“I’m not sure,” I admit.
“Can I explain it to you in a different way?”
“You can certainly try.”
Hale smirks and sits up straight, scooting his chair closer. His knees rest on either side of my thighs, an enticing cage. He reaches for me, and even though I draw in a sharp intake of breath when his palms come to rest on my hips, I don’t protest.
“When I look at you, Lila, I see an intimidatingly sexy woman.”
“Me? Intimidating?”
He breezes past the rebuttal and keeps going, “And I think to myself, there’s no way I have all the right vocabulary to explain how beautiful I think she is.”
“But—”
His grip tightens, like a playful warning for me to shut my stubborn mouth. “And when I hear you speak, with that charming wit and sharp tongue, I think there’s no way I can stand on even ground with you as a man of such few words.”
“To be fair, you’re saying quite a lot of words right now.”
“My point is, Lila, that I alone am insufficient for you. The kind of attention and pleasure I can offer is only a portion of what I think you deserve. So, if there are others who can admire you differently, who can offer you types of affection that don’t come naturally to me, then I’m content with that.”
I’m feeling on the verge of drowning in those dark eyes of his. “I guess I see what you mean.”
His palms glide upward, slipping under the hem of my sweater, where his thumbs massage circular motions into the curve of my waistline.
“That’s good,” he murmurs.
Is it hot in here or is it just this stupid sweater?
As if he can hear my thoughts, his eyes once again roam the length of my body. “You’re wearing quite a lot of clothes today.”
“It’s chilly outside.”
“Hm.” Hale’s fingertips glide upward, tracing a path across my ribcage before dancing at the lace edge of my bralette. “We have unfinished business.”
“Right.” I clear my throat. “The meeting.”
He chuckles darkly. “Not the fucking meeting, Lila. I mean the other day, when I got caught up in my own head and pumped the brakes too soon.”
“It was for the best.” My voice sounds a little breathy, and it’s definitely his fault. He’s looking at me like he wants to devour me, even as he caresses my skin so gently. “No fraternizing and all that.”
“Well, I think if we’re all in agreement that we’ll keep this little secret from the Hawk…”
It’s hardly a little secret, though. A public relations specialist messing around with not just one butthreeFDNY staff members while I’m still a resident of the firehouse is exactly the sort of thing that would land poor Kate Branson with a mountain of paperwork to deal with if we got caught.
Right now, however, I can’t seem to care all that much.
A secret,” is all I manage, my voice barely above a whisper.
“Will you let me show you what I would have done if I hadn’t stopped myself in your ridiculously tiny kitchen?”
Yes. God, yes. “What if someone comes in?”
“Nobody is coming in here without knocking first.”
“What if you have to respond to a call?”
Hale shrugs, that infuriatingly calm movement that makes my core clench. Under my sweater, his thumb strokes slow, deliberate circles over my nipple through the thin lace of my bralette, pinching just hard enough to send a sharp jolt straight between my legs. “Then I’ll respond to the call, and you can go upstairs to the mezzanine and wait like a good girl for me to come back.”
