Carly Phillips - Hot Item

He paid and took the cones, handing them to her while he drove the quick few minutes back to the school. He pulled into the dark parking lot and shut off the engine.

She handed him his cone. “So what’s with the hard topping?”

“Is there another way to have hot fudge or caramel on a cone?” he asked, a teasing note to his voice.

Sophie laughed. “Guess not.” She bit into the cone, knowing the pieces could fall all over her and were likely to stain. “Delicious,” she said through a mouthful.

They ate in comfortable silence. Sophie didn’t want to break the mood by asking too many questions, so she remained quiet, enjoying Riley’s company.

“How are your mother and the senator handling the news about Spencer?” she asked when she couldn’t hold back anymore.

He shrugged, licking the last of the ice cream off his bottom lip. She tried not to stare, but he looked so darn sexy sitting in the convertible, eating his treat and staring as if he wanted to devour her the same way he’d consumed his ice cream.

“I wouldn’t know,” he said at last. “I haven’t had five minutes alone with either one of them since I arrived. Either Harlan’s sending my mother off to take care of Lizzie or she’s out giving you a tour of the town. And he’s not making time for idle chitchat either. All he talks about is politics when we’re alone. I think they’re both trying to avoid the subject.”

“Does that bother you?” She rolled her used napkin into a ball and tucked it into the car’s ashtray.

“It makes me think they knew about Spencer all along and don’t want to have to answer my questions. Why else avoid conversation?” As he spoke, he stretched one arm over her seat.

Unable to stop herself, she reached out so her fingertips touched his. “Makes sense. I’m sorry you have to go through all of this.”

He let out a groan. “It’s an odd thing. Sometimes everything about Spencer and the situation feels like it’s happening to someone else and I shouldn’t be affected at all.”

“But you are affected. He’s your biological parent and you have questions you want answered. And you have the right to those answers,” she said, defending his feelings.

“Thank you for saying that.” He tipped his head toward her.

Sophie leaned in closer, meeting him halfway across the console of the car, until their lips touched and lingered. Her mouth had been frozen from the ice cream, but as soon as their tongues met, warmth replaced the cold and heat surged through her body. Suddenly the light caress wasn’t enough. She wanted to crawl into his lap and wrap herself around him until she didn’t know where she ended and he began.

The need he inspired was unlike any she’d felt before. She doubted she’d ever feel anything like it again. Reaching out, she wrapped her hand around the back of his neck and pulled him closer, angling his head so she could taste him even more.

Desire pummeled at Riley. He loved kissing Sophie, making love to her with his mouth, mimicking exactly what he wanted to do to her with his body. From the erotic purrs escaping the back of her throat, Sophie wanted the exact same things.

He wrapped one hand around her waist, but short of physically climbing over the center divider, there was no way he could get as close to Sophie as he needed to be.

Frustration filled him. He leaned back against the car seat and groaned.

She rolled her head to the side. “I thought you said parking was fun.” Her eyes glinted with a teasing light.

He managed a laugh. “Are you telling me that wasn’t fun?”

“It was fun.” Her smile gave his heart rate another boost. “You just never mentioned how much torture parking would be.”

“That’s because I didn’t remember it being quite so bad.” Then again, he’d never had this woman sitting in the passenger seat beside him, ready and willing.

Suddenly he remembered his parents using this car for family picnics. They’d always used an old blanket his father kept in the trunk.

“Wait here.” He climbed out of the car and walked back to the trunk. He held his breath as he looked inside and exhaled a huge sigh of relief.

Sophie slammed the passenger door shut and joined him as he pulled out the old blanket. “What’s going on?” she asked.

He propped a hip against the car. “Just how frustrated are you?” he asked, his tone rougher than he’d intended.

“Well, I don’t know. You’ve already managed to get me to go parasailing, to come to Mississippi, to leave my comfortable bed and go parking. What else did you have in mind?” Her blue eyes twinkled with curiosity and more.

He reached out and stroked her cheek. “I want to make love to you right here, right now.”

She gnawed on her lower lip. “Where?”

“Over there.” On the field that held so many other memories for him. “Well?”

Her eagerness was almost tangible as she shifted from foot to foot. Just like in Florida, the uptight Sophie who needed control as badly as she needed to breathe was nowhere in sight. But something was definitely wrong. Though her flushed cheeks told him she wanted to be with him, too, she still hesitated.

He waited, giving her the moment she obviously needed.

“I just want to make sure we both understand the ground rules,” she said at last.

He bit the inside of his cheek. “Now that sounds like the Sophie I know-” He’d been about to add, and love.

Here, on an open field beneath the stars, Riley admitted to himself that he’d fallen hard for Sophie Jordan. Forget good old-fashioned necking, he was talking about good old-fashioned love.

He shivered despite the heat unfurling inside him. Not because he was actually in love for the first time in his adult life, but because of the possibility that she wouldn’t let herself return the feelings. He didn’t doubt that she loved him. Hell, he’d bet she’d known it back in Florida, but he’d pushed her away because of his own insecurities. He’d yet to win her back and he was afraid, based on her own issues, he never would.

“Riley? Ground rules,” Sophie reminded him.

He nodded. “On the field I’m a rules man myself,” he said, keeping things light. No sense losing her before they even began. “Name your terms.”

