Then I’ll see you at 5:01. Be ready.
Bubbles popped up and disappeared. Then,I’ve been ready since the day you sprained your ankle?
She yielded to a shaky laugh and tossed down the phone. A joke, of course. The past couple months had amounted to so much more than just physical attraction. His letters proved that.
After sucking down her tea, she circled back to her manifesto, only to stare at the cursor while her body begged and pleaded for later. Briefly, she considered attending to herself, then decided against it.
She’d probably fly apart the minute she and Gallant came together tonight, but it would be so much better that way.
All she had to do was survive until five o’clock.
Gallant had forgotten to buy more condoms. He realized it the moment Aubrey charged through his door, pushed him against the wall, and kissed him with an aggression that had him hard in seconds.
Shit.The word looped in his mind, even as he fisted his hands in her hair and returned her kiss for all he was worth.Shit.
He’d been so eager to leave the office he’d completely spaced on the fact that he’d burned through the last of his condom stash the other night. When Aubrey had shot him down on the way back from Chicago, he’d neededsomething. So he’d texted Jennie Lawson, whose name he’d marked with two stars in his phone.
One for being willing, another for being able to shriek like a banshee.
Now Aubrey broke their kiss, breathing hard. She grabbed the front of his shirt and dragged him toward the bedroom.
Gallant’s blood leapt, even as panic swirled into the mix. Where the hell was all this fervor coming from? And what would she think when she realized he didn’t have any protection, after telling her just weeks ago that he did?
“Wait,” he gasped as she pushed him down on the bed and straddled him.
She froze. “God. Sorry. Is this too much?”
“No.No, not even a little. I just...” His mind whirled. He had to find a way to spin this, somehow. “. . . I checked thedates on my condoms this morning, and they were all expired. I had to throw them out. It’d been a while.”
She blinked, rapid-fire. “And you didn’t buy more?”
He forced a smile he hoped looked casual. “You didn’t give me time. But I can go now. It’ll take ten minutes. Then you can throw me down all over again, and this time we won’t have to stop.”
Her face fell, as if he’d just delivered the worst news she could imagine. She rolled off, collapsing onto her back on the bed. “Okay, yes. Go. Quickly.”
He studied her for a moment, a frown tugging at his mouth. She seemed... frazzled, almost frantic. “Are you okay? You seem... intense, tonight.”
She did a slow blink. She’d done that cat makeup again, and color scorched her cheeks. “I need you.”
His pants somehow got even tighter. Damn, he wanted her. Badly. She clearly wanted him just the same.
She would probably shriek like a banshee, too.
“What’re you waiting for?” Aubrey said.
Gallant couldn’t say what came over him just then. Some new recklessness broke loose inside him, fed by the thirst in her gaze. “Nothing. I’ll be right back. You know I can’t breathe without you.”
Her eyes rounded.
He issued himself a silent congratulations. Maybe there was something to these letters, after all. Maybe he could get used to saying bits out loud, once in a while.
He dropped a kiss on her stunned mouth, then went to the hall, fished his car keys from the bowl, and whipped his jacket on, hoping she’d already be naked when he got back.
Aubrey lay on Gallant’s bed and stared at the ceiling, her blood a painful thump in her veins. She hadn’t even taken offher coat. God, she’d barged in and jumped on him like an overeager teenage boy.
But instead of giving her what she’d wanted, he’d thrown her into a tailspin by repeating almost the exact same words Nick had used last night.
Her chest worked, up and down. She tried to placate it with long, deep breaths, but the words circled like vultures.
