She turned her cheek into his palm for a brief, beautiful moment, before she drew herself away from him. “I heard what you said about giving me time to think about things, but I know you. You’re like a dog until you get your bone. And I can only imagine what you’ll do to make your case once we’re both out there at the reception. So since I really don’t want anyone in my family to know that we were once a very, very brief item—because then I’ll be bombarded with a trillion questions I don’t want to answer—how about we make a deal?”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Now that I know you’re truly serious about buying a home in Seattle, I’ll agree to be your Realtor again. As a bonus, it means we’ll have a bona fide reason to know each other outside of this wedding, because I really don’t want to have to lie to my family about not knowing you at all when I’m pretty sure they’ll all see right through that.”

“Won’t they wonder why today is the first time you’ve mentioned that we’re working together?”

“I’ll tell them we had a client confidentiality agreement, which, considering you came to me as an anonymous client, I’d say we did. And that I just cleared it with you that it’s okay for me to talk publicly about our business arrangement.” She poked him in the chest. “But if you don’t stop looking at me like that in public, they’re going to figure out that there’s more than business between us.”

He’d just told her he wouldn’t push too hard, that he wouldn’t give her ultimatums. God, though, it was hard not to reach for her again, not to kiss her to prove to her exactly how good they were together.

“How am I looking at you?”

“Like I’m Little Red to your big bad wolf.”

“Well,” he said slowly, “I do want to eat you.”

She was half-laughing as she shook her head at his completely distasteful joke. “Do we have a deal or not?”

If he hadn’t noticed the wicked gleam in her eyes growing brighter and hotter during the past few minutes they’d been verbally sparring, he would simply have agreed with her initial suggestion. But he knew neither of them would be satisfied with that.

“One kiss, Mia.” He let his words—and the heat that came with them—sink in before he added, “One kiss and I’ll be your dirty little secret. Although, once you agree to marry me, you’re probably going to have to tell a few people eventually.”

“See, I knew you’d do this. That you’d tell me you weren’t going to push in one breath, then immediately start talking about my marrying you in the next.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

She looked utterly taken aback. “You are?”

“I am,” he said. “Now, about that kiss to seal the deal.”

Her laughter was utterly unexpected and amazingly beautiful. All he wanted to do for the rest of his life was find new ways to make her happy.

“You and your obsession with getting a kiss out of me. You’re really pushing your luck, rock star.” But even as she said it, he could read the anticipation in her eyes. “Fine. You can have one kiss, but—” She lifted a finger to make sure he heeded her condition. “—no tongues.”

He wanted her so badly that it took his brain longer than it should have to make sense of what she’d just said. “Did you just say no tongues?”

“I promised myself that we’d have this little air-clearing chat today without my tongue ending up in your mouth.”

Jesus, just flirting like this with Mia was crazy hot. Especially because her voice was growing huskier with every word she spoke even as she informed him that he’d need to keep the kiss to a simple peck on the lips.

“What about my tongue ending up in your mouth?”

“Nope,” she confirmed as her lips yet again fought the battle against smiling. “But if you’re not up to a tongueless kiss—”

“I’m definitely up for the challenge,” he interjected. “Give me any challenge at all, Mia, and I’m going to rise to meet it.”

Her eyes darkened further as she clearly began to understand that he meant it. And as she grabbed his tie and yanked him against her so that she could control their kiss this time, the chorus of Leonard Cohen’s famous song, Hallelujah, began playing in his head.

* * *

Mia had tried to lie to herself for five years about how much Ford had meant to her. But it was pretty much impossible to keep up the ruse when he was right here with her, his mouth only a breath away, his eyes dark with desire as he waited for her to press her lips against his.

She was still reeling, not only from having him so close to her during the beautiful wedding ceremony, but also from what they’d shared with each other today. Finally, they’d addressed the past. The wounds weren’t anywhere near completely healed yet, of course, but now that she’d said her piece, she knew that healing could truly begin in earnest.

But as important as dealing with their past in an open and honest way was, it was what he’d told her about his name and his parents that had truly been a shock. And, even more than what he’d shared with her, it was his reasons for sharing that had sent her way off kilter.

He wanted to start over fresh.

But could they really?

Would she ever really be able to believe that they wouldn’t eventually end up exactly where they had the first time around?

And, more to the point, regardless of what the answers were, how could she possibly do anything right now but close the distance between them for one more kiss?

His mouth was so warm and soft against hers that a sigh of pleasure escaped her before she could stop it. There was absolutely no reason that Ford’s lips simply brushing back and forth against hers in a mesmerizing pattern of heat should be so arousing. But with every sinfully sweet brush of his mouth over hers, she fell deeper and deeper into the sensual spell that only he had ever been able to weave around her. And when his mouth moved from hers to create a path of heat across her cheek and then her jaw, she didn’t even consider fighting the instinct to tilt back so that he could press more kisses down her neck, then into the hollow of her throat.

One of her hands was still clenched on his tie, holding him tightly against her, but her other hand had slipped into his dark hair of its own volition. Arching into the sweet pressure of his mouth on her skin, she heard Ford’s low groan of pleasure as if from a distance as he cupped her hips in his hands and dragged her even closer.