Page 78 of I'm Looking for a Man in Finance
“They feel like wildly different worlds,” Hallie said. “TheSophisticatefood critic has always sounded so polished, so established. I’m just … me.”
“And that’s not enough?”
She shrugged, “I guess not.”
I hated that. Hated how small she looked in that moment when I knew exactly how big and bright she burned.
“Why can’t you just be you?” I asked. “Why can’t you write like you normally do? Anthea wantsyouto prove yourself for the position. Show her that your voice is what makes you right for the job, Hal.”
The air crackled with tension as my words hung between us. I heard Hallie swallow before she murmured, “Please, just kiss me.”
“What?” I froze.
Her eyes met mine. Steady. Certain. “I want you to kiss me, James Rossi. Matter of fact, I want you to take me to whichever of the many bedrooms in this place is yours.”
Something inside me snapped within me.
I scooped her up into my arms, her legs wrapping around my waist instinctively. Her hand found my face, and she kissed me. It was a quick kiss. When she pulled away, she looked at me like this time she was waiting formeto stopher.
But I didn’t.
Ikissedher.
Again.
And again.
Andagain.
This wasn’t like any time we’d kissed before. The quick, tentative kiss on the front steps of her apartment building. The hungry kisses in the Hamptons. The sweet kiss in her apartment last night.
Both of us wanted thisdesperately. There was no hesitation in our kisses, but we took our time to appreciate each other. Slow and deliberate in our explorations.
Her hands explored my chest, slipped around to press against the muscles of my back as I began our trek up the five flights of stairs toward my bedroom. My lips grazed her jaw, her neck, the hollow beneath her ear.
As we crested the second floor, I fisted my hand in her hair to gently pull her head back from mine. Only totrail kisses from the soft skin below her ear to her collarbone. If I wasn’t nervous I would drop her, I would have sprinted the two of us up the remaining three floors.
Hallie’s teeth sank into my neck on the third floor, and I groaned, the sound guttural and raw in the empty space. On the fourth, my hands gripped the curve of her ass, holding her flush against me.
When I reached my bedroom, I paused. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she breathed. “I’m sure. I want to feel good. The last few months have been a mess, and I want to forget them. You make me feel good, James. You make me feel alive.”
“I’ve been imagining this since the night I pulled out your chair at the dinner party,” I confessed, setting her down gently. “I’ve thought about the taste of your skin. The sound of your breath. How you’d look falling apart beneath me.”
I backed her up, one slow step at a time, until her legs met the edge of my bed, and she sank down onto the soft mattress. The look in her eyes was a challenge. A beat passed. Then she reached for the button on her pants.
“Make me feel good, James.”
27
Hallie
“Are you sure?” he’d asked me.
I’d never been more sure of anything in my life. Last weekend I’d stopped us, too afraid of what it would mean if I let myself get carried away. If I let James kiss me senseless until we tumbled into bed and crossed that line I’d been toeing since the moment we met. Because if I gave in, if I let myself want this the way Ididwant it, it would make everything so much harder when it inevitably ended.
But I was tired of letting my fear rule me.
