She couldn’t read him. Cat didn’t sense any indications of the righteous anger he’d hurled at her earlier in the day. But he wasn’t exactly friendly either.

“Depends.”

The door to the bar opened behind Cat, and a couple, laughing and handsy, stumbled out onto the sidewalk. Noah nodded his head toward the skinny stretch of alley next to the bar and Cat followed him.

“Why were you having drinks with my friends?” she demanded once the darkness of the alley closed around them.

“They were attempting to educate me.”

“Oh? On what?”

“You.” He listed a bit to one side.

Noah Yates had a buzz going.

“What ezatly about me?” Okay, maybe Noah wasn’t the only one a few sheets to the wind.

“They think I’m wrong about you.”

“You are wrong about me. Su-u-uper wrong.” To emphasize her point, she stabbed a finger in the direction of his chest. It caught him at the base of the throat.

Noah made a grab for her stabbing hand. “I’m starting to wonder,” he admitted.

He hadn’t put his gloves on, and his hand was warm over hers.

She leaned in to bring his face into focus. His glasses were a little cockeyed on the bridge of his nose. “You make me want to maim you.”

“Yeah? Well, right back atcha,” Noah said, his green eyes narrowing in the dim light of the alley.

“I don’t like your attitude. Like not at all,” Cat insisted.

“You know what else I want to do besides maim you?” Noah asked. He leaned in like he was about to tell her a secret.

Cat, through her Cosmo fog, could smell his soap. The sliver of air between them was charged. She could imagine the sound of the slap, the feel of his stubbled jaw under her open palm as it cracked across his face.

“What?”

“I think I wanna kiss you.”

“Well that’s a stupid—”

The rest of her words were lost as if they’d been wiped clean from her brain. His lips, firm and warm, pressed against hers, shocking the breath and thoughts right out of her. Noah was warm and hard everywhere. And Cat realized she was noticing this because she’d splayed her hands across his chest under his jacket.

He spun her so her back was to the alley wall. Cold brick bit into her back, but the rest of her was overheating. Tilting his head, he changed the angle of the kiss, and when Cat opened her mouth to tell him this was the worst idea in the history of stupidity, he took possession.