She could resist a whole hell of a lot of things, but a basic kindness wasn’t one of them. The guy ran from stalkers instead of having them arrested. He helped out kids. He took stupid writers who got conked in the head to the doctor for X-rays . . .

And he kissed so amazingly that she knew she’d be dreaming of him for days.

Weeks.

“Pace.”

“Holly.”

She let out a small smile when what she really felt like doing was stripping him naked and eating him for dinner. “That had more than a tad bit of chemistry to it.”

There was something about the way he looked at her that made the backs of her knees sweat. “Yeah,” he agreed. “It did.”

“Maybe . . .” She tipped up her head and looked at his beautiful mouth, still wet from hers. “Maybe we didn’t try hard enough to not want each other.”

His other hand tightened lightly on her waist as a slow smile curved his lips. “Great minds,” he murmured, and oh God yeah, once again covered her mouth with his.

It was insane to wrap her arms around his neck and go for it with more gusto than she had anything in recent memory. But she’d been so . . . restless. Bored. Unsettled, and missing something.

And yet here in his arms, his tongue dancing to hers, she wasn’t restless or bored.

Not unsettled at all.

And missing exactly nothing . . .

In fact, she wanted to crawl inside him and keep feeling like this, for as long as she could, and given how he had her backed up to the wall, a certain portion of his anatomy pressing into her belly, she knew he felt the same. So she gave herself over to it, lost herself in his scent, his taste, the feel of him—

Until someone behind them cleared his throat.

With a startled gasp, she yanked her hands off Pace, peering around his wide shoulders.

Red stood there, clearly unhappy. “Goddamn, Pace.” He pulled out his inhaler. “Before a fucking game?”

Pace sighed. “We need a minute.”

“Yeah, we do,” Red said, glancing meaningfully at Holly.

“I meant Holly and me,” Pace said.

Red tossed up his hands. “Jesus.”

“A minute,” Pace repeated.

At that, Red stalked off, leaving a deafening silence.

Through it, Pace reached out and stroked a strand of hair from Holly’s jaw, tucking it behind her ear. “I have no idea what to do about you.”

That much she knew. “I suppose you could pretend that there’s no chemistry, that you got it out of your system.”

“Could we?”

“We? No.” She shook her head. “I’m not all that good at pretending anything.”

His lips quirked, but he didn’t smile. “Good thing I am then.”