms. “Why did you push me away?”
“Then or now?” he asked.
“We’ll start with then and if I like your answer, we’ll move on to now.”
“See?” he said, gesturing toward her, the corner of his mouth quirking into a surprisingly boyish grin. “Bossy.”
She arched a brow and he acquiesced, but not without a self-deprecating chuckle.
“Why did I resist kissing the irresistible Erica Holt? You were too good for me.”
She clucked her tongue. “That’s bullshit.”
“No, it wasn’t,” he insisted, his voice deep with conviction. “Not then. Hell, probably not now, either. This may come as a huge shock to you, but I was a player back in high school.”
She faked surprise with an overly dramatic gasp. “No! Tell me it isn’t true!”
“Smart-ass,” he grumbled.
She poked him in the chest, taking advantage of the opportunity to touch him, even if only with the tip of her finger. “You never would have said that to me ten years ago.”
“Yes, I would have,” he argued. “As I recall, I called you worse on several occasions while we were inhaling the double meat pies at Aurelio’s Pizza. You were a closeted smart-ass who put on her best game face at school and had all the teachers and administrators fooled into thinking you were a perfect little princess.”
She resisted the urge to gag and instead, took a tentative step closer to him. The ache in her ankle was gone, zapped out of her system by the direction of their conversation.
“Are you admitting that there might have been more to me than met the eye? That during our French lessons, you realized that I wasn’t just a one-dimensional, candy-coated good girl who couldn’t be sullied by the likes of, I don’t know, you?”
She watched his jaw twitch and his cheeks hollow out as he sucked in a breath of frustration. When he shook his head but didn’t reply, she smiled.
Button pushed.
“Don’t put words in my mouth,” he chastised.
“That wasn’t what I wanted to put in your mouth, but you haven’t left me any other choice.”
The shock on his face gave her the jolt she needed to spread her fingers over his T-shirt, marveling in the feel of the rock-hard pecs underneath. The muscled tightness continued up to his shoulders, where her dark fingernails scraped against the skin of his neck and jaw.
She watched his Adam’s apple undulate in his throat as he swallowed hard. “You really want to do this?”
God, he had a sexy voice, especially when it possessed that strangled sound a man made when he knew he should resist, but couldn’t.
“Don’t I deserve a little fun?” She skimmed her thumbs over the curves of his ears. “I’m not an innocent Catholic schoolgirl anymore, Rip. Or haven’t you noticed?”
His gazed dipped down to where her leather vest gapped, revealing more than a generous view of her breasts.
He licked his lips. “I noticed.”
Boldly, she curved her neck back and slowly pulled down the zipper to reveal her bra. Her move broke the last of his control. With a strangled growl, he pulled her close and suckled her throat, one hand braced on the small of her back while the other tangled into her hair. The sensation of his tongue and teeth striking down the tendons of her neck ignited a madness Erica had only dreamed of. He was so assured. So precise. Just the right amount of pressure. Just the right degree of moisture. Just the right level of hungered sound to let her know that her transformation from pampered princess to sexy seductress had been worth the effort.
Or would be. Soon. Very, very soon.
She tugged the strands of his hair, guiding him lower, to the edges of her collarbone, to the valley between her breasts. His tongue darted into the shadowed triangle, tracing just above the curve of satin.
Suddenly, the leather vest felt hot and confining. As if he’d read her mind, he lowered the zipper all the way and buried his face between the dark flaps.
“Oh, yes,” she murmured when he blew a hot breath over her.
“I knew you’d be perfect,” he said. “I always knew.”
She shook her head, but kept her denial to herself. She wasn’t perfect—she was the opposite of perfect. She was flawed and needful and
in most of the places he touched with his lips, empty. But the pressure of his body against hers and the raucousness of his need filled her with passion. With fire.
With demands she expected him to meet, sooner rather than later.
3
FOR EVERY CELL IN HIS BODY that ignited with pure, sexual need, another one zapped warning signals to his brain that told him to stop this madness. Erica Holt was innocent. Unattainable. Better left unsullied by the likes of him, especially when he had no intention of sticking around Chicago once the headmaster declared the Class of 2002 to be graduates of St. Aloysius High School.
The alarms echoed away quickly, part of a decade-old system he’d built to make sure he didn’t mess around with a girl who deserved so much better. But this wasn’t their senior year anymore. He wasn’t the bad boy about to ride out of town on his Harley and leave Chicago behind for good.
Or was he? He’d returned for the reunion, but come Monday, he’d be on his way back to New York, to the work and responsibilities that had transformed his shady past into memories that drove him—memories he could face in the mornings when he looked in the mirror and saw his father’s jawline and his mother’s eyes.
And man, Erica sure had changed. Judging by the way she tangled her tongue with his, thrust her hands into his hair and pressed her body close so that the buckle on her belt knocked just below his, she was no longer the pristine paragon of purity he’d made her out to be back in high school. She was sensual, sexy and daring. And she wanted to have some fun. Needed to have some fun, judging by all she’d confessed. Who better to provide that than him?
“Let’s go inside,” she said, panting.
“Inside the school?”
Shock hitched his voice up at the end and the squeak made her laugh. Recovered from her ankle twist, she led him down the raked path toward the school’s back entrance.
The fact that she felt comfortable enough to stroll across the sprawling lawns of the campus in little but an open vest, black bra, painted-on jeans and boots was enough to ensure his compliance. When they reached the back portico, she released his hand.
The Guy Most Likely To...: Underneath It AllCan't Get You Out of My HeadA Moment Like This Page 14
