He nods, grunting again, and heads for the door. I don’t really know what possesses me to grab his arm as he passes by me, and I can’t blame the weird flighty feeling I’ve been pushingdown all night. He pauses when my fingers catch on his sleeve, and he shifts to face me, confusion in his eyes.
“Really, Everett,” I say. “Thank you.”
I mean it both as an apology for my behavior today and as genuine gratitude, but I can’t quite bring myself to say that. He’s been kind of an ass since I showed up, but I probably haven’t been any less infuriating to him. And still, he’s been respectful and kind, in his own way.
I step forward with a smile, intending to pull him into a light, friendly hug.
He ducks his head in an instinctive movement as my arms reach up to wrap around his shoulders, and his entire body stiffens with tension. It probably would’ve been a little awkward, but a perfectly normal hug, except for the fact that I wasn’t expecting him to move his head. I freeze halfway through reaching out to hug him, and that only makes things worse, because I somehow manage to trip over my own damn feet.
I trip, and I fall forward, right into him.
I fall forward right into his mouth, and our eyes blow wide with panic at the same time. Both of us go deathly still, staring at each other like deer in the headlights. It lasts for maybe two seconds before I manage to reboot my brain.
I intend to pull back and apologize profusely, I really do.
But when I shift, the rub of his lips against mine makes me gasp, and something in the air around us snaps.
I don’t know who moves first. Maybe Everett’s hands wrap around my hips before I twine a hand in his hair, or maybe I tilt my head and press closer to him before he lets out a shaky breath. All I know is that he’s so hot he burns everywhere he’s pressed against me, and when his tongue flicks out to tease over my bottom lip, it feels like the entire world goes hazy.
The coarse brush of his beard against my cheeks lights up all of my senses, and I whine out a formless plea when his handssqueeze over my hips. His palms are broad, and his fingers are strong, and it makes me feel so breakable that my head spins. He tastes like mint when he slips his tongue into my mouth, and I melt into his arms as I kiss him, unable to stop myself. I know it’s an awful idea, but Everett makes my entire body ache with want, and I’m so tired of denying myself what I want.
“Everett,” I groan into his mouth, digging my nails into his shoulder.
And just like that, my world is spinning again, empty space in front of me where Everett had been pressed so close only moments before.
I blink in shock as he pulls away, my chest heaving as I try to catch my breath. There’s heat in his cheeks, and his hair is mussed from where I’d been tugging at it. His pupils are blown out, but the look in his eyes is nothing but panic.
He raises a hand to his mouth, touching his fingertips to his lips as he heaves in a shaking breath.
“Ms. Bryce.” His voice is rough like gravel, and I do my best not to flush at the sound. “I—I’m sorry. Excuse me.”
I don’t catch his sleeve this time when he steps back because he’s practically running for the door. He damn near knocks it down in his haste to get out of the room, and I still can’t pull enough breath into my lungs to even call after him. My heart is hammering in my chest, and my brain is absolute mush, incapable of putting together a coherent thought.
I can’t suppress the twinge of hurt when the door slams shut behind Everett, but I also can’t do anything about it, too busy standing there in shock. I bring my fingers up to my lips in an imitation of his actions. They shake as they trace the curve of my lips, the sensitive skin still tingling from the heat of Everett’s mouth.
What the hell did I just do?
If my boss ever finds out about this, I’ll be back in the office filing papers for some bullshit job in less time than it would take me to apologize. And that’s onlyifhe decides not to fire me. I stumble toward the bathroom, my head spinning with panicked thoughts. I need to clear my head, and maybe to wash all my worries down the drain in the shower. My lips are buzzing just from the memory of Everett’s mouth on mine, and I simultaneously want to both sink into that wonderful feeling as much as I want to bleach my mind clean of every thought of him.
I’ve been kissed before. Plenty of times, in fact. But it’sneverfelt like that. It’s never left me shaking and off-balance, and it’s never filled me with this insatiable, gnawing desire for more. A kiss can’t be worth losing my job over, not even if it feels like that.
Fucking hell, why does this have to happen to me? Of course, the only person who’s ever made me burn with excitement that way is the one person I absolutely cannot have.
EVERETT
Ifeel fucking hungover. I kind of wish I was.
Being drunk would be a much better excuse for kissing Mary than whatever idiocy I can come up with. I haven’t kissed another woman since I met Laura. It’s been so long that I damn near forgot what it was like to have someone else’s mouth on mine. The only thing I can think of to explain my behavior is exhaustion and the weird mood we were both in last night.
If I’d slept at all, I would try to convince myself that it was just a dream, but I didn’t get a single wink.
I spent half an hour after getting into my own room just sitting on the edge of the bed and staring mindlessly at the wall. Then I paced for a while, then sat back down, and repeated the whole process over and over. My head’s even more of a mess than it usually is.
Usually, it’s just exhaustion and upcoming bills rattling around up there.
Now, I’m trying to figure out how the hell I can ever show my face to Mary again.
I’m not the type to do things like that, especially with someone I hardly know. Laura and I were high schoolsweethearts. She was my first, and once she passed, I fully expected her to be my last. We had our ups and downs through the years, but even on those days when we were talking about ending things, our respect for each other never waivered. We loved each other, even when it was hard to like each other. And then she got sick, and every fight we ever had was forgotten about overnight. As soon as she came home with a cancer diagnosis, I knew that I wanted to spend the rest of our time together as happily as we could manage. Petty disagreements didn’t matter after that.
