Page 57 of I'm Looking for a Man in Finance
And we moaned.
And we kissed some more.
I was nearly flying high above us as Hallie staked her claim on me. Tongues danced. Teeth nipped at my bottom lip. Her fingers sank further into my hair. The silence of the room stretching around us. The only sounds were our lips, our breaths mingling in the air between us, and the soft moans from Hallie.
After kissing Hallie last week, I hadn’t realized thatthiswas what I wanted. While she’d kissed me back the moment my lips touched hers for the first time, there had still been some hesitancy behind her movements. Now all her inhibitions had evaporated. No longer was there hesitation behind each of her kisses.
There was onlyus.
And I wanted more.
My hands smoothed over the curve of her ass, relishing in the way it fit in my palms. Then the backs of her thighs as I lifted her off the ground. Hallie wrapped her legs around my waist and the wordhomeslipped through my mind.
“How is it possible for someone to be this incredible?” I whispered into her ear as I walked us toward the bed.
Desire was flooding my body, heating me up from the inside out. Fueled by the feel of Hallie’s warm, soft skin beneath my fingers. The way our lips melded togetherperfectly.
But the moment that my thighs hit the side of the bed, and I lowered Hallie down to the mattress was like a douse of ice-cold water.
“Wait.”
Hallie looked up at me from the bed. She looked beautiful. It made it nearly impossible for me to understand the words coming out of her mouth.
“We should stop. Weneedto stop.”
A shiver ran the length of my spine as all the heat leaked from the room, leaving a chill in its place.
“What’s wrong?” I took a few steps back, giving her space. The look in her eyes ripped a tear in my heart. It was one full of regret.
“We shouldn’t do this.” Hallie shook her head slowly. Her gaze remained fixed on my chest, and a second tear formed in my heart when she avoided my eyes. “It was never supposed to turn into this. We had a deal. This wasn’t part of the deal.”
The moonlight streaming in from outside highlighted a sheen in her eyes.
I took another step back.
She was right. This wasn’t part of our deal. It was five dates for a review of my family’s restaurant. That was it. We didn’t agree to actually like each other. Attraction wasn’t part of our agreement. Kissing wasn’t part of the plan. None of this was part of the plan.
Fuckthe plan.
But we both agreed in the beginning, and I wouldn’t dare stray from our agreement if she wasn’t in this with me.
So even though it pained me, I whispered, “Okay.”
Then without another word or look in her direction, I backed out of the room, shutting the door behind me. Sebastian and Roxie still hadn’t come back inside, so I disappeared into our bathroom. I was too numb to feelthe water on my skin. Everything that had just happened replaying on a loop in my mind.
I leaned my forehead against the tiles of the shower, doing nothing to quell the heat that was still sitting just under my skin. She had been right there at my fingertips. Her lips had been on mine. She had beenmine, if only for a few minutes.
My hand wrapped around my cock as I relived those blissful moments when I had Hallie in my arms. When she’d kissed me back. When she’d wanted me as much as I wanted her. I replayed those breathy sounds she’d moaned in my ear.
I tightened my grip as a moan of my own slipped out. My hand slipped up and down my length faster and faster as those stolen minutes with Hallie replayed again … and again … andagain.
Until it became too much, and I came with the sound of her name on my lips.
A mixture of shame and desire twisted in my gut.
The regret in Hallie’s eyes had nearly broken my heart in two. I couldn’t stand to think that she wished she hadn’t kissed me. That she wished she hadn’t held me in her arms. I knew it was fear driving that regret. She was afraid of what it meant to let herself like me. To let herself be with me outside of the confines of our deal.
She had everything laid out. Five dates. Five articles. Then her dream job. She had never meant to keep me after those five dates. To have feelings for me outside of gratitude for helping her achieve her dream job.
