“I hadn’t planned on giving you an invitation.”
And just like that, all the fears, insecurities, and worries came back, bringing along some brand-new ones I’d never considered.
His ghost smile returned, as if he could read me like an open book and knew how I was internally struggling with his words. And as if he knew about the other struggle I was currently experiencing to keep my eyes away from his torso. “I know what your standards are. I didn’t want anyone else to judge you. And I didn’t want to ask you and have you think that I expected something to happen.”
That something made my insides quiver. “Yes.” I swallowed back the intense longing. “Because that would be, um ...” What was that word again? Oh, right. “Bad.” Definitely bad. Very, very bad.
“What does your note say?”
I couldn’t let him see it now. “Nothing.” He was here. He wasn’t with anyone else. He was with me, which made my heart sing. But my desperate confession of my feelings suddenly felt beyond lame, and I couldn’t let him read it.
“It can’t say nothing if you broke the rules and came up here to leave it for me.”
Then he was so close we were almost touching. One deep exhale would have had me pressed against him. My blood thickened and heated, which apparently rendered me stupid, because I put the note behind my back. Like he was two years old and would suddenly forget about it if he couldn’t see it.
I would have been better off if I’d just eaten the stupid thing.
He got a mischievous glint in his eye. Uh-oh.
I should have turned around and run, but I didn’t.
Because part of me fiercely wanted what happened next.
Chapter 20
“Is your letter addressed to me?”
“Yes.” What did that have to do with anything? Did he not know that I was distracted by the sprinkling of dark hair across the top of his chest, wondering if it was coarse or soft? That I was busy watching the clever way his muscles flexed in his shoulders and abdomen every time he shifted? Or how I wanted to stare into his intense, beautiful eyes? Or what a firm, fantastic mouth he had? How I just wanted to watch it move, remembering what it had felt like on my shivering, goosebumpy skin?
“Then it belongs to me.” He reached both of his arms around me, grabbing for the note. I twisted and turned to keep it away from him. He laughed as I managed to just keep it out of his hands, which in turn made me laugh.
Right up until the moment when it stopped being funny. When awareness struck us both, our hearts pounding against each other as I stood flush to him, our quick breaths intermingling because our faces were too close.
The laughter died in my throat a moment before he kissed me. His lips brushed mine so lightly, feather-softly, like a shadow. A promising beginning, but it was over before it had even started. His face looked like he hadn’t even intended to do that much.
It wasn’t enough.
“We’re almost to the end.” I watched his mouth form words, mesmerized. Heat and fire burned in his eyes, which made my heart beat too fast, and my entire body throbbed in time with it. “And there’s something I need to say.”
It could have been the formula to cure cancer. Didn’t care. Couldn’t have heard it even if I wanted to. I only wanted to be kissed. A lot.
So I did what any rational, reasonable woman would do in similar circumstances. I threw myself at him.
He was caught off guard only for a second before he thoroughly, deeply kissed me back. The mint from his toothpaste tingled against my mouth, making me sigh.
I knotted my fingers in his hair, pulling him to me, feeling him shudder against me as I ran my fingertips across his scalp.
And like the rom-com characters I had condemned, I understood how a kiss might lead to much more, as we were pawing at each other, trying to get closer. There was a frantic passion that obliterated thought, that made me run my eager fingers over all his exposed bumps and edges and revel in the way his warm skin felt under my fingertips. It was like a summer storm had started building up inside me, with thunder reverberating through my body and lightning electrifying his every touch.
Our kisses started out tender and gentle and quickly escalated. Probably faster than they should have. But there was no long warming up period here. It was just all savage, hungry desperation and longing that blasted us into Warp 8.
Like we were the subjects of aNational Geographicspecial about the mating habits of the virginal redhead and the hot-blooded prince.
It all made me a bit delirious as everything inside me heated up and swirled into clouds of desire, causing me to forget who I was and what I’d said I wanted. I felt his bed against the back of my knees. We both sat at the same time. Whether by design or accident I didn’t know, and I didn’t care.
I wanted him, wanted more of this, and all my other principles ceased to exist. I cried out in protest when he suddenly stopped. My lips felt fabulously raw, my jaw wondrously sore.
“Genesis, wait.” His words were breathy and disconcerting. Mouths had much better uses than speaking.