Chapter Twelve
There was no denying it as I strode towards the reassuringly solid printer, its screen glowing blue in the low light.
I was feeling a bit – wobbly. Almost panting.
The drink. Definitely the drink. Ignoring the very low, perilously low, dip my stomach had taken as I stared into Olly’s infuriatingly gorgeous eyes.
Don’t fall for a charmer, Lizzy, I thought.
Not again. Also, you’re at work. You’re at bloody work.
I collected the printouts and stomped back to Esme’s office.
Olly had completely regained his composure and he looked as though he’d been drinking mineral water all night.
Hands in pockets, he was taking in the room, and arched an amused eyebrow at me when I threw a copy of the document down in front of him and scrabbled mine away in my backpack.
‘Here she is,’ he drawled. ‘I admit it, you almost had me there.’
‘Hmm?’ He didn’t deserve a coherent sentence. Entirely coincidentally, I was incapable of forming one. In that precise moment.
‘Sketching an image of yourself as a goddess of the romantic arts, when we all know’– he gave a smirk, an actual smirk – ‘that’s not where your talents lie, my beloved ice queen. Come on, you got me.’ He looked around, exaggeratedly. ‘Were you recording that? It was a prank, right?’
I recovered my voice. ‘Get stuffed, Olly.’
‘Nope, I’ve got your number. You won’t fool me again. The day I’m surprised by something you do, is the day I buy pizza and chocolate muffins for our whole health-conscious company.’
The thought of the look of distaste on Ajax’s face at the arrival of two dozen Four Seasons pizzas was enough to make me laugh out loud. But more than that, I was rankled by the look on Olly’s face, the I’ve-got-your-measure, I’ve-seen-everything smugness that made me want to prove him wrong.
‘Deal,’ I said. And before he could move or say anything, I took his face in my hands and kissed him.
It was the first kiss I had promised: firm, tender, a light tug on his lower lip. Practically in slow motion. And I thought that would be that, I really did – but he didn’t move away, and when I inhaled, I caught the heady scent of him, a sweet, expensive muskiness that smelt too expensive for me.
Oh, you want the full works, do you? I thought. And, because my blood was currently forty-five percent proof, and his mouth was surprisingly delicious, I gave it to him.
Like I said, a first kiss is about asking a question, and waiting for the answer. And if there’s anything I’m good at, it’s listening.
So when his mouth answered mine with a tug, when he pulled away for a breath, then kissed me again, then another breath. When his lips parted, and mine parted and I felt the whisky sweet touch of his tongue. Another question.
The sweep of our mouths as our tongues met.
Another question.
His hands closed over my waist and my skin lit up with electricity at the precise moment I heard him murmur my name and he ran one hand through my hair.
I pulled myself away – tore myself as though I was, in fact, being electrocuted. Stood, staring at his dazed face.
I was only glad I hadn’t fallen over backwards in my leap away from him. I tucked a spare strand of curly hair behind my ear and turned away, zipping up my backpack. ‘So!’ I semi-shouted, shrilly. ‘We’ll reconvene tomorrow morning, at eight?’
There was silence. I whipped round. Olly was leaning on Esme’s desk, his hands gripping it. He looked as though someone had walloped him in the face with a custard pie, minus the custard: blindsided and confused.
‘What the—’ He cleared his throat. ‘What the hell just happened?’
I compressed my lips. ‘My thoughts exactly. Although, admit it – it’s fairly straightforward. The technique, that is.’
‘Technique?’ His eyes shot to my face, rather than the space in thin air he’d been focusing on. ‘I guess I’ve been doing it wrong.’
I clapped my hands together. ‘My work here is done. See you tomorrow.’
I admit, it was slightly cowardly to sprint away as fast as I did (so fast, the soles of my trainers were practically smoking), but by the time I got down the corridor – dimly and sustainably lit – to the lift doors, I was starting to recover my wits.
As I mashed the lift call button, I was already getting the emotional hangover – the faint tinge of a warning that I was going to be very embarrassed the following day, once the whisky had worn off.
The lift ticked its way slowly up the floors as I rocked on my trainered feet like a runner preparing for a race.
‘Lizzy.’
I turned. It was Olly. I hadn’t heard him approach on the carpeted floor.
I was trying to formulate something to say when he got to me in one step, pressed me back against the wall, and kissed me again.
This time, I wasn’t prepared. This time I was not trying to prove some ridiculous point, whatever the point was, because I had totally forgotten it in the avalanche of sensations as his mouth swept over mine.
Dear lord, this man could kiss as well, better, than anyone I’d ever kissed.
And this kiss wasn’t slow or questioning.
It was passionate, definite, what was the word – I gasped as he softly bit my lower lip – I always had the right word for everything, but I was losing it in the scramble of each of us trying to get closer.
Then his hands slipped to my waist and he pulled my hips against his and I felt the pulse of our bodies against each other, the very definite proof that he liked me a lot – just as the lift went ding and the doors opened.
And the word popped into my head, the word that described our kiss perfectly: hungry.
The chime of the lift had broken the spell, because suddenly he stepped back from me, looking as startled as if I was a hypnotist and had just clicked my fingers in his face.
‘Back in the room,’ I piped, trying to push down the hysterical laugh that was rising in my throat.
‘Lizzy, I—’ He’d stepped away from me and seemed to be catching his breath.
I could see his face was flaming with embarrassment.
Yes, Olly had just pretty much pinned me against the wall, kissed the hell out of me and produced incontrovertible proof that he was physically attracted to me in a move that was nowhere near the cool, charming, in control person he presented to the world.
I felt a twinge of pity for him: in the last few days we’d both been thrown off course by Ajax and Esme.
Like rubberneckers at the scene of an accident we were veering across lanes and pumping our own brakes.
Steer into the skid, I thought. ‘You’re very draining, MacLeod,’ I said sarcastically, cutting off his stutterings, which were definitely heading in the direction of an apology. ‘Why is it you always have to have the last word?’
I stepped into the lift, pushed a button, and glimpsed his stunned face as the doors closed.
Then I leaned against the wall of the lift as it descended, trying to suppress the feeling of being a champagne bottle whose cork was about to pop.