“I wish you weren’t,” he says softly. He takes a step closer to me, and now I’m the one who can’t look right at him. I’m watching the way his hand glides over the top of his kitchen chair, the way it holds on, the way it smooths across. “I wish the people in your life did more nice things for you.”
“I’m fine,” I say, still looking away, now nervous at what I’ve started. Nervous that I poked so much that I made that inevitability happen.
But he gently places a finger under my chin and tilts my face up so I can see him again.
“I know you’re fine. But I can’t help how much I like seeing you smile.”
His eyes scan my face, impatient and longing, as though he wants to come closer but hasn’t quite decided. He lingers, watching me, unsure. He opens his mouth to say something and then closes it. Opens it again and then thinks better of it. He swallows, and his Adam’s applebobs nervously. He’s blushing a tinge so gorgeous I want to reach out and trace it.
AndIcan’t help but smile at the sight of his honest indecision.
“See,that,” he says, removing his finger from under my chin and drawing it across my lips, slowly, reverently. “That smile. It does something to me.”
“I can see that,” I say, my body tilting unconsciously toward his, drawn in by watching this composed man succumb to trepidation, a long rope tightening around my heart.
His thumb sits on my bottom lip, and he watches, mesmerized but still unmoving.
“Are you going to kiss me?” I breathe out, so keyed up now that I can’t stop myself from saying it.
“Don’t you think it’s a bad idea?” he says, his eyes still on my mouth.
“Probably,” I agree, even though I can’t stop drinking in the way he’s looking at me. The way he seems to be holding himself back.
“We live in the same building. You used to kind of be my therapist.” It’s a quiet relief knowing that he’s also thought about it; that he’s batted around all these same complications and studied every nook and cranny of what-ifs. It’s the opposite of rashness, of impetuous desire, of a spur-of-the-moment bodily want. He’s turned it over in his head too. But he still went to find my button. “Wouldn’t that make things complicated?” he finally breathes.
I nod. “Definitely.”
“So tell me to stop,” he says with a groan.
But I already know I can’t.
“I don’t think I want to,” I whisper.
He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, centering himself. I wonder if he’s going to be the smart one. I wonder if he’s going to take all those excellent points he just made and let them convince him to take a step back.
But the opposite happens.
Chapter 23
He wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me to him, kissing me with so much recklessness I gasp. He pulls back at the sound, his hesitation from earlier coming back into full force.
“No, keep going,” I murmur, and he crashes back into me.
I’m consumed with want. It’s as though all that chemistry that’s been slowly bubbling between us has finally erupted in a stream of lava after weeks of lingering below, pressurized and then gradually causing the surface to fissure, breaking in an instant.
He tastes like the sugar of a cookie, sweet and delectable, and I can’t quite get enough. He pushes me up against the kitchen counter and lifts me from below until I’m sitting, his hands still under me, gripping like he’s never letting go. My hands are in his hair, pulling off his shirt, scraping across his back—going everywhere they can get. But his are the opposite. Even as we kiss like there’s no tomorrow, his hands move up slowly, softly. He runs them along my side, delicately against my collarbone, and back up to my lips to touch where he traced them before.
I’m burning everywhere as he keeps up the dichotomy—the fevered kisses and the gentle touches. I feel starved—like I never get to take what I want, and suddenly I’m being allowed. Against better judgment, against what would be prudent, against what would be responsible. I want it all.
He squeezes the inside of my thigh tightly, and I can’t stop the moan that escapes my throat. He pulls away from our kiss to watch,and I can feel the heat rising in my cheeks again. The way he’s looking at me is hazy and has the same level of need I can feel in myself. It’s intoxicating to be looked at like that.
He brings his mouth to my throat and kisses, slowly. “I want that sound again,” he purrs against my skin. His teeth scrape down my neck, and he gets his wish.
He undoes the top button of my shirt. “If I rip off one of these buttons right now, will you be impressed if I find it?”
I’m so turned on I can’t help but lean my head back and close my eyes as a small laugh huffs out of me. “I think I’ll just be impressed if you can get them undone, because I couldn’t do anything requiring dexterity right now.”
“Hmm, a challenge,” he says, and I can imagine his crooked smile from the tone of his voice. He undoes each button, torturously and leisurely, planting a kiss on the bare skin he uncovers with each. With every intake of breath he coaxes out of me, I can feel his grin against my body, like he’s taking each button as a victory and savoring it. Until he’s kneeling on the floor in front of me, the last button undone, and I tilt myself back to sitting and look down, because I want to see the expression on his face.
