I concentrate on my breathing, still holding her tightly with my hand wrapped around her hair. “I needed to see.”
“Needed to see what?”
“If what I felt was real.”
“Was it?” she whispers, her eyes searching mine.
“Yeah, baby. It was for me.”
I shouldn’t have kissed her. I shouldn’t have let my impulses take me over without any thought.
She’s the type of woman where one taste isn’t enough.
Now, I want to spend hours exploring her body, losing myself in her softness and warmth.
Shit.
This isn’t good.
“I got to go,” I tell her before releasing my grip on her and stalking out the door.
Maybe I am a pansy, like Thumper said earlier. I should stay or maybe apologize, but that’s never been my style.
I barely make it fifteen feet down the sidewalk when I hear, “Hey!”
I turn, finding Tate on the sidewalk with her fingers tracing her bottom lip. I fully expect her to tell me off, call me an asshole, or march right up to me and give me a matching black eye on the other side.
But that’s not what she does. She barrels toward me, sprinting at full speed, and I open my arms, knowing she’s about to collide with me.
She leaps into my arms, wrapping her legs and arms around me. Nothing else is said as she smashes her mouth down on mine, taking my lips harder than I did hers.
I slide my hands under her bottom, holding the entirety of her weight as her tongue strokes the seam of my lips. I can’t stop myself from giving it all to her, wanting her more than the air I breathe.
My head is swimming with a world of possibilities as I squeeze her ass, and our tongues tangle together. My cock strains against the rough material of my jeans, an unfamiliar sensation for me the last few years.
I want her.
I want her more than I’ve wanted anyone.
And suddenly, she pulls away, climbing down my body like she’s done it a million times before. It’s my turn to be in a haze. “What was that?” I ask, gasping for air and trying to find my footing because Tate puts me totally off-kilter.
“I needed to see if it was real.”
“Was it?” I ask her, repeating her same question from a minute ago.
“Yeah,” she says and pokes me in the chest with her long fingernail. “But don’t you ever walk out without saying goodbye, asshole.” And with those words, she spins on the heels of her boots and stalks back to her shop without giving me another look.
Damn.
If I wasn’t in lust before, I sure as fuck am now, and I know nothing but trouble lies ahead.
* * *
Just before midnight, my phone beeps.
Unknown: Here’s the list. Good luck.
The text is followed by ten places I’ve never heard of, much less know where they are.
