There’s something in his voice. Disbelief…pleading? As if the answer to that question is important. As if heneedsto know.
He’s worried I’ll catch feelings, cling, get hurt when we have to go back to being strictly colleagues. I have to convince him that the last thing he needs to worry about with me is emotional entanglement. That this is 100 percent physical. That I have no feelings whatsoever. Other than horniness.
In other words, convince him of the truth.
Because thatisthe truth.
“Yes,” I say. “I’m not in the market for a relationship. That’s totally off the table. This would just be sex.”
He’s breathing deeply, brow gathered, eyes searching mine. “Just sex.”
Just hearing him saysexis enough to send heat cascading up my thighs. “That’s what I want.”
A beat passes. “Ana, I don’t know if I can—”
“You remember that kiss,” I interrupt. “You know how good it would be.”
A thick swallow. Fingers twitching at his sides.
I close the remaining few inches between us, the tips of my breasts grazing his heaving chest. “Do you want me, Ryan?”
His heavy-lidded eyes drop to my mouth. “God, yes.”
“Then get out of your head,” I say, a breath away, “and enjoy me.”
I bring my lips to his, uncharacteristically tentative, in case he wants to stop me—but it’s abundantly clear he wants the exact opposite as he opens his mouth greedily for my kiss.
Chapter 12
The moment our tongues collide, I realize what a colossal mistake it was to kiss Ryan. Not the kiss itself—becausegod,is that the least wrong thing I’ve ever done—but where it’s happening. Outside, in public (indiscreet AF, even if the street is empty), and two blocks plus a nine-story elevator ride away from my hotel room.
His mouth betrays a need that’s been stifled for much longer than a few days. There is no teasing, no artful exploration—Ryan kisses like a man starved, and I am the feast. His fingers rake into my hair, fisting it gently at the roots so he can maneuver my face to get his fill.
I clutch the lapel of his jacket, and he hauls me so tight against him, it’s as if he wants to pull me inside him, snuff out every molecule of air separating us. This kiss went from zero to a hundred in point-five seconds, and we’re too far away from a place private enough to get naked enough for all the filthy things I want to do to this man.
I break the kiss. His face follows mine for a moment, leaning forward as I inch back, reluctant to disconnect.
His dazed eyes land on my swollen lips. “God, Ana, your mouth,” he rasps.
“Let me show you what else it can do,” I say, pulling him onunsteady feet toward the hotel, hoping we won’t run across anyone who could report him for indecent exposure, the way his erection is surging against the crotch of his jeans.
Interminable minutes later, we finally crash through the door to my room. I reach for him immediately, rising on my tiptoes and diving for his mouth, but he stops me.
No. Please…I just got past those defenses—
“Don’t move,” he says, laying a kiss on the back of my hand, which feels oddly romantic.
He steps into the bathroom, turns on the faucet, and washes his hands thoroughly, methodically. Fastidiously.
“Please don’t tell me you’re going to serial-kill me,” I say.
He smiles, sending a pulse through to my pussy. “No. But I’m going to touch you. A lot.”
The knowledge that he’s cleaning the city grime from the train, the campus, and countless surfaces off his hands as a show of respect for my body’s most intimate places makes me heady.
He approaches me, a panther stalking his prey. Except no prey wants to be caught the way I desperately need to be right now.
He cups my jaw before his lips land back on mine, and it’s…everything. Hot, and wet, and winding. A thought flitters into my mind that his lips belong here, on mine, working their magic on me, but it’s too vague to fully grasp. Besides, fanciful thoughts like that don’t belong anywhere near a casual hookup.
