24. TWENTY-FOUR
Roscoe laughed, savouring the feel of her skin with one last brush of his thumbs before dropping his hands and taking a step back. Only Poppy Fields could make him out of his mind with lust and breathless with laughter at the same time.
“Did you just say, ‘Holy fucking ketchup’?” he asked.
She shook her head rapidly. “No.”
“Because it really sounded—”
“No. No. It was Gaelic. I have Irish ancestry. Can’t you tell from the hair?”
He laughed again. It was either that or kiss her. And he really, really shouldn’t kiss her again. Kissing your platonic non-girlfriend employee tenant once was unfortunate. Kissing her twice was foolish. Or whatever that Oscar Wilde expression was. His brain wasn’t working at its best right now. Too much blood elsewhere. Too much craving the taste of her, the feel of her tongue…
“Gaelic?” he repeated, before he gave in to temptation. Again. He blamed those girls in the queue. He blamed the flash of jealousy he’d seen in Poppy’s eyes. He blamed the fact he was a base, animal creature, and the smallest hint that Poppy might want him had ignited all his long-smouldering desire and steamrollered every bloody resolution he’d ever made.
He blamed the fact he was an idiot.
“Yes. Gaelic.”
“And what’s it Gaelic for?”
She was fiddling with her bag again. Fiddling with her hair. He wondered if she felt as dizzy as he did, if her blood was pounding in her ears, if she also felt like they were having this conversation while clinging to a surging boat in a storm-whipped sea, a tempest howling.
A siren singing.
“It means… Erm. Too much tongue.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Too much tongue?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “It was weird. The thing you did with your tongue.”
He looked at her askance, a flicker of doubt… But no. No. That kiss had been scorching. He’d heard her moan. Might possibly be reliving that sound for the rest of his life.
“Forty-two!” the person at the till called. “Forty-two ready.”
Roscoe held out his hand, still looking at Poppy even as they hooked the carrier bag handle over his fingers.
“And we’ll have some ketchup please,” he said. “She really likes it.”
She flashed him a stricken look and he grinned.
Busted.
Nobody had ever asked Poppy, but if they had, she would have said there was nothing less erotic than a large bucket of fried chicken. She also would have said there was no less erotic place than the greasy confines of the Cluck’N’Tuck near Cannon Street. But she ought to have known that if there was any man capable of putting those truisms to the test it was Roscoe Blackton.
Poppy walked back to Roscoe’s flat in a daze. She ate fried chicken in a daze. She talked about things—TV shows and pizza toppings and quantitative easing—all in a daze.
Roscoe Blackton had just kissed her? You wouldn’t think it now, the way he strode along at her side, hands in his pockets as he grimaced at her offer of a piece of fried chicken. “I’m not going to eat walking down the street, Poppy. I’m not an animal.”
And you wouldn’t think it from the way she grinned in reply and tore off a piece of fried chicken with her teeth like a Viking hellion. This was not the behaviour of a woman so attracted to the man at her side she was having trouble walking straight due to the hammering pulse between her thighs.
His kiss had scorched her entire body, left it molten and desperate. The touch of his tongue… The memory nearly made her trip over her own feet.
Luckily—terrifyingly—his flat wasn’t far away. They went inside, got in the lift, the smell of fried chicken alien in the gleaming, jasmine-scented space. Very coarse. Very common. Just like her.
She caught sight of herself in the lift’s mirrored side, looking wide-eyed and stunned, her face red from drink. Bleary and messy and greasy. Her fingers greasy, her mouth…
“Woeful, Poppy?”
Those murmured words, in that low, crisp voice. The crack of cool chocolate. The memory of it was so all-consuming it felt as though it was still happening, the hot taste of him still there on her tongue.
He had kissed her. They were going to have to talk about it, weren’t try? He was going to have to say something like, “I apologise… Lapse of judgement… Clouded by alcohol… Never happen again…” And she would have to nod and agree, all the time feeling like the grubby-handed orphan child staring through the window at the glittering toy she could never have. The sweet bun in the baker’s shop she wanted to sink her teeth into…
In the flat, Roscoe cracked open another beer. Offered her one. She shook her head. They went to the sofa, turned on the TV. “Now,” said Roscoe, putting his feet on the coffee table and pulling the bucket of chicken over, “I can eat fried chicken like a civilised person.”
