Skin coloring on the heels of his words, she tried to squeeze her thighs together. He blocked her by wedging his body between them. “Don’t be embarrassed, baby.” Shifting position slightly, he caught her lips in a teasing, coaxing kind of a kiss. “You have no idea how unbelievably hot I find it that I make you so wet.”

When her hand came to rest on his shoulder, her fingers just brushing his nape, he had to exert steely control not to deepen the kiss, not to pull down her panties and take her then and there. That would leave him in the same position he’d been in before she let him in tonight, Molly skittish and unsure.

He had to be smart about this, coax her as he’d coax a difficult chord from the guitar. With sweet patience and hard-eyed determination. “You make the rules.” Pressing a kiss to the hollow of her throat, he stroked his thumbs over her skin again. “Tell me what you want.”

Molly swallowed. Fox was right; she wanted him as much now as she had during the hours they’d spent tangled in the dark. But a single night she could justify. Anything longer threatened to take this beyond a moment of wildness and into far more perilous territory.

“One month,” she whispered near soundlessly. “After that, you leave and never contact me again.” It was a stipulation born of the pain inside her, a pain so old it had its own heartbeat, a dark heaviness that was a terrible ache.

“That’s clear enough.” A kiss on her jaw, the movement of his thumbs on the sensitive skin of her inner thighs radiating pleasure that pooled in the throbbing bundle of nerve endings between her legs.

“And,” she rasped, “we’re exclusive for that month.”

His hands tightened on her flesh. “No one else, I promise.” Another teasing, tormenting brush of his thumbs, the callused pads scraping erotically over her flesh. “Come here, baby.” The seductive invitation in that whiskey-and-sin voice stole her will, threatened to destroy everything she’d worked for in life.

Dangerous, he was so dangerous. Still, she dipped her head that final inch and kissed him. Her control of the contact lasted approximately two seconds. Gripping her nape with one hand to hold her in position, Fox kissed her, not raw and deep as she’d expected, but with a slow attention that had her entire body aflame, the ring on his lip a hard accent. He slid his other hand higher up her leg at the same time, making her stomach flutter, her inner muscles clench.

“Such pretty, soft skin.” It was spoken against her mouth, his lips curving in a smile as he licked playfully across her own. When she shivered, his eyes darkened, his kiss deeper but just as slow, as if this rock god had all the time in the world to kiss and caress Molly Webster. His hand gently squeezed her nape.

Warning bells clanged in her mind. It felt as if she were drowning, kiss by slow kiss, Fox coaxing her into deeper and deeper waters. “The bedroom—” she began on a slightly panicked breath.

Eyes lazy, hooded, he kissed away her words before glancing down at her legs. Her heartbeat was in her mouth as she watched him push up her skirt to expose the pale skin of her upper thighs.

“You make my mouth water.” Lowering his head, he pressed a single wet kiss on the inner curve of her right thigh, his stubbled jaw rubbing against her flesh.

She clutched at his hair, the strands dark silk against her palms. “Fox, we—”

Shifting his grip to under her thighs, he pulled her forward on the bench, her hands falling to the leather seat cushion to brace herself as he altered her center of gravity. “Hmm,” he murmured, the green of his gaze holding her own for a second that stole all the air in her lungs. “What’s the rush, Molly Webster?” He bit down over the tendon in her neck.

Hands back in his hair, her fingers spasmed into a tighter hold, her breath a tremor.

“Bad Fox.” Licking out, he soothed the sensual hurt with his tongue. “There, I’m behaving now.”

She shuddered, surrendered under the gritty seduction of his voice, sought his mouth with hers. It was clear she wasn’t the one setting the pace tonight, but she no longer cared. Not with Fox’s strong body between her legs and his hands on her own, his kisses drugging her to a languorous pleasure that made her want to explore him as slowly as he was exploring her.

Groaning, Fox shifted one hand into her hair, unraveling the twist, but didn’t take over this time. No, he let her kiss him, let her play with the lip ring that fascinated her. Molly felt oddly shy as she went to—

Her home phone rang.

She ignored it, her lower body melting at the way Fox continued to stroke his thumb over her skin as they kissed. No rush, no hurry, nothing but pleasure, her bones heavy with it.

The phone kept ringing.

And ringing.

Finally, the answering machine kicked in. Molly was a mass of helpless flesh by that point, couldn’t have cared less who it was. But the worried female voice, familiar and beloved, intruded more effectively than a scream. Sudden panic slicing through the sensual haze, she pushed at the wide shoulders in front of her. “I have to get this.”

Fox released her without argument after taking one look at her face, and she ran to grab the handset on the counter that separated her living area from the kitchenette. “Charlie, what’s wrong?”

“Oh, you’re home.” Her friend’s voice, a low whisper, broke on the last word. “I just…” A deep inhale. “There’s someone else in the office, and there shouldn’t be. I came back from the bathroom and heard them moving around.”

“Leave,” Molly said, her fingers rigid on the handset.

“No.” Charlotte took another shaky breath. “It’s probably only the building security guard doing an unscheduled round, but could you stay on the phone with me while I go check it out?”

Molly bit back her instinctive negative reaction to her friend’s plan, knowing how important it was to Charlotte that she not crumble under the weight of what might be an imagined fear. “I’m right here.”

Having circled to the other side of the counter, Fox, his expression grim, caught her eye and mouthed, Problem?

Maybe, she mouthed back, hoping she was wrong. That was when a scream sounded from the other end of the line, followed by a thud, as if the phone had hit the carpet. “Charlotte! Charlie!”

Scrabbling, rustling sounds, then Charlotte’s voice, a little breathless and holding a taut tension. Not fear though; this was excruciating embarrassment. “I’m fine.” A pause, a deeper voice murmuring in the background before Charlotte returned. “I just met my new boss,” her best friend groaned into the phone. “Or more specifically, I threw an industrial-strength stapler at his head.”

Knees trembling in relief, Molly braced her elbows on the counter as Fox reached out to tuck her hair behind her ear. Catching the intent lines of his expression, she touched his wrist, let him see everything was all right. He didn’t know Charlotte, but he’d heard that scream, too.

Maybe she’d imagined the protective concern in his expression… No, she didn’t think so. Every instinct she had said this man would never stand by while a woman was hurt. Neither would he ever hurt one. Not physically. Now he rubbed his thumb over her lower lip before dropping his hand and moving to pick up a delivery menu she had on the counter from a neighborhood restaurant.

“Oh God, Molly, what if he fires me?”

Molly wrenched her attention back to her best friend. “He’s not going to fire you,” she reassured Charlotte as Fox turned the menu toward her. “You were in the office being a diligent employee, remember?” Not sure how she felt about the fact she was about to have dinner with the rock star who’d been meant to be a one-night stand, Molly nonetheless pointed at her favorite dish and Fox pulled out his phone to place the order.