But nothing about the way he's looking at me feels professional.
"Jane," he says, and my name sounds different in his voice now. Rougher.
"Yeah?"
"You're doing that thing again."
"What thing?"
"Thinking of escape." His thumb strokes once along my hipbone. "Focus on feeling instead."
So I do.
I let myself notice the way his chest rises and falls. The heat of his hands. The tension in his jaw. The way his gaze keeps dropping to my mouth and dragging back up like it costs him something.
"Better," he murmurs.
“Getting there.” I force myself to keep moving. I trail my fingers up the column of his neck, into the short hair at his nape. It’s soft, surprisingly so.
His eyes flutter shut for a second. His grip on my waist tightens.
I lean in, pressing my body flush against his. Every inch of him is hard muscle against my softer curves. The heat between us is instantaneous, overwhelming.
I brush my lips against the rough stubble along his jawline. “Is this… convincing?” I whisper against his skin.
He shudders. A full-body tremor that vibrates through me. His hands slide down, gripping my hips, pulling me even tighter against him.
“Jane,” he warns, his voice strained.
“Shhh,” I breathe, moving my lips to his ear. I nip lightly at the lobe. “I’m seducing you. Stop talking.”
He groans. The sound goes straight to my core.
His control is fraying. I can feel it. See it in the tight clench of his jaw, the desperate hunger in his eyes when they snap open.
Emboldened, driven by a reckless need I don’t fully understand, I shift my hips against his. A slow, deliberate grind.
He makes a choked sound. His hands clamp down on my hips, holding me still. “Jane. Stop.”
“Why?” I challenge, looking up at him. My own breath is coming fast now. “Am I doing it wrong?”
“You’re doing it too damn right,” he grits out.
I’m not sure who moves first.
One second I’m still thinking, still trying to remember what I’m supposed to be doing—and then his mouth is on mine and everything goes quiet.
Not gentle. Not hesitant. It’s hot and sudden and too much in the best, worst way. My breath disappears. My thoughts scatter. His lips move against mine like he knows exactly what he wants, and my body agrees before I can catch up.
His tongue slips into my mouth and I jolt—not away, justopen, startled by the sensation, by how intimate it feels, how quickly it makes my knees weak.
A sound tears out of me. Soft. Embarrassing. Needy. I don’t recognize it, but he does. And he deepens the kiss.
My hands fist in his hair without asking permission. I pull him closer because the space between us suddenly feels unbearable.
This isn’t practice. This isn’t a lesson.
This is something inside me waking up all at once.
