Chapter Fifteen
“Kiss - to engage in mutual touching or caressing with the lips.”
Charming
I finally said something that got to her. Yeah, I said stuff constantly that drove her crazy or made her mad, but I don’t think I ever said something that got this far under her skin so fast.
I watched her go, thinking I finally found the thing that would drive her away.
Maybe now I could finish this job without issue.
Funny, I thought I would be happier. I thought I’d feel lighter without having to worry about what she was up to that might ruin me.
I didn’t feel lighter.
I didn’t feel satisfied at all.
I dropped a five on the table, picked up the huge box, the coffee, and waved good-bye to the girl who let us in.
She told me her name, but I wasn’t listening.
I pointed to my cup where she’d scrawled her phone number and I grinned, making her think I was eager to call her. I wasn’t ever going to call her.
She blushed and disappeared into the back. I took the opportunity to increase my speed, stopping just behind Frankie who was fumbling to get inside her Jeep.
“You forgot your cupcakes,” I said, shifting the load to one arm and reaching around her with the other to open her door.
She didn’t turn around.
“Why are you here?” Her voice was slightly hoarse and my body tightened.
I set the box and coffee on the hood of her car, not bothering to say a word. I really didn’t have an answer anyway.
When my hands cupped her shoulders, she flinched. I told myself it didn’t bother me. That I knew she didn’t like me. It didn’t matter if she liked me or not. I was used to taking what I wanted.
I turned her around, my grip never leaving her shoulders, and pulled her closer so the space between us was maybe an inch at best. She looked up, her blue eyes confused and slightly hurt. My right hand found its way up to the back of her neck while the left tipped back her chin.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
I had to.
I lowered my lips to hers, wrapping my arm around her back and pulling her so close that there wasn’t even room for air between us.
She never appeared short, but when she was up against me like this, she felt it.
My body had to hunch itself around her so I could taste her the way I really wanted to.
The last time I kissed her was to prove a point.
This time it was because I couldn’t not kiss her.
There was no resistance where I expected.
It was almost as if she hadn’t just said, “don’t,” but instead murmured “please.” Her mouth was soft and pliable, warm and adept.
She kissed like she had nowhere else to be but right here in my arms. It made me hold her tighter.
It made me groan in the back of my throat and when I did, her tongue delved inside my mouth like it was trying to capture that sound, capture it and swallow it away so she would be the only one to have heard it.
Adrenaline poured through my limbs and they began to shake, a fine tremor that I would have denied if she called me on it.
But thankfully, she didn’t. Because she was too busy kissing me back.
I wanted to tear my mouth from hers, to kiss more than just one place on her body, but her lips were like a drug.
A lethal drug that claimed me with a single dose.
I ran my hands down her sides and across her back, dipping lower so they cupped the roundness of her bottom.
She made a sound, stretching up on tiptoes, wrapping her arms around my neck, trying to get closer.
I kissed her harder, with more intent. My lips finally broke free of hers and blazed a path across her cheekbone toward her ear.
Her chin tipped back, giving me greater access, and I sucked her earlobe into my mouth and kneaded it with my tongue.
She made a sound that caused me to smile, and I pulled back to look down.
Her cheeks were flushed, her lips were swollen, and her eyes were unfocused like she had one too many drinks.
I kissed her again, a series of four short rapid kisses that blended into one.
This time when I pulled away, she sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and held it there. I told myself it was because she wanted every last taste of my kiss.
“Why did you do that?” she asked, her voice husky and low. “Why are you even here?”
“Do you need a reason for everything I do?” The truth was I didn’t know why I was here. I was out driving and the next thing I knew I was here.
“I think I do.”
I pulled the cupcakes and the coffee off her hood and held them out. When she took them, I lifted my cup off the top. “Because I wanted to.”
“You wanted to kiss me?” she stuttered out.
I wanted to wipe that look off her face—the one of contempt and disdain. The way she looked at me before leaving the bakery… had been like I was a complete and utter stranger. I didn’t want to be a stranger to her. I wanted to know I could make her feel something other than death.
By the look on her face, by the way her body hummed against mine, I would say I was successful