She inhaled deeply. “This one night with no expectations afterward.”

Oh, this was rich, Riley thought. She was handing him the stuff of male fantasies. “The words any man would want to hear.” Just not the words he wanted from Sophie, he thought and forced a smile.

Until now, Riley had defined his life by going after what he wanted and making it happen. The only glaring failure was his relationship with his biological father, a situation too complicated for him to accept all the blame. Failure wasn’t in Riley’s vocabulary and that included how things would end up with Sophie.

Between her fear of being abandoned and her need to control, she had walls higher than any Riley had ever constructed. Which meant that for the first time, he was going to have to play by someone else’s rules in order to win the endgame. He just wished the outcome of this one was guaranteed.

RILEY SPREAD the blanket over the ground, using the time to gather his thoughts and his resolve. He had played many big games before and never suffered performance anxiety. He didn’t intend to do so now, even though this was the one time he had the most to prove.

He needed Sophie to see that what they shared was more than one night. That they were more than a brief fling. He almost laughed at the irony. He’d never planned to think beyond the moment. Even when he’d been with Sophie in Florida, there’d been an inherent understanding that they were giving in to temptation. Nothing more.

He’d cemented that impression by turning on her when she’d tried to point out his mistakes with his daughter. Any positive feelings Sophie had begun to develop for him had evaporated fast. He’d given Sophie no reason then or now to think she was special to him. After all, she’d seen him flirt with every woman in a skirt.

But he knew now that she was the only woman he truly wanted. If he thought it would make a difference, he’d hand over his heart as quickly as she’d captured his. Yet he knew that baring his feelings would send her running far and fast, because in Sophie he’d found someone who’d mastered the art of self-protection far better than he had. And he’d caused her to raise her barriers high. She couldn’t allow herself to trust him and he promised himself he’d gauge her reactions and pace himself accordingly. The endgame mattered more than the short-term goals.

He sat down on the blanket and patted the space beside him. “Join me?”

She curled up close, the cool air from the ride in the convertible giving her incentive to want body heat. He just plain wanted her.

“This is a nice place to grow up,” she murmured.

He smiled. “Glad I could share it with you.”

She leaned back on her elbows and glanced up at the stars, which were barely visible through the haze and clouds. “Did you ever wish upon a star?” she asked.

“Can’t say that I have. I’m more of a practical, make-my-own-luck kind of guy.”

She shook her head in mock pity. “You really missed out on one of childhood’s great moments.”

“Star light, star bright?” he asked lightly.

“First star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.”

As he studied the delicate features he’d come to adore, he suddenly found a reason to indulge in whims and fantasy. He stared upward and found the brightest star in the night sky, the one that called to him in a way that the others did not. The same as Sophie did, Riley thought.

He shut his eyes and wished for what he desired more than anything else. “Sophie-”

“Shh.”

She placed her finger over his mouth to silence him and his lips tingled beneath her touch.

“Don’t tell me your wish or it won’t come true,” she said.

“That means you can’t tell me your wish, either,” he said, unable to contain his disappointment. He’d wanted her to let him inside her heart.

“But I can tell you that it’s the same wish I’ve been making for as long as I can remember.” A wistful smile passed over her lips, vanishing as fast as it came.

He pushed her long curls off the back of her neck. “It hasn’t come true yet?”

“Nope.” She tipped her head, obviously enjoying the brush of his fingertips against her skin, so he kept up the soft contact.

“But I keep hoping it will.” Her lashes fluttered closed.

He swallowed hard. He wanted to be the one to make her dreams come true, but first she had to believe in him.

Goal in mind, he leaned over and nuzzled his face into the sweet spot between her neck and shoulders. She smelled delicious and when he licked her soft skin, he discovered she tasted even better. A seductive purr escaped the back of her throat and she trembled against him.

God, he loved just being with her, Riley thought, and he refused to contemplate what he’d do if she pulled away after tonight.

A quick sweep of his hand over the front of her shirt and he felt her hardened nipples, proof that in Sophie, when it came to passion, he had a willing partner. Riley decided it was a damn good start.

He wrapped one arm around her waist and drew her down, protecting her from the hard ground by rolling her on top of him. Her full breasts pressed hard against his chest as her lower half settled into the vee of his legs.

He groaned aloud, unable to control his reaction to having her exactly where he wanted her.

She grinned and wiggled her hips enticingly, causing his erection to swell.

“Tease.” He laughed.

“You love it,” she whispered, planting kisses over his face until her lips settled over his.

He loved her. Thinking it at the same time he held her in his arms caused a rush of warmth and a sense of rightness to flood through him. His heart pounded hard and heavy in his chest with the desire to make himself one with her overwhelming.

His tongue tangled with hers. Heat flared to life in his belly, the friction of their twisting, grinding bodies bringing him too close too fast. He didn’t want to come without being inside her, deep inside her, so she’d feel how right they were together. How wrong they were apart.

He slipped his hands up the back of her shirt so he could embrace her bare skin. He also managed to still the rhythmic motion of her hips that had him teetering on the edge.

She eased a bit, allowing her breath, hot against his neck, to slow, giving him time to take over. After a couple of tries, he managed to unhook her bra, then watched in fascination as she maneuvered enough to pull the female contraption out of one sleeve and then toss it onto the blanket beside them. Her shirt came next.