Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Reginald
I had no clue how Josey had gotten us away from my sister, but he sank down into my passenger seat with a smile and a list of houses for us to go see next.
“We have to report back to her by one, or she might come track us down, and I’m not of the impression that would end well for any of us,” he said, already keying the next address into my nav. “Is it safe to assume you weren’t a fan of this first one?”
I dropped my head against the headrest and stared up at the faux wood garage. “I think this place is just too much. It would feel lonely. You know?”
“Yeah, well, three million dollars gets you a lot of that,” he teased, knocking his elbow into my arm. “Maybe you lower your price point a bit and see if you can get something a little more cozy?”
“I work in the area, and I don’t want a long commute,” I admitted with a frown. “And it’s not like it’s my money.”
“It kind of is, though.” Josey rolled his head against the headrest until he faced me.
Goddamn, he was handsome with his flushed cheeks and his pink hair. Everything about him looked soft and welcoming in the most enticing ways. He stared at me, and my body swayed forward like there were magnets in the middle of our chests, desperate to connect.
“You smell amazing,” he whispered, the corner of his mouth lifting up into the slightest tease of a smile. “Lavender?”
I managed a rough nod. “And rose.”
“And rose,” he repeated, leaning closer and licking his lips.
My stare fell to his mouth, eyes hungrily tracking the glide of his tongue from one side of his lower lip to the other.
It suddenly hurt to breathe, the air in the car too hot and the pressure too intense.
Josey took a deep breath and on the exhale let out the quietest and most delightful little whimper I was sure I’d ever heard.
“Josey, I—”
“Can I kiss you?” he blurted, eyes flashing into huge plates like he was shocked he’d asked the question. “Sorry, never mind. That was—”
“Yes,” I answered before he could finish trying to take it back.
After a couple of trembling breaths, he inched over the center console of my car.
Ever so slowly, he raised his hand between us, then reached around me.
Dragging his fingers over the side of my neck and up into my hairline, Josey threaded his way into my hair and used his grip as leverage to pull our mouths within kissing distance.
“What are you anxious about, Reg?” he whispered, so close his nose pressed against mine. “Is it me?”
“A bit,” I confessed.
Josey smiled and gently pressed our mouths together. The kiss was far more than chaste, just a warm and dry connection of mouths, the only moisture between us the lingering saliva from when Josey had just licked his lips. My breathing skittered, and I opened my mouth to deepen the kiss.
“Don’t be anxious about me,” he said against my teeth.
And then our tongues touched, tangled, twisted, and there wasn’t a single thing in the world for me to be anxious about.
Josey was calm and he was here, with his fingers in my hair and his tongue in my mouth, his plush lips against mine.
I reached up and grabbed his wrist with one hand, pressed the other against the center of his chest.
“Do you want me to stop?” he asked.
“No.” I slid the hand on his chest up over his shoulder, tugging him even closer.
Neither of us had broken the kiss to talk, but the further consent gave us both cause to lean in more to the other, to open wider, to be more careless with our sounds.
It wasn’t long at all before I was halfway out of the driver’s seat, cursing the console between us that made it near impossible for me to climb into Josey’s lap.
“I have an idea,” he finally murmured, giving my hair a gentle tug. It did the opposite of encourage me to stop, but I took the message as he’d meant it.
“Tell me.”
“We go look at some houses on your sister’s list, and then you can take me home and show me yours.”
“That’s a…” I sniffed, desperate for a burst of lavender that would settle my extremely accelerated heart rate.
Like he understood, Josey leaned away enough to lift my own wrist up to my nose, where I took a dutiful breath in without being told.
“Only if you’re comfortable with it. I’m not trying to pressure you.”
“I’m not pressured,” I said.
“Even if you say yes now, you can change your mind later today.”
My shoulders sagged with relief, with how readily Josey handled my straightlaced nerves and my unreasonable anxiety.
After a couple of deep breaths, he pulled my wrist toward the passenger side of the car, his nose sliding across the thin and sensitive skin before taking a breath for himself.
A small moan fell into the space between us, and he smothered it by pressing a tender kiss against my thrumming pulse point.
“I won’t change my mind,” I rasped. “Houses and then home.”
Josey smiled against my wrist, then let go of my hand.
Dumbstruck, it wasn’t until he hit go on the nav and my phone chirped out the first direction that I realized he’d taken the steps necessary to get us on the road.
Clearing my throat, embarrassed at how lust drunk I was, I unrolled both front windows before putting the car into drive and pulling away from the curb.
This was an unexpected turn of events, but maybe just once I could not run away from something new.
I wasn’t sure what essential oil was going to get me through the rest of the day—and night—but I was definitely ready to find out.