She slides a glance toward me, as if she sees right through me.“No. We had an exceedingly strained breakfast this morning and then he told me he got an earlier flight out.” She shrugs.“It’s for the best. He needs his space.”
Somehow, I know in my bones what Kit needs, so I go for broke, raising an arm up to put around her shoulders. It’s awkward, at first, because she’s got to lean forward from the wall to accommodate me, but after the barest hesitation she leans in to me, setting her head against my shoulder, and it’s as natural as breathing for me to press my mouth against her hair, to inhale her scent while I hold her close to me. I’m pretty sure my ass is falling asleep on this hard floor, and the baseboard is poking me right in the spine, but I don’t give a good goddamn about it. When Kit takes a deep breath and snuggles herself a centimeter closer to me, I feel like I’ve solved the world’s problems.
“This is really unprofessional,” she says, after a few minutes of silence, silence where I’ve been listening to her breathe, feeling the sweet weight of her head on my shoulder, and also trying not to notice the way she’s set a hand on my thigh.
I laugh, because itisreally unprofessional, and after this I have no fucking idea how I’m going to try and get her to Beaumont, but I can’t really scare up any feeling about that at the moment—she’s the only thing I’m thinking about right now.“Sure is,” I say, and she huffs out a small laugh too.
She stirs a little, staying close, but unless she’s inhuman, her ass has to be feeling the pain too. I don’t want to leave her yet, or really at all, but I’ll take what I can get to draw out my time with her, so I say,“Hungry?”
She tips her head up from where it rests on my shoulder. Her eyes are still pink and puffy behind her glasses, but no more tears, and anyway I get distracted by her mouth, which is so close that I could move the barest inch and be kissing her. She’d better not look down, because I am absolutely about to pitch a tent in my jeans. She smiles, the first one I’ve seen from her all day.“I could eat.”
She scrambles up, brushing wallpaper pieces and plaster dust off her butt and thighs as she heads toward the stairs, and I swallow and clench my fists beside me. My whole side is still warm from where her body rested against mine.
“Right behind you,” I say, but it takes me a few seconds to pull myself together.
* * * *
I make her a grilled cheese and she cuts me the biggest piece of chocolate cake I’ve ever seen in my life, and we sit at her dining room table while I scroll through my phone, finding numbers of the local contractors I know. I make her laugh, telling her about my dad and the water-stained table, and I moan over her cake, both because it makes her smile and blush but also because it’s a great fucking piece of cake. By the time she’s finished off her sandwich, I’ve already called my dad to get his suggestions for who I should call first, and when I hang up, stuffing the last bite of chocolate cake in my mouth, Kit’s tapping her short nails on the table, her eyes narrowed at me.
“What?” I say, but it sounds closer toBwof?I think about all the dinners I go on for work, my impeccable table manners at even the most sophisticated places. Apparently you give me chocolate cake and Kit Averin and I turn into a Neanderthal. The fact that I’ve noticed that her breasts look spectacular in her tank top is, frankly, a further point in favor of this theory.
“Why are you helping me?”
This takes me off guard, even though it shouldn’t. My reaction to Kit—my need, since I’ve met her, to involve myself in aspects of her life that have nothing to do with the job I’m supposed to be doing with her—is not typical for anyone in our situation, and it’s especially not typical for me, since in general I’ve involved myself with women who aren’t interested in much more than a night out, a good lay, no complications. I swallow and take a big gulp of my water, shrugging as I set my glass down.“You called. You said you needed help.” She hadn’t really said this, and I know it, but I’m hoping she won’t call me out on it.
“But surely this works against your purposes.” I can feel her eyes on me, even though I’m looking idly through my phone’s browser again, pulling up the number for the contractor my dad wanted me to call first.“Surely it would be better for you to let everything in this house go to hell as quickly as possible, so maybe I’ll decide to give up and go to Texas.”
I look up at her. Should I say something about what she’s told me, about how knowing she has this money means Texas is probably not a necessity for her, even if this house does go to shit? I don’t want to bring up something that I know is tender, hurtful to her.“Surely that’s true.But let me ask you something, Kit.”
She raises her eyebrows at me, and this is familiar territory, this sparring. We do this well together.
“Why did you call me today?”
She shifts in her chair, looks out the back window.“I don’t know.”
“Come on,” I say, because the thing I like best about Kit is that she doesn’t bullshit me, or anyone.
Her chest rises when she takes a deep inhale.“I called because—I thought you’d make me feel better. Youdomake me feel better.” She shakes her head slightly after she says this last part, as if she can’t quite believe it.
“Doesn’t that work against your purposes?”
“I don’t have any purposes.”
“I mean—your purposes to see me as the big, bad corporate guy. The money guy. The guy you’re going to keep saying no to.”
She leans back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest and leveling me with a big, black-eyed stare. Holy shit, though, that tank top. That tank top is my Everest right now.
“Depends on the question,” she says, and my mind just—stutters. If she’s thinking about work right now, then it’s 100 percent fact that Kit has scrambled my sex radar forever, because there’s something about the way she’s looking at me, something about the way her voice has pitched a little bit lower. I feel like I’m about five minutes away from fucking her on this table, three minutes from getting under that tank top.
I stare right back at her. I watch as a pink flush creeps onto her pale cheeks, right under where the edge of her glasses rest. But Kit—despite the tears before, despite the fact that she’s had a lousy go of it today—Kit is tough as hell, and if she means the way she’s looking at me right now, she’s not going to back down.
I set down my phone and stand from my chair. She tips her head back to follow my movements, to look up at me from where she sits, arms still crossed, eyes still challenging.
“I’m asking,” I say, once I’m standing right in front of her, and she likes that. The right side of her mouth quirks up in a half smile.
“Well,” she says, reaching up to slip off her glasses, setting them on the buffet that’s behind her.“I’m answering.”
I’m on her so fast, lifting her out of her chair to set her ass up on the table, and she instantly spreads her legs to let me step between them, and it’s this hot, unbearable pause where our faces are inches apart, where I know we’re both thinking about how easy that was, how quickly we got to a place where my crotch is pressed against hers. But then I’m kissing her, my hands coming up to cradle her jaw, to tip her face just so, and holy shit, kissing Kit is hot, and sweet, and the way she opens her mouth against mine and slides her tongue across my bottom lip—I’ve got to stop myself from clenching my hands, from grabbing fistfuls of her hair to bring her closer to me. She’s got her hands on my stomach, stroking up and down, and when I feel her grab the fabric in her fingers, tugging, I moan, knowing she feels the same way I do, that desperation to get closer. I want these clothes off, want to feel her skin against mine, and I let my hands trail from her neck down her arms, thinking of how I can get this top off her without taking my mouth from hers.
