His lips descended over mine, and I opened my mouth to let him kiss me deeply. He put his hands on my back, and he drew me closer to him. For a long, delicious moment, we let our lips tell each other how we felt. We let our arms hold each other when, in reality, we hid our yearning away. We let our bodies speak since our tongues refused to.
With Desmond, my body and my lips knew the drill. It was like they’d never forgotten. Pucker, kiss, pull away a bit. Let him get closer, hold me tighter, and repeat. I didn’t think of all the reasons why I shouldn’t be kissing him. Going by how intensely he was kissing back, he didn’t either.
When we pulled away, after what seemed like a short second, breathing heavily, he didn’t let go. He had one hand wrapped around my waist while he nuzzled my cheek. I felt his breath on my neck and cheek, my skin tingling in response. His other thumb was now stroking my chin, gingerly tilting my face to his.
I looked into his eyes and was moved when I saw a look of deep longing. My heart was beating a thousand times a minute, and my body moved closer, as though I was under a spell. I ran my hands over his shirt, where I could feel his hard chest and up his neck, where I definitely wanted to plant a few kisses. We should resume. We definitely should resume. Why had we stopped?
“We should stop,” he said without moving an inch or taking either hand off me.
My waist was pressed tightly against his crotch, and Desmond was definitely more than interested.
“This can’t happen,” he said, running his hand through his hair. “We have this huge history together. Weworktogether! I’m your boss.”
He groaned. I only had to reach out, and I could caress his hair. Could we resume? I wasn’t done showering him with kisses. I could see a soft spot on his neck and near the ear, which definitely called for attention.
“Technically, Thomas is my boss,” I said. “You’re somewhere in the line of hierarchy.”
Look at me, flaunting the number of people separating our respective positions in the org chart. I used to be furious that I was demoted.
“The company policy,” he began, his eyes clouding with confusion.
I blinked, forcing myself to think beyond this moment,just as the rules of the world came flooding back to me. The workplace relationship policy.
Oh. Shit.
This was definitely a situation that needed to be overthought and overanalyzed.
I could see the conflict in Desmond’s eyes.
“Damn,” he muttered, taking a step away.
He had let himself go too. It was almost like we were back in high school, blindly believing that nothing in the real world could tear us apart.
“And of course, I was going to say, that’s why we can’t go ahead,” I said.
Previously, all I’d had to do was straighten my arm to stroke his cheek—my next move, obviously—but there was now two feet between the two of us.
“I should leave,” he said, looking around the restroom. “I’m leaving,” he added, taking a step in the direction of the door.
He took one more painful step away before he paused. He turned back to me, and before I knew it, his hand was on my wrist, and he was tilting my chin up.
“This was not how I envisioned this happening.”
I inhaled a sharp breath. His words filled me with a warmth I hadn’t expected.
“You imagined this?” I blurted out. “Us kissing?”
He smiled and nodded, and the warm feeling in me only grew.
“We kissed and did not kill each other after?” I asked again in disbelief.
He pretended to think really hard. “Well, in one of those daydreams, you did try to kill me this one time—with a butcher’s knife, no less.” His hand cupped my cheek, and Iclosed my eyes at the touch. “But at the very last moment, your good conscience intervened.”
My eyes opened, and I took a deep breath. “Going by what we just did, I’m pretty sure I’ve left my conscience at home.”
His eyes never left my face. “Ava …” he said, stepping in closer. “Did you go out on your date?” he asked, looking like he was fighting with himself about something.
My breath hitched as I remembered Hank.
