Page 26 of The Rival in South Africa
“Your perfect man.”
“Doesn’t sound like the perfect man to me. Sounds like he’s got a stick up his arse.” I wiped a tear away from my eye. For a day that had clearly ticked Alex off, I’d found most of it hilarious. “He farts lilacs?”
Alex's expression turned sheepish. “That's what every woman wants, right?”
He waited patiently while I got myself under control.
“I guess,” he said, “that I was never keen on Ion, and perhaps I wasn’t the nicest person to him.”
My lips were still tipped up in a smile. “No, you weren’t.”
“Nor you, I suppose. I was a bit of a twat.”
My smile fell, and I studied Alex. He was serious, now, honest. He meant it, but there was something there, too, that still burned.
Jealousy.
Alex was still jealous of Ion, even though we’d broken up months ago, even if he hadn’t been right for me.
“What about you?” The question burst out of me.
He cocked his head at me. “What do you mean?”
Where was I going with this? Alex and I…well, we had tried once, at that dreadful party, but it was years ago, and we were different people now. On paper, when I stripped away his competitiveness and jealousy, I was left with an Alex I liked.
I didn’t see that Alex all that often, but still.
I took a step closer to Alex. “What kind of a man would you be for me?”
His expression shifted. No longer bewildered and angry, the heat transformed into something else. Those eyes pulled me a step closer. My thigh touched his knee.
Alex swallowed and looked up at me. “I would be the best kind of man for you.” I watched his Adam’s apple as it moved, the sharpness of it making me want to trail a finger over the taunt skin.
“You don’t fart lilacs,” I whispered.
He didn’t even giggle. “How do you know?”
“Then you do an excellent job at hiding them. How about the cum thing?”
Alex’s hand slid off his thigh and onto mine, bare below the hem of my skirt, his firm touch gripping the back of my knee.
“I hate to report that it doesn’t taste like treacle.”
I raised an eyebrow, and then I gave in, trailing a finger over his throat.
He swallowed hard.
I let that finger trail back up the side of his neck, spreading my hand out. My thumb slid up underneath his chin, and the skin was soft and smooth. Alex wasn’t a hairy man, something I found attractive. Ion, being Romanian, had had to work hard to maintain his smooth skin.
My eyes traveled up to his lips, and my thumb followed. His mouth opened for me, and I traced slowly over his bottom lip.
Alex squeezed the back of my thighs hard. “Nikki…” His voice came out rusty and gritty.
I met his eyes, those dark eyes full of an intensity I’d never seen before. Alex and I were all about being fierce with each other, but here he was open, vulnerable.
Bending down, I pressed my mouth to his, closing my eyes. His grip tightened again, a sharp inhale draining out of both of us.
And then we were kissing; hot, wet, open kisses. This was nothing like that first kiss ages ago. This kiss gave that kiss a wedgie and shoved it in a locker. This was Kissing 401: How Alex Boyd Brought on the Rise and Fall of Nikki Kozlova.
