Her breath catches.
Mine almost does too.
The air in the kitchen feels thick now. Heavy. Every inch between us is charged with something hot and dangerous and completely fucking unavoidable.
She slides her hand from my wrist to the center of my chest. Not pushing me away. My heart slams so hard against my ribs that her eyes widen slightly, like she can actually feel it.
“You’re shaking,” she whispers.
That should embarrass me. Instead, it makes me feel exposed in a way I don’t think I’ve ever been before.
“I want you to like me so bad,” I admit, my voice cracking rough around the edges. “And I don’t even know why it matters this much. It’s like you see me. Not the goalie. Me. And if you see that guy and still don’t want him…” I swallow hard. “Then maybe I’m exactly who I always thought I was.”
Her expression softens so completely it almost knocks the air out of me.
Then she kisses me. Her mouth presses against mine, warm and sweet and deliberate, and my entire body locks up in shock before instinct takes over. I make a rough sound into the kiss and grip the edge of the counter hard enough that the granite digs into my palms.
Fuck.
Fuck.
She tastes like vanilla and espresso and the absolute death of my self-control.
I kiss her back before I can stop myself, deep enough that she gasps softly against my mouth, and that sound goes straight to my cock. Heat punches through me so fast it’s almost dizzying.
I force myself to pull away first.
Her eyes are dark when I look at her. Blown wide. Her lips wet from my mouth.
Just how I imagined her in my fantasies.
I rest my forehead against hers and close my eyes for one dangerous second.
“Tell me to stop,” I say hoarsely. “And I will.”
Remy doesn’t tell me to stop.
That’s the first thing that really sinks in.
Not the kiss. Not the way my cock is already painfully hard behind my zipper. Not the fact that I’m standing in my kitchen, one bad decision away from completely detonating my professional relationship with the only woman whose opinion I’ve cared about in years.
It’s the fact that she stays.
Her fingers curl lightly into the front of my shirt, and when I open my eyes again, she’s looking at me like she’s trying to figure me out and getting distracted halfway through.
“I don’t want you to stop,” she says quietly.
A hot and unsteady wave of desire rolls through me, so I kiss her again before I can think too hard about it.
This one is slower. Less desperate. I take my time with it, partly because I’m trying not to scare her and partly because I’m selfish enough to want to feel every second of this. Her mouth is soft against mine, warm and responsive, and every tiny sound she makes goes straight through me.
My hand finally settles on her waist. Even that feels intimate somehow.
Remy inhales sharply when I pull her closer, and my brain immediately short-circuits over the fact that I’m affecting her, too. Not just physically. I can feel the tension in her body, the slight tremor in the hand resting against my chest.
She shifts her weight, rolling her hips forward in a slow, experimental grind against the hard line of my cock. The friction is immediate and brutal through our clothes—my erection trapped against her stomach—and I groan low into her mouth before I can stop myself.
She freezes for half a second when she feels the full, heavy length of me. A small, stunned “Oh,” falls from her lips, quiet and involuntary. Then she does it again, deliberately dragging herself along the rigid outline of my cock like she can’t help testing it.
