8.3

Any other time, she’d have jerked away, made it clear that he couldn’t just . . . invade her personal space. So casually, so confidently. She wasn’t easy, she wasn’t . . . what they said she was. Far from. You’re a stone-cold bitch.

Only she wasn’t that either. She was just a woman who’d fallen in love with the wrong man. A woman who’d had her heart shattered into a million pieces and handed back to her on a platter of public humiliation. She wasn’t ready for kisses, confident, casual, or otherwise. Not even if they felt like . . . oh, they felt so good.

His lips were warm, firm, and tender all at the same time. He smelled good, he felt good. She wanted to sink in, to drown, to let everything fall away and simply float along on the lovely tingling sensations he was eliciting from her body. She was teetering, so close to that edge . . . then he pressed a kiss just below her ear, and her hair was swinging back into place, his jacket once again nudged up onto her shoulders. She didn’t—co