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should select an alternate venue in which to converse.”
    “Oh, I don’t know.” She batted a palm frond out of her face. “This seems fitting.”
    When he scowled at her, she glared back, then finally relented.  His hand was warm, his grip firm but gentle as he pulled her up.
    She dropped it like a hot potato, brushing some dirt and leaves from the front of her shirt.  
    “Well,” she finally said after several mortifying moments. “Exciting as this has been, I’m afraid I have a pressing engagement to repeatedly bang my thumb with a hammer. If you’ll excuse me?”
    She turned then, deeper into the woods, with no idea where she was heading. Hopefully into a deep hole that would deposit her in China. As she walked, the frantic croak of tree frogs provided the laugh-track to this farce. 
    Mason followed her. Of course he did. Probably in hopes of some more entertainment. 
    “Allison –”
    “Although to be fair,” she talked right over both him and the frogs that had grown louder as they got closer to the water. “This is not the most humiliated I’ve ever been. Did you know that I gave my high school boyfriend the down payment for his first car, expecting he’d use it to take me to prom? Instead he took the head cheerleader, and managed to get her pregnant in the back seat.”
    “That’s… you’re joking. No, no, I can see that you’re not. But Allison –”
    “And then there’s the time I believed it when this guy said I love you, when what he really meant was I love the fact that you can fund the political campaign I’m thinking of launching after you introduce me to your father’s connections . And when the money was gone and my father came down with Alzheimers, he broke it off with me. Two months before the wedding.” 
    She could smell the river from here. It smelled like fish stink and her own lack of judgment.
    “Allison –”   
    “So really, when I put things in perspective, falling on my face after literally running away from you is maybe a five on the Allison Hawbaker Humiliation Scale.”
    “Allison – ”  
    “Although honestly, I can’t quite figure out why you came after me. I mean, you’ve already written a very eloquent letter of apology for our previous misunderstanding. I’m over it. I’m not going to make a scene at Sarah and Tucker’s wedding, if that’s what you’re worried about. And if you’re looking for an easy conquest, there are literally thousands of women who would lay right down for you, no questions asked. And they wouldn’t even have to trip to do so.”
    “For bleeding Christ’s sake, will you just shut up!”
    Mason’s hands when he grabbed her were no longer gentle. They clutched her hips, yanking her close against him, thigh to thigh, chest to heart-pounding chest. She had only a moment to note that his eyelid twitched when he was angry, then his mouth was on hers in the dark, and the chorus of tree frogs faded. Allie brought up a hand as if to say back off, buster, but he wrapped it with his, linking their fingers in a grip that suggested he wasn’t prepared to back off in the least. His other hand held her head still as his mouth plundered, the night air wrapping around them, cool and just a little damp, while his unshaven chin scraped hers. 
    His tongue was hot and unforgiving, his lips ruthless in their demand. The part of her brain that was still functional suggested that maybe this wasn’t the best way to convey nonchalance and urbane sophistication, but her libido kicked that part into a dusty corner. Mason was hard and male and forceful and not attempting to charm her in the least.
    She was pretty sure he wasn’t acting.
    “This,” he pulled his mouth far enough away to whisper “is what I was trying to gain. You, Allison. Just you.”
    And okay, that sounded like a line. But he certainly delivered it beautifully. Then his mouth was back on hers and she couldn’t make herself stop.
    He kissed her, and kissed her, and