Page 12 of Make the Play

I shouldn’t kiss her again. I’m not going to kiss her again. I’m not going to think about how I’ve spent years picturing our first kiss—how it would feel, how she’d taste. And how this doesn’t comecloseto what I want. What she deserves.

Flash.

I kiss her anyway.

Her breath catches, and my world tilts. Suddenly, I’m not thinking anymore. Justfeeling,giving in to something I’ve kept locked up for too long.

She tastes like gin and citrus, sweet and sharp and something never meant to be mine, but fuck, I want it.

Every half-smirk, every eye-roll, every sharp-tongued retort I’ve spent the last few years teasing out of her. I want the way she trembles for half a second before she gives in when she’s irritated. Want the way she’s pulling me in instead of pushing me away, needing this just as much as I do.

Flash.

It’s hot and messy and desperate in a way that’s been clawing at me for years.

She exhales against me, and the sound alone sends something deep and molten straight to my cock. I don’t even realize I’ve tightened my grip on her waist, don’t register the way my fingers flex against satin, the way I tug her closer without a second thought.

But I do realize when she pulls me in, too, her nails scraping my nape, sending a sharp thrill down my spine.

Flash.

I’m fucked. Absolutely fucked.

Lost in her, groaning into her mouth, dragging her closer and tilting my head, deepening the kiss.

Flash.

I swear I hear her whisper my name, but maybe I imagine it. Maybe it doesn’t matter because all I can feel is her body against mine, heat against heat. All I can think isdon’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop—

My hands skate lower to grip her hips, fingers slipping through the slit in her dress onto her bare, warm skin. She moans softly, barely a sound at all, but it fucking melts me.

Flash.

The screen goes dark. Session complete.

We both go still, panting against each other, breathing the same sharp, uneven air.

Zoe blinks slowly, snapping herself out of the haze. I blink back at her, my brain still catching up to my body, still trying to make sense of what the hell just happened.

I know I could lean in and claim another one, that she’d let me take more, but I don’t. So instead, she leans back and laughs. A small, breathless, holy-shit-what-was-that laugh.

“Oh my god.” She groans, scrubbing a hand over her face. “We need alcohol. Immediately.”

Alcohol. Right.

Because clearly, that’s the problem here. Not the deflecting or the jokes thinly veiling this thing that’s been growing between us for years.

I blow out a breath, trying to get my pulse under control, trying to keep my hands from chasing after her when she shifts off my lap.

Zoe shoves at my chest, grin wide as she clambers off me and adjusts that scrap of satin she’s wearing. The same one I just had my hands all over.Under.Caressing the soft skin of her thigh.

“Come on, Walton. I need a drink, and we need to destroy those photos before Tamara weaponizes them.”

I shake my head, trying to reboot my entire existence. “We’re not destroying those photos.”

Zoe points a finger at me. “Yes, we fucking are.”

“I’m keeping them forever.”

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