I think back to the way he talked about the lavender frosting—like a pre-dawn sky. Then, to the mural, when I said the teal was the shade of a tropical lagoon.
My hair though? I’m not sure how to describe it, but I want to try. I twirl a strand of the brownish shade around my finger, considering. “It’s chestnut, like a rich, warm wood. It’s like…you drink coffee, right?”
His smile is clever—hopeful even. “You know I do.”
“It looks the way that first sip of coffee tastes. Strong. Dark.”
“Perfect,” he says, then gently moves my hand aside and runs his fingers along the light streaks in my hair. “And these? Are they sunlight coming through the window, bright and warm on your skin?”
My heart jumps, and I nod vigorously. “Yes.”
He dips his face into my hair, inhaling me. “Mmm.”
I shiver in a whole new way, feeling adored. Savored.
When Corbin lifts his face, he says, “So your hair is like nighttime and morning all at once?”
My chest warms. My heart pounds. This man is making me feel things I have no right to feel. “I suppose it is.”
The way he’s looking at me now, like he’s memorizing every detail, makes my breath catch. There’s something different in his eyes, something deeper. But riskier too.
He doesn’t say anything for a bit, just studies my face. “Your eyes are the same color as your hair.”
“They are.”
He looks down at my breasts. A bead of sweat slips between them. “And these are a perfect shade of pale.”
“You did say you could see white. Your girl is very, very pale.”
Then I blink. I just said “your girl.” Fine, I said it the way we often talk to friends. Still, it doesn’t go unnoticed.
His lips quirk up, saying he likes it. So do I, being his, but I should move on. I reach for his hair, a mess of brown waves. “Yours is lighter than mine. More like a latte.”
“Enough about me. Let’s talk about…” He stops talking and drags a finger down my chest to my right breast, tracing a circle around the nipple. It pebbles under his touch. “Dusky rose? Soft brown? Pale pink?” But before I can answer, he drops his face to it, sucking on it, and drawing out a needy gasp from me.
He smiles against my skin, murmuring, “Yes. That color. Mmm. The color ofmmm.”
I swat his hair. It’s playful, then it turns urgent as I drag my fingers through the strands, tugging him closer. As he sucks on my nipple, tugging it between his teeth, I’m trembling all over again.
He cups my breast like he’s weighing it as he sucks, and I drop my head back, basking in the sensation of his attention.
Soon, he lets go, then says wolfishly, “I could make you come again.”
My god, is he insatiable?
“Corbin…?” There’s a question implicit in the way I say his name.What are we doing?
He drags a hand down his face. “I know. We can’t keep doing this.”
It hurts to hear, but it’s a relief too, because someone needed to say it. Even though he’s now running a hand gently down my arm.
“We can’t,” I agree, also trying to hold firm. Ironic since I’m naked on a makeup table, having been fucked hard and good by my brother’s best friend, who’s also my business partner. “There’s so much we have to do. We just opened today.”
“I know.” He gets it, even as he steals one last touch. Then, he lets go. “We need to focus on the business.”
I scoot off the table, grab my clothes, and tug on my panties and bra. “This place deserves our full attention. So it can be the success we want it to be.”
“Sex is a distraction,” he says, hunting for his shirt and finding it on the floor behind us.
