Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
THE KISS
Gretchen
three years ago
My chest rises and falls in long breaths, my lungs heavy like hundred-pound weights behind my sternum. Music pulses a steady thrum from the ballroom on the other side of the wall. There’s a predatory look in his gaze that’s half hunger, half tortured.
I know what I want and it feels like he might want the same thing.
The summer heat has subsided from a blistering sizzle to a balmy haze since the sun has dipped below the horizon.
A breeze sweeps across the balcony sending wisps of hair fluttering around my face and the loose bow tie tucked under the open collar of his dress shirt jostles with each gentle wind.
The slit of my gown billows open on a mild gust, exposing my leg to my upper thigh.
I swallow the lump in my throat. “What now?”
His eyes dip to my mouth. Then he wraps one arm firmly around my waist, his open palm on the bare skin of my back as he guides us around the dark corner. He pins me against the stone wall with the weight of his body and my breath catches with the exquisite pressure.
I fist the open collar of his shirt. He lowers his face toward mine while he brushes a lock of hair behind my ear. His thumb moves over my bottom lip and they part for him.
Mouth in a hover above mine, he asks, “Why didn’t you bring a date tonight, Gretch?”
His wanton eyes reverently glide across my features before finally meeting my gaze. “Because you weren’t supposed to have a date either.”
Our lips collide. Tongues clash and plunge. Heads swivel in a passionate frenzy. We devour each other, grabbing and tugging in every way we can.
He presses into me, hips meeting hips, chests plastered together and still, he’s not close enough. My body says closer, more.
I jerk back to catch my breath and his mouth moves over my jaw and down my neck.
My nipples pebble beneath the fabric under his touch.
Palms cupping my breasts, he pushes them up and the flesh swells over the top of my neckline right before he lowers his hot tongue to my equally feverish skin and drags it from one side, down the valley of my cleavage and up the other side in one fluid motion.
He groans against my collarbone, the sound reckless and feral. The next second, his mouth surrounds mine again, hand buried in my hair.
I touch him everywhere, my hands all over every inch I can reach.
His hands, his lips, the intensity is too much. Every brush of his tongue fans the flame igniting my core. I need him. Every intentional touch—the gentle, yet firm, motions of his mouth and his rough, ardent grip on my waist—says he wants me. That he needs me, too.
Has he wanted this as long as I have? If today had started off differently, would we have gotten here sooner? I don’t know and, honestly, I don’t care, because this moment, with him, is the only place I want to be .
Both of us gasping for air, he rests his forehead against mine as we suck in a breath…and then another.
A soft hand settles on my cheek then glides down my neck.
I tilt my head to grant more access. His eyes trace every movement of his hand over my body, a dealer studying a priceless piece of art.
The deliberately torturous journey of his touch travels down to my hip and then around to palm my backside.
Lips against my ear, he rasps, “Your ass in this dress, Gretch. It’s been driving me crazy all night.”
He squeezes my ass, his gentle touch turning rough as he snatches me closer. The area between my legs throbs and I moan at the slightest contact of him hard beneath me.
A hand slides through the slit of my gown, warm palm grazing my bare leg.
He doesn’t need to ask for permission; I hike my leg up to his waist and the satin falls open.
I’m exposed up to the hinge of my hip bone and it only fuels my need for more—I need his hands, his mouth everywhere.
He knows what I need, he always does. His palm glides all the way up to find the bare skin of my ass.
“God, you’re sexy as hell,” he groans.
I writhe into him and his body shifts to meet me, both of us chasing that friction. When we find it, he smothers my moan as our mouths meet again. Our lips and tongues tease and chase as our bodies rock in tandem.
The frantic passion that started this turns wild, daring. My lips swell from the intensity of our kissing, but I don’t want to stop. I never want this to end. Because, right now, it feels like he’s mine and I’m his. Finally .
My hand moves down his chest and over his belt. I palm him through his pants, applying a bit of pressure, and he groans. His breath catches in his throat and I smile against his lips.
Then, something shifts. Time stops.
No. He stops.
Labored breaths land heavy on my neck. His hands come to the wall on either side of my head and the leg I had wrapped around his waist drops to the ground.
Every point of contact suddenly gone. He pushes off the wall like a warm blanket being peeled off me in the dead of winter.
I’m left motionless before him, breathless and waiting.
A raw current of vulnerability spears through me when he averts his gaze. The man that just kissed me into oblivion, touched me in ways nobody else ever has, can’t even look at me.
He rakes a hand down his face before he sputters, “I’m…I’m sorry.” My heart sinks. “That was a mistake.”
“What?” I breathe.
“I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”
Before I can stop it, he walks away and he doesn’t look back.