“Hey!”

I smiled at the return of her fire. Anger or passion, it didn't matter to me. Just as long as it burned, I’d tend to it with care. Poke and nudge and rearrange when necessary. And any time she started to die out, I’d just add more fuel to the pile.

“How many people watched you leave?”

“Oh my God,” she squeaked, the realization of consequences and aftermath slapping her on the cheek and leaving it red with embarrassment. “I can’t go back in there. Not like this…”

She looked down at herself, the sopping material of her leotard, her hair mussed from the rain and my hands, and the paste-y chalk evidence of my touch plastered over nearly every inappropriate surface illustrating her point. “Not after leaving like that.”

“We don’t have to go back in,” I assured her, running my thumb from her lips to her ear and back again just because I could. Just because she wasn’t stopping me from touching her, wasn’t fighting me on the validity of what had happened.

I took a moment to soak it in and tried to telegraph the feeling it evoked in me right back to her.

“But we can’t stay here.”

“You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here? Are we at a bar?” Her head thunked back into the metal of the building behind her. “That’d be handy actually. I could use a drink.”

“Callie,” I called, asking for attention by pulling her face back toward mine with two soft fingers at her chin. “This is big. I get it, I feel it, and I’m just as confused about how it happened as you are. But I need you to calm down…and focus. We cannot stay here right now. Especially not, as much as I enjoy it, with your sexy as fuck bare legs wrapped around my waist and my hard dick crushing you into the building.”

“Crushing me?” she teased with a tilt of her head. “You sure think a lot about your—”

“Cal!”

“Okay! I get it! We need to leave.” She rolled her eyes playfully. “Then take me somewhere for crying out loud.”

Regretfully, I unwound her legs from me and set her bare feet on the ground, steadying her swaying body as it lurched toward me in unbalance. Her body’s lingering physical reaction gave me some clue as to why her mental realization of our scenario was delayed as well.

She was still turned on and tuned up on adrenaline, and apparently, lust made her frolicsome.

Fuck me.

I didn’t know if she always reacted this way or if it was the intensity and unexpected nature of the moment, but I had absolutely no desire to waste it. I wanted to get her somewhere else, somewhere where I could work her back up to that reaction again, and I wanted to do it quickly.

I grabbed her hand and ran, pulling her behind me into the more brutal rain of the open parking lot. Her hand clenched tightly in mine when a gust of wind drove the rain like horizontal spikes.

The pound of her bare feet on the pavement behind me sounded like a rhythm, each step jolting through my chest and confirming the unbelievable fact that we were here. That she had followed me from the gym, that she’d been the one to kiss me.

All of it felt like an imaginary whirlwind. Her car only feet away, I dropped her hand in preparation and rounded the hood, hoping to everything holy that she kept her keys in the car rather than her bag in the gym. If not, we’d have to take the motorcycle, and besides the rain, I didn’t like the idea of her riding with so much unprotected skin exposed.

“Keys?” I called over the hood, just as she opened the passenger door.

She nodded with knowing, pointing inside the car and sinking into the seat and out of the rain.

I yanked my door open and threw one leg in, but looked up as I did.

Right into the eyes of Frank Nickleson.

Hands on his hips, he stood stagnant on the other side of the glass door, keen and curious eyes on me and the very familiar car I was waiting to sink into.

Panic very nearly jolted my body—for Callie rather than myself—but I fought it, instead giving him a resolute, confident nod with an open ended meaning.

He could contemplate his own clues, paint his own picture, and draw his own conclusions.

But I’d planted a seed of doubt with one simple gesture.

Guilty men, fraught with wrongdoing and wicked intentions, rarely looked their jury directly in the eye.

And after trusting me to guide his daughter professionally, no matter the age of consent and lack of dissent between hers and my own, Frank Nickleson would very much see me as a guilty man if he knew the details of my intentions for my relationship with her.

As I slid into the car, desperate to hold on to the fun, free-loving woman unlocked by a kiss, I decided not to tell Callie about her father’s watchful eye. Not if she hadn’t noticed it on her own.

Mischief and happiness sparkled in her eyes as she turned to me. “Where are we going?”

“My apartment,” I decided and decreed at once, wanting the privacy and freedom to talk to her how I wanted, touch her how I wanted, and open up the next chapter of her beautifully written book.

All of the things she’d kept locked away for the last few weeks lingered on the surface, and I was eager to scrape as many of them up as I could before they disappeared.

A shiver ran through her body as she opened the console between us, grabbed the keys from inside, and handed them to me with an electric brush of her hand.

“Cold?” I asked as I started the engine, ignoring the man that still stood in front of us and focusing on her.

“A little,” she admitted, turning on the heat and pointing the vent until air directly bathed her skin.

I wanted to pull her into my arms, warm her with the heat of my own body and the comfort of my arms, but I knew it wasn’t a good idea.

“I’m sorry. It won’t take long to get there,” I said instead, watching as her brows scrunched slightly together before turning away and putting the car into gear.

Hurt feelings and unmet expectations would have to wait.

I turned left out of the parking lot and drove toward the center of town. Past the McDonald’s where we’d shared greasy chicken nuggets, a Quarter Pounder, and nervously aggressive conversation, through Main Street, and to the apartment complex on the other side that housed my home.

I missed the home I shared with my parents throughout my childhood, but not because of the house. I missed the laughter of my mother and the playful antics by my father that caused it. I missed the loving acceptance they provided me through all of my decisions, the support they gave to my athletic career, and their ability to balance that with a life devoid of pressure.

I didn’t think Callie had that—an unconditional support system.

I wanted to be that for her.

As I pulled into the spot directly in front of my unit, Callie’s voice cracked with nerves. The fog of lust and passion had worn off, and reality had set in. “What are we doing, Nik?”

I turned to her fully, put a hand to her jaw, and leaned in until my lips just barely touched hers. She didn’t pull back or protest, but the pulse in her neck throbbed violently.

“What we’ve wanted to do since the first night we met.” When the words were finished, the movement fully formed against her lips, I added pressure, settling my mouth against hers and sealing the statement with a kiss.

She kissed me back slowly, the taste of cinnamon and heat working its way into my mouth along with her tongue as she gave into the moment and allowed herself the freedom from her mind.

I never wanted it to end, but I also wanted more than stolen kisses and unsure rendezvous.

And that kind of more was only founded on more. More communication, more understanding, and more respect.

Breaking the kiss slowly, I let my hand linger on her cheek, feeling it heat with both embarrassment and something else as her eyes met mine.