“Of course I do.” My jaw tightened.
The truth of it hit me square in the chest. I wanted this. Her. For longer than I’d ever even admitted to myself. Probably since that day when we were kids, and she crushed my heart. But this felt different. It was reckless and inevitable all at the same time.
“If we do this,” I said slowly, “everything changes.”
Her eyes flashed with heat and need. “It doesn’t have to.”
I let out a short, humorless laugh. “I don’t think I?—”
“Preston,” she cut in gently, “this doesn’t have to be more than it is.” She lifted her hand and pressed it flat over my heart. “I just ran away from…well, I’m not asking for that.”
“What are you asking for?”
“You,” she said without hesitation. “This. Right now. Only for tonight.”
That should have been enough to stop me.
My head told me to walk away. This could only end badly. I didn’t doonly for tonight. Not with Jess. Not like this.
Did I?
My body leaned in.
“This isn’t nothing,” I warned, my voice low.
“I know,” she admitted. “But it doesn’t have to be everything either. It can just…be.”
Her fingers tightened in my shirt again, and she tugged me closer until her lips were on mine again.
This time, the kiss wasn’t soft or testing. It was searching and insistent. Full of want.
“Preston,” she whispered against my lips. “I need this.”
Fuck it.
Jess
Nothing about kissing Preston felt like a mistake.
Yes, there were a million reasons I shouldn’t be doing it, not the least of which was the fact that it had only been hours since I’d run away from my wedding without so much as an explanation to my fiancé.
Maybe it made me a bad person, but I didn’t feel bad about that.
Especially considering the only thing Trevor would be upset about was how it would alllook. And what he was going to tell the investors. I should be worried about that, too. But I wasn’t. Not now.
I pushed the thoughts of Trevor and the life I’d potentially left in ruins behind me. There was no room for that right now. No room for thoughts of anything but the moment I was in. And the man I was with.
Preston.
My body wanted this. Myheartwanted it.
But I wasn’t going to let myself go there. Not yet.
His hands slid over the soft velour of my jacket, pausingwhen they reached the bejeweled word emblazoned across the back. “This has got to go,” he muttered.
I couldn’t disagree with that.
He stood and tugged me to my feet, the movement bringing us so close I could feel his breath on my lips. The storm outside raged on, the rain slamming against the old glass panes, but as far as I was concerned, the world could be collapsing all around me.
