Then there was the rest of her face. She was quite pretty, if not exactly classically beautiful. She couldn’t be with that mouth of hers that was ever so slightly too large. He studied it now. No cupid’s bowhere. Her lips were plump, gods, deliciously so, and as far as he could tell, permanently parted, as if in surprise, or arousal.
She cleared her throat.
His gaze lifted to meet hers. He was not about to apologize for ogling his wife. Still. “Trying to spark some sort of memory,” he offered by way of explanation.
Her chest rose and fell as if she drew a labored breath. “Oh. Yes, of course. And…have you remembered anything more?”
“No.”
She licked her lips, then smoothed them over one another—and spurred a wicked thought.
“An idea occurs to me.”
“Oh?” She looked and sounded so eager to please him.Good.
He shook his head, as if in regret. “No, no, never mind. I should not ask it of you, despite the fact it might help.” Come to think of it, it might at that.
“Teddy, what is it that I can do? Tell me.”
“Very well.” He linked his hands behind him and moved toward her, aware he had, effectively, caged her in between his body, the wall, and the L-shape of her peculiar desk.
Her silver eyes widened as she wrongly misinterpreted his intent. “Er…I’ve already told you, my cabinet is filled with my work. Nothing that need concern you.”
“So you did.” He reached with both hands and plucked her wire frames off of her nose, carefully folded them, and set them atop her desk. “I thought it might be helpful if you kissed me.”
She blinked. “If I…kissed you?”
He nearly chuckled at her stammering attempt to echo his words. “Yes. Far be it from me to press my advances on you, but, as we are married, and, I would assume, had a courtship, I wondered if, by you kissing me, I might remember something. Anything.”
She stared into his eyes, lips parted as usual, then her gaze droppedto his mouth and—there. He saw it. He was not mistaken. Unadulterated yearning burned in her silver eyes.
His loins tightened and his cock went hard. Ah, well. Small price to pay to get his memories back, at best, and taste those luscious lips, at worst. Any way the wind blew, he won in this scenario, if she took the bait.
Her brows furrowed, and she sunk her white teeth into her lower lip. She looked nearly as tormented as he felt.
“I understand. You no longer feel ‘that way.’ I thought a kiss would hardly be asking for too much. Apparently I was wrong. Sorry I asked.” He started to turn away.
“N-no, wait.”
Anticipation heated his veins. His ploy was going to work.
She swallowed hard, placed her palms on his lapels and slid them upward, slowly, so slowly, curling around his nape. Her fingers were cool, and so very soft. He drew in a long breath and caught the sweet floral scent that hovered in the air around her. Then she rose up on her toes.
It was no good. She’d never reach him. But it had to be her, kissing him.
“Perhaps, if I did this?” He kept his tone neutral, as if his pulse weren’t racing, and edged his hips onto her desk, parting his legs to make space for her.
“Oh, yes. Yes, I think that works nicely,” she said, her calm and assured voice in direct contradiction to the pink flush staining her cheeks. She stepped closer.
Again, she placed her hands on his chest. Again, they slid up and around his neck. Again, her scent teased him. Then finally, holding his gaze and never once blinking until the moment of contact, she brought her mouth to his.
He held himself perfectly still as she slanted those succulent lips over his. As she drew her hands to cup his cheeks between slightlydamp palms that if he weren’t mistaken, trembled. She angled her face, this way and that, pressing feather light kisses to the corners of his mouth, his cheeks. Her shuddering breaths, fanning over his cheeks, acted like a fist, reaching past his rib cage to squeeze his heart in a way he would swear he’d never known.
The tenderness, the desire, the adoration she bestowed on him stole his ability to think beyond anything save her and the need coiling inside him.
Holy hell. Holy…The compulsion to touch her, to wrap his arms around her and yank her into him, chest to groin, battered the last vestiges of his crumbling will. He gripped the edge of her desk with every ounce of his strength. The temptation to suck just one of her luscious lips between his, to nip it gently with his teeth, was almost too powerful to resist.
Abruptly, she ended the kiss. She stumbled back, pressing herself against the wall, as far from him as she could get in the enclosed space. Her cheeks, her neck, glowed pink. Her lips trembled, calling to him like a bear to honey.
