“No awkwardness. No explanation. No pretending later that we both imagined it. I’ll go back to the B&B, sleep badly, and we’ll make professionally terrible eye contact tonight.”
“That sounds awful.”
“It does.”
“I’m not changing my mind.”
My control, already under significant structural strain, makes a worrying noise somewhere deep inside me.
I stop close enough to touch her.
I do not touch her.
Not yet.
“Pippa.”
“What?”
“This is the last clear-thinking moment either of us is likely to have for a while.”
Her gaze drops to my mouth.
There it is again.
That little surrender before the surrender.
“I’m not sure mine’s been clear since the bakery,” she says.
That is it.
That is the end of civilised behaviour.
I kiss her.
For one second, it is almost careful.
Almost.
My hand goes to her jaw, her skin warm under my palm, and I give her that final fraction of space because I have to know she is meeting me, not just letting me happen.
She meets me.
Hard.
Her hands grip the front of my jacket, pulling me in as her mouth opens under mine, and all the careful, charged, maddening restraint of the last week goes up like dry paper. There is no slow discovery. No gentle sorting through possibilities. There is Pippa making a low sound into my mouth and my body responding so fast I nearly lose the ability to stand like a functioning adult.
She tastes like coffee and salt and morning.
She kisses like she gives orders.
Direct. Certain. Completely unwilling to waste time pretending she does not know what she wants.
I back her against the wall beside the door before either of us has taken a full breath.
Or maybe she drags me there.
Honestly, the investigation can wait.
