Page 19 of Wrecked

“I said I would, didn’t I?”

Sam takes a step back. “Come on in.”

“I can’t stay,” I say, hoping that if I say that out loud, I’ll feel obligated to follow through. I step inside and hand him the tin. “Fresh out of the oven. They’re still a bit warm.”

Sam opens the tin to find a dozen cookies neatly layered between round sheets of parchment paper.

I nod to the tin in his hands. “Leave the lid off until they’re fully cooled or they’ll stick together.”

“Yes, sir,” he says, meeting my gaze with something that looks very much like a challenge.

Coming here was a mistake.

He takes a cookie out of the tin and bites it in half. “Oh, man.”

He closes his eyes as he chews, and the sounds he’s making are driving me crazy. All the blood in my body heads south, leaving me lightheaded.

While he’s preoccupied moaning and groaning over the cookie, I indulge myself for a moment, taking in his lightly sculpted arms. His tattoos. His biceps, his forearms, and long-figured hands. I can just imagine what those fingers would feel like wrapped around my—

“Why do these taste so good?” he asks as he sets the tin on the coffee table.

I shrug. “I added some extra vanilla and a pinch of nutmeg. The nutmeg deepens the flavor.”

“Here, taste.” And then he offers me the other half of his cookie. He holds it out to me like it’s some kind of offering. I stare at the cookie. At his hand. And then at his eyes. It’s not just an offering.It’s a dare. A challenge.

My heart starts pounding, and my chest tightens.

I can’t.

When he brings the cookie closer to my mouth, my lips open automatically, and he slips it into my mouth. As I chew, I can’t stop thinking that my tongue is tasting something he just bit into.

It’s a simple thing, and yet it feels so damn intimate.

Sam reaches around me to close the door.

“I can’t stay,” I say as I swallow the cookie.

“Okay.” He remains standing right in front of me, in no hurry to move.

“I’ve got to get back.”

He nods to the door. “Go ahead.”

Heischallenging me.

Neither one of us has moved an inch. And now we’re just staring at each other. “Sam?”

“Hmm?”

“I don’t hook up with co-workers.”

“Yeah, me neither. It can get messy.”

And still, neither one of us has moved.

“You at least owe me a kiss,” he says. “You know, just so I can make sure I like it.”

Have you ever kissed a man?