“Shall I get you some cutlery?” she teased. “Do you have a special fork just for that?”
“Yes. I keep it next to my lobster cracker and caviar spoons.” He winked as he bit into a piece of chicken, and she watched, her brain unhelpfully commenting, My tongue has been in there…
She tore her attention away and stowed it securely on the TV. But although that’s where her eyes looked, every other sense was laser-focused on the man at her side. The kiss felt like a third person in the room, sitting squashed between them on the sofa, its head turning from side to side, looking wide-eyed from him to her and back again and going, Now what?
Maybe he wasn’t going to say anything. Maybe that kiss had been nothing but what they’d pretended—a tipsy little joke, soon forgotten. It was probably best that way. If he took it seriously, he might feel obliged to consult his moral code, say they couldn’t live together, couldn’t work together, not if it led to boundaries being blurred. He was her boss. This could not happen.
Chicken finished, Roscoe started rummaging through the carrier bag it had come in.
“Still hungry?” she asked.
“Looking for a serviette.”
She laughed. “They’re not going to provide heated lemon towels at the Cluck’N’Tuck.”
He gave her a disdainful look but gave up the search and went into the kitchen. She heard the faint beep of the microwave, and he returned a moment later with…two heated lemon towels in plastic wrap.
“They’re handy when eating lobster,” he said, grinning at the way she shook her head in disbelief.
“Only you.”
“Only me,” he agreed, still smiling as he wiped his fingers clean. “Here…”
He knelt down in front of her, pulled out the second towel and held his hand out, asking for hers. She blushed, but she did it—gave him her hand, let him wipe her fingers clean. He gestured for her other hand, and she gave him that one, too, heart racing as he gently cleaned her fingers, his head bowed over his task.
“You don’t need to…” she protested—far too late. He had already finished, but her brain had struggled to conjure any words at all while it trembled, giddy, confused.
Then he folded the towel to a clean section and wiped the corner of her mouth, his other hand holding her jaw. Gently, slowly, he cleaned her, eyes focused on that, not meeting hers, until he finished, dropped the towel and looked at her, his other hand still cradling her cheek.
“I’m sorry.”
She didn’t need to ask what for.
He stroked his thumb over her cheek, almost to her lips, and his eyes dipped. She didn’t breathe. Couldn’t. But he sighed and dropped his hand, sat back on the edge of the coffee table. It didn’t do much to reduce the impact of his presence. His knees nearly touched hers, but he was higher now, looking down on her, eyes serious and weighted. “That was wrong of me, back in the takeaway place. I shouldn’t have done that. I let a joke get out of hand.”
“Ross…”
“I was tempted to take the coward’s way out, pretend it was nothing. But I can’t do that. As your landlord. Your boss. I can move out, I have another place to stay. I—”
“Don’t.”
“Poppy, this can’t—”
“We’re both adults. I’m consenting.”
His gaze tightened at the word. A flash of heat. A hint of the Roscoe she remembered, unleashed and hungry, voice a rough promise in her ear.
All night, Poppy. Can you take me—
She shifted position, heat swamping her inside and out. They were poised on the edge. They both knew it. Moments away from choosing whether or not to—
“Kiss me,” she said, eyes meeting his, the words out of her mouth before she could call them back.
Roscoe almost flinched. He went deadly still. “I can’t.”
“But you were terrible,” she said, making herself smile—summoning all her courage as she forced herself out onto this precarious bridge. She held the smile on her face, gripping it as though it was the only thing stopping her falling. “I think, for the sake of all women everywhere, I need to help you practise.”
Join me, she begged, smile starting to falter. Please step out and join me halfway…
Roscoe’s eyes were dark, entirely serious. But he said, “Is that so?”
“Think of the women, Roscoe. Do it for them.”
“I’m only thinking about one.”
Her breath hitched. Or maybe it was her heart. Something inside her chest went thump anyway.
“You wanted to know what average people do,” she said, words made breathless by the tension squeezing her throat. “This is what they do. Go out, have a drink, kiss someone.”
“Someone they shouldn’t.”
