Tempted By The Royal. Michelle Celmer

to go home with you.” There was something in his tone that told her he was only half joking.

      “Not going to happen,” she told him.

      “Is there anyone special in your life?”

      She smiled. “There are a lot of special people in my life.”

      “I meant a boyfriend,” he clarified. “Since you’re not wearing a ring, I’m guessing there’s not a husband or fiancé.”

      She shook her head. “I don’t really have time to date. Too many other things going on.”

      “That might be a valid excuse for neglecting to return a phone call,” he noted, “but it hardly explains not dating.”

      “Does a broken engagement explain it better for you?”

      He nodded. “Broken heart, too?”

      She hesitated a moment, then shook her head. “No, and maybe that’s one of the reasons I haven’t been dating. I realized how close I’d come to making a very big mistake, and I needed some time to figure out what I really wanted.”

      “And have you?”

      “I’m still working on it.”

      “Me, too,” he admitted.

      “I would have figured you for the type of man who knew exactly what he wanted.”

      “I used to be.” His eyes held hers for a long moment, then his gaze dropped to her mouth. “Not only did I know what I wanted, but I knew how to get it.”

      Then he leaned down and kissed her.

      And she kissed him back.

      She, Molly Shea, who didn’t do anything spontaneous or impulsive, was kissing a stranger in a bar—and thoroughly enjoying every second of it.

      Because—WOW—he knew how to kiss.

      Her brain scrambled to find an explanation for this inexplicable turn of events. She wanted to blame the wine, though she’d only had half a glass. She might consider the lateness of the hour, except that she was accustomed to working nights and wasn’t at all tired. Or maybe it was just the strength of a purely physical attraction that she hadn’t felt in a very long time.

      His tongue slid between her lips and the random thoughts and desperate explanations faded into nothingness as her brain seemed to stop functioning altogether.

      His hands slid up her back, drawing her close, closer. Her breasts grazed the solid wall of his chest. Her nipples tightened, her belly quivered. He drew her to her feet, and she pressed herself against him, shocked—and aroused—to feel the hard ridge of his erection against her belly.

      He wanted her.

      Of course, he was a man and the state of his arousal might have more to do with that fact than the identity of the woman in his arms, but she wasn’t going to worry about that now. She was just going to bask in the knowledge that she was wanted, revel in this affirmation of her feminine power. At least for another minute.

      Had she ever been kissed so thoroughly? Until her blood felt like molten lava pulsing through her veins and her knees went weak and everything inside her started to quiver? Never.

      Not even Trevor’s kisses had made her feel like this. He was the first man she’d ever been intimate with, and she’d never responded to him the way she was responding now. Of course, her relationship with Trevor had come on the heels of the break-up of her engagement, when she’d been desperate to feel wanted by someone. But even then, she’d never wanted to be with him as desperately as she wanted to be with Eric now.

      And the wanting terrified her.

      She forced herself to ease away from him and when she spoke, she kept her voice light, careful to give no hint of the churning inside. “You know what? You’re as sexy as sin and when you kiss me, it makes my heart pound like you wouldn’t believe, but I don’t do one night stands with strangers.”

      “I don’t, either…as a rule.” He slid his hands up her back, and she shivered as his fingers traced lazily along the ridges of her spine. “But there’s an exception to every rule.”

      “And you think you should be mine?” she asked skeptically.

      “I think you could be mine.”

      She pushed his arms down, stepped away from him and temptation. “I might be a small-town girl, but even I can recognize a big-time con.”

      He winced. “Okay, it did sound like a line.”

      “You think?” What was even worse than the obvious script was how much she still wanted to give in to the desire thrumming between them.

      “What I think is that, for the first time in a long time, I’ve met an interesting woman and I’m not ready to say goodbye to her yet.”

      He sounded sincere, but if she’d learned nothing else from her failed relationships, she’d learned that she didn’t have a clue when it came to understanding the motivations of men. “Do you mean that?”

      “Yes, I do.”

      His voice was sure, his gaze steady, and despite the doubts and insecurities that swirled inside her, she wasn’t ready to say goodbye yet, either.

      “I’m not working tomorrow,” she finally said. “If you wanted to meet me back here around ten, maybe we could spend the day together.”

      “I’d really like that,” he said. “But I won’t be here tomorrow.”

      Disappointment weighed heavily in her belly. “You won’t?”

      “My plane’s scheduled to leave at 8:00 a.m.”

      “You’re going back to Tesoro del Mar?”

      He nodded, and though she regretted that it was true, she knew his leaving wasn’t any reason to throw caution to the wind and do something completely crazy.

      “I guess this is goodbye then,” she said.

      “I guess it is,” he agreed.

      Then he tipped her chin up with his finger and brushed his lips against hers. It was a gentle kiss this time, as fleeting as their time together had been.

      “Goodbye, Molly.”

      “Goodbye.” She watched him cross the room. She watched as he flipped the lock and pushed on the door, and she felt all of her reason and common sense sweep through the open portal and into the night.

      “Wait.” The word sprang from her lips without conscious thought.

      He turned back. Waiting.

      She could let him go—and always wonder what might have been. Or she could be wildly spontaneous and spend the night with a man whose kiss had singed her right down to her toes.

      She’d always believed it was better to regret something she’d done than something she’d left undone, and while it was possible she’d wake up with regrets in the morning, she knew she would regret it more if she let him walk away.

      Eric sensed the battle waging inside Molly and it took every ounce of willpower he possessed to keep his hand clamped around the handle of the door to keep from reaching for her again. If they were going to spend the night together—as he very much wanted them to do—it would need to be her decision. And he knew it wasn’t one she would make lightly.

      She’d admitted that she didn’t date much, and he knew a woman as beautiful and warm and friendly as Molly didn’t sleep alone unless it was what she wanted. So what made him think that she would break her self-imposed rules to spend the night with him?

      Chemistry.

      It had crackled between them from the