Holding her like this, I forgot everything else around us. All I wanted was to put my hands and lips on her. Our gazes connected, and for just one single moment, I slipped and let what I was feeling show through. That I wanted to act on my desire.
Without warning, Laurel climbed on top of me.
She moved like it had been choreographed and both of our bodies knew the steps. The stair treads creaked beneath us asshe straddled me, her knees on either side of my lap, while her fingers dove into my hair.
It was so she could pull my face to hers, and the moment our lips met, thought emptied from my mind. It burned away in the fire of our kiss.
Her mouth was hot and desperate, and I matched her greedy intensity. All the desire I’d bottled up over her poured out of me now, reckless and uncontrolled. I adjusted the angle of our kiss, taking charge, and she let out the softest,sexiestgoddamn sigh when my tongue slipped past her lips.
The lush stroke of her tongue pumped heat into my body.
There were alarms blaring in my head, but I shut them down. I had what I wanted, my hands and mouth on her. What could be wrong with that? Nothing about this felt wrong—only that I’d waited so long to do it.
I pushed a lock of her hair out of my way as my mouth drifted across her cheek and down the slender column of her throat. She smelled good, like sunshine and lemons and summer, in total opposition to the dark, cold, and musty basement. My lips trailed a line of kisses from her ear down to her shoulder, and it made a shudder of pleasure wrack her body.
“Fuck,” I groaned in satisfaction as she ground herself in my lap, rubbing against the fly of my jeans. It made me want to peel back the straps on her Kevlar vest so I could have my hands on her?—
I jolted as my brain came back online, and the war between my body and mind was brutal. My job was everything, and no matter how badly I wanted her... the woman on top of me threatened to destroy it.
I clasped my hands around her waist and lifted her with me as I rose from the stairs. Her legs folded around me, and I groaned against her lips, only this time with disappointment andfrustration. What I needed to do was just as cruel to me as it was to her.
I broke off the kiss, set her back on her feet, and stepped away as soon as I was certain she wouldn’t fall over from shock.
“No,” I said. “We can’t.”
Laurel seemed dizzy, like I’d pulled her from a fog, and she wasn’t quite sure where she was.
“It was the adrenaline,” I tried to explain, “that’s all.”
She blinked in confusion. “What?”
I stared at her kiss-swollen mouth and got angry. Angry at the situation and angry at myself for allowing it, because kissing her hadn’t helped my situation at all. It had only made it more dire. My need for her was ten times stronger.
“That can’t happen again.” Was I telling her... or myself?
I got a flash of her guilty expression before she looked away. “I’m sorry. It won’t.”
“You’re upset about your situation, and it’s easy to get confused when that happens.”
Her attention snapped back to me and her eyes narrowed. “Confused?”
“My job is to keep you safe and that’s all.” I was all out of sorts, not liking how she was embarrassed when it was my fault, and I panicked. “Don’t read into it as more.”
She stiffened. “You kissed me back.”
I wasn’t sure how I did it. I’d never been much of an actor, but I felt my face turn hard. “I didn’t. I told you, it was just a reaction.”
“Because you have, like, no interest in me.” Her voice dripped with condescension.
Then I told the biggest goddamn lie of my life. “Yeah. That’s right.”
I watched her mouth fall open and expected every blue word she knew to come out, for her to call my bluff.
But she said nothing.
She took a deep breath and her expression turned cold. Hurt flooded her eyes, and it was the scariest reaction I could imagine.
Abruptly, she marched to the base of the ladder, grabbed the closest rung, and began to climb.