“They make bad choices. Buy fried chicken. Do things just because they want to. They’re not perfect.”
“I’m very far from perfect.”
“I know.”
He looked at her, smart enough to know what she meant. It wasn’t an insult. It was permission to be just him. Roscoe. Tarnished not golden, just an average man, setting down the crown that weighed heavy on his head. At least for one night.
“Far from perfect,” she said, letting a smile curl the corner of her mouth. She had no courage left. This was pure desperation. “I mean…we definitely need to work on that thing you do with your tongue.”
His eyes didn’t turn any less serious, but a wicked challenge began to glimmer there. His gaze dropped to her mouth, swept down her body then back up. “I could show you what else I do with my tongue.”
“Is it terrible?”
“Despicable.”
He moved from the coffee table and knelt on the ground before her while her heart hammered. Slowly, in a moment frozen in time, he put his hands on her bare knees, his touch searingly hot on her skin. She was in her grey pencil skirt, couldn’t shift her legs apart, not unless he pushed the fabric up… But he didn’t move, merely watched his thumb stroke over the inside of her knee as she sat burning, pulse pounding. “If we do this,” he began. “If we start this, everything changes. At work, here—”
“No.”
“I’m your boss, this isn’t appropriate…”
“It’s a lesson,” she said. “It’s what I’m giving you back.”
It was nonsense, of course, they both knew that. Just a joke, stretched, distorted, made into an excuse to bridge the last lingering gap between what they both knew they ought to do and what they both wanted.
Roscoe nodded. Once. Twice. Then he moved his hands to her hips and pulled her to the edge of the sofa. He paused for the briefest moment, then his hands were running down her thighs to the hem of her skirt, pushing it up to her hips so her legs could spread and wrap around his body as he pulled her to him, one hand slipping into her hair, bringing her mouth to his—then holding her there, a millimetre away.
His muscled waist was pressed against her core, his broad chest was inches from hers, she could feel the heat of him through his cotton shirt. One of his strong hands was wound into her hair, the other clamped on her lower back, holding her against him. She heard the breath he took, felt the warmth of it on her lips. “We shouldn’t…” he murmured.
“Kiss me,” she breathed. “Please.”
He gave a tortured groan, then he closed that last aching gap and his lips met hers.
She gasped at that first contact, wound so tight that the touch of his lips ran over her body like fire. She would have kissed him back, feverish, desperate, but he was in control, the hand wrapped into her hair holding her still. His lips were firm, their movement deliberate. His tongue slid into her mouth, swept over hers like it had before. Again, she moaned.
“Is that the thing, Poppy?” he breathed, his voice a wicked husk. He didn’t wait for an answer, but kissed her again and again, deep and filthy, then moved to her neck, the pressure of his hand in her hair tilting her head back, baring her throat to his mouth.
It shouldn’t have felt so good, to let him take so much control, but she sank blissfully into surrender as his fingers moved to her blouse, deftly undoing the buttons and pushing it from her shoulders. He undid the catch at the back of her bra with one hand, and she felt his smile against her skin, his mouth brushing her collarbone. “Is this what I need to practise? So clumsy…”
And her bra was off, her blouse off, air cool on her heated skin as his mouth moved to her breast. She arched back with a moan as he licked the hard tip of her nipple, a cascade of sensation flooding her core. He kissed, licked, sucked, his other hand cupping her other breast, his thumb working that nipple, too, as she collapsed backwards onto the sofa, drawing him down with her.
It was too much. The sensation of hand and mouth on those sensitive tips was too much… But he moved over her, knee pressing into the sofa at her hip as he kissed her mouth again, the warmth of him soft and sweet, but coaxing her down deeper, sinking her into another layer of dazed bliss.
She weaved her fingers into the silk of his hair, stroked them over the crisp cotton encasing his broad shoulders, exulting in the size, the strength of him over her. Her hands moved down, over his ribs, his waist, found the belt of his suit-trousers… But he shifted down, out of reach, kneeling on the floor before her.
He pushed her skirt to her waist, hooked his fingers into her underwear.
“Is this another terrible tongue thing?” she said, her voice a breathless wreck.
“Yes, Poppy.” He placed a kiss on the inside of her knee as he began to pull her underwear down. “That’s exactly what it is.”