“Are youdrunk?” he demanded, equal parts delighted and affronted. He’d really missed out today. “Oh my God, you are.”
“I’m not drunk. Anymore,” she said, blushing furiously. “We were researching wine bars.”
“Is that what you call it?” Tom grinned at her. She was pink and embarrassed and beautiful with it. “You should have told me you were getting started. I’d have quit earlier.”
He stuck his finger back in the dripping honey and offered it to her. When she shuddered away, Tom sucked the honey from his finger and bent down to kiss her. He got one bare taste of her vanilla lip balm and wine-scented mouth before she pushed him away with another delicate squeal and flailed her hands at him.
“What?” Tom demanded with mock innocence. He put the Tupperware on the coffee table so he could catch her hands and loom over her.
“I don’t want any of your trash honey,” Rosie insisted with tipsy dignity.
“Youlooovemy trash honey,” Tom sang. “It’s the sweetest.”
“It’s trash spit out by bugs.”
“I’m sure they were eating the clover next door too,” Tom said, leaning in to kiss her again. He got more of her this time, her mouth hot and wet against his for three heady seconds before she ducked her chin and pushed back with her hands.
“Don’t give me salmonella poisoning,” she said.
“The bee lady said it was perfectly safe.”
“The bee lady, who was taking them out with no protective gear and no smoke?”
“C’mon, Rosie, try the honey,” Tom said. “This is a moment of victory. You defeated the queen and drove her from your lands. Hear the lamentations of the bees as you eat the winter stores they were saving for their children.”
She snorted but kept her arms straight. Tom linked their fingers and balanced over her, letting her have the illusion she was holding him off.
“I’ll try the honey, but I’m not kissing you to do it,” Rosie said.
“Why not?” Tom said, wounded.
“We don’t have a kissing relationship,” she said, tilting her chin up stubbornly. “You can’t just come in and kiss me whenever you want to, all casual-like.”
Tom exhaled in disappointment. “So, wait, I can’t kiss you at all? Or I can only kiss you sometimes?”
Rosie gave him a heavy-lidded look of feminine secrecy.“That situation is subject to change. You’ll just have to check whether it’s a day I’m interested in kissing you.”
Tom let go of her hands long enough to scratch the back of his neck in performative consternation.
“Well, you’re the boss, of course, but I think all the fucking we’re going to do will feel real unfriendly if it’s on a day you don’t feel like kissing.”
Rosie bent her head back and cackled before she caught herself and remembered to glare at him, her mouth twisting from the effort of holding back her smile.
“Why do you think I’m going to sleep with you, when I just told you we don’t have a kissing relationship?” she demanded.
“Well, here we are, in this nice snowy cottage with a big bed,” Tom said, thinking hard, “and you’re wearing some very attractive pajamas, and you smell like vanilla and expensive wine.” He ducked his head and stole another kiss off the corner of her pursed lips. Rosie swatted him, and he took her hands back in his. “And, um, I can tell you’re not wearing a bra.”
If he could just lower himself a few more inches, he’d be able to feel her breasts against his chest, their bodies separated only by one thin layer of satin and his clothes, which were dirty and ought to be removed anyway.
Pinned, Rosie tossed her hair over a shoulder, now obviously pleased. “I do sound really fuckable,” she agreed. “Butyoujust showed up with sawdust in your hair and your mouth full of trash honey.”
The obscenity in her mouth sent a rush of heat directly to his cock, and he spread his knees, planting them to brackethers. He became pleasantly aware of the way her wrists in his hands felt, of the soft fragility of her skin under his fingers.
“I could shower,” he murmured, pressing his lips to the corner of her jaw.
Rosie slitted her eyes at him, her expression considering.
“I’ve been drinking,” she said with a trace of regret.
