Page 60 of The Casanova Complex

Bennett chuckles near my ear, his lips brushing along the shell. “Gonna need you to put your arms around me or something, Mer Bear. You’re practically stiff.”

Realization hits me that my arms are, in fact, dangling awkwardly at my side, and I’m frozen and tense while he’s wrapped around me.

Partly because I’m trying not to be affected by him for real, and also because I’m suddenly hyperaware of the fact that every single person standing near us has their eyes on us. I can actually feel them staring.

There’s a group of girls across from us blatantly whispering about us, not at all bothering to hide it.

“Everyone’s looking,” I hiss.

Bennett pulls back, staring down at me with his endlessly pale blue eyes, and shrugs.

He tilts his head and brings his mouth an inch from mine, murmuring roughly against my lips. “Let them.”

The tips of his fingers press into my waist as he captures my mouth in a hard kiss.

The air around us has shifted, and all of that unwanted attention that I was just worried about fades away completely, and all I can focus on is Bennett’s soft lips slanting over mine. The way his rough palm slides along the side of my neck, up to my jaw, where he grips my face, both gently and firmly at once, holding me in place. The tip of his tongue traces the expanse of my lower lip, and an embarrassing whimper spills out of me, my hands flying to the front of his suit, grasping at the lapels, needing to hold on to something to ground me, to keep me from floating away completely.

When his tongue slips through my parted lips, he groans, angling my mouth so he can deepen the kiss.

The way his tongue is stroking mine has goose bumps scattering along my skin and my toes curling in my Vans, and I am pretty certain this kiss has gone well past the point of what’s decent in a public setting. But honestly?

Right now… I don’t even care.

I’ll be annoyed at myself later for enjoying this. For liking the way it feels to kiss him, to have his hard body pressed against me, his rough, calloused hands on my skin.

Later.

Bennett kisses me within an inch of my life, and I’m basically putty in his hands.

It’s shockingly assertive and intense the way he’s holding me, and it takes me by surprise.

About how much I like it.

But also because dominant and commanding is not the vibe I get from him, or at least I didn’t until right now.

He’s always struck me as a funny, never-serious golden retriever type of guy. I’m thinking that maybe I had the wrong assumption about him, and I don’t exactly know what to do with that revelation.

I’m slightly dazed, and my eyes are still squeezed tightly shut when he pulls his mouth away, his ragged breath panting against my lips matching my own.

Holy shit.

That was… a kiss.

The kiss.

Like the kind that girls pop their feet to in rom-coms and then squeal about to their friends the second they get home.

And it came from Bennett Legros.

Dazedly, I peel my eyes open and find him staring down at me. The corner of his lips is tilted in that signature playful grin of his, but his eyes are heavy-lidded, his chest still rapidly rising.

He’s just as affected by the kiss as I am.

Someone passes by and claps Bennett on the shoulder, wishing him good luck on the game tonight, and reality rushes back.

We’re surrounded by people and the center of everyone’s conversation, judging by the less-than-subtle looks we’re getting.

Oh God.