Page 57 of Love at First Sighting
El scoffs, turns, and grabs me by the tie. “Come here.”
I don’t even question what she means—not when her lips slowly inch toward mine, jaw dropping open slightly with a muted sigh as we begin to close the gap. There’s no need to pretend I haven’t fantasized about what her lips taste like or how her body feels. I’ve pictured this in my mind a thousand times and every fiber of me wants to devour her.
The sequins on her dress press so firmly against me, I can feel each one itching and poking through my shirt as she holds my gaze, her lips only a few breaths away. I question if she’s going to take this all the way. It’d be easy enough to make itseemlike we were kissing, like a panicked pull-away between kisses, but that’d be excruciating torture. To come so close and not know what her lipstick tastes like, what sounds she makes when I touch her.
But El’s the kind of woman where, if I kiss her, I’m not going to want to stop.
“Make this look good,” El murmurs.
Her lips collide with mine like she’s convincing herself to jump over the finish line with me, and I think she’s pleased with her choice. We’ve only known each other a couple of weeks, but it feels like I’ve been waiting for her for years. Her lips are full and warm, and miraculously, even Ian’s vodkatastes great on her tongue. I slide my hands up her body, learning her curves with something other than my eyes, settling them at the back of her neck, one thumb along her jaw.
I tilt her chin down, parting her lips to kiss her deeper. She lets out a crushing groan as her fingers grip the hair at the nape of my neck. I touch her, and she asks for more. El is pliable under my fingertips, and as I back her up against the closet door, she trusts I’m going to catch her.
I lace one arm around her waist, and the other grips the doorframe behind her. Safe, shielded, and all mine. When El slides her grip lower, latching on to my belt loops to tug me closer, that’s when I know she’s not acting, either.
Our eyes meet like fleeting ships in the night. It’s a moment of hungry, unspoken agreement between us that says we can dishevel each other as badly as we want. El bites down on my bottom lip with another kiss, tugging it away from my teeth with a teasing laugh. She wants to torture me and I want to suffer.
The door pushes open beside us and a busboy peers inside.
“Mr. Forte? Oh…Oh no.”
El yanks away so quickly it feels like I’ve been punched in the chest. I can’t think of anything but the taste of her lips and how I’m going to die if I don’t get more of her soon.
“Oh gosh! Are we not supposed to be in here?” she says. El’s voice pitches up, playing dumb and naive. “We just…got distracted.”
She toys with the back of my hair and brushes her nose with mine.
“Yes,” I choke out. “Very distracted.”
I’m so, so distracted.
“You shouldn’t be in here. If you leave, I won’t tell anyone you were here.”
“You,” El gasps, “are a gem. We’ll get out of here, then. Come on, babe.”
Babe.I’m ready to perish.
El grabs my wrist and pulls me out of the room with her, like the most earth-shattering kiss of my life didn’t just happen.
Chapter 17
El
By the time we Uber back to the Nest, it’s drizzling. We don’t talk about the kiss the entire time. The Uber driver asks us what we do for a living. We talk about the weather, what’s playing on the radio. Words feel dull compared to weaving my fingers between Carter’s in the back seat of the Uber. He squeezes my hand whenever the driver makes a sharp turn and slips his jacket over my shoulders now that it’s grown colder. His grip is unshakably firm and his eyes are so crystal blue and look only at me.
If I were to say anything honest at all, I’d be telling him how much I desperately want to kiss him again as we get Carter’s car and reach the PIS office.
The office stands alone on the block, with big windows blacked out by ratty shades. There’s no inscription on the front of the building, but it looks like it should be a police station. Carter doesn’t use the parking lot, keeping a safe distance away for security purposes. He parallel parks his boat of a car and hops out, only to hit me with a simpletskas I reach for the door.
I wait for him to round the car and let me out, trying to hide my smile.
He takes my hand as we dash through the sprinkling rain to the door, which he opens with a set of keys on his key ring, then goes in first, instructing me to stay outside. I wait patiently outside with his jacket bundled around me. There’s a smudge of my lipstick on the collar from earlier. I want to make him even more of a mess.
When he returns, interrupting my yearning, I feel like I’m sneaking into Area 51. Is this more or less classified than the little alien bodies I saw at the archive?
“Turned off the security cameras.”
“Ah,” I say. “It’s like you run this place.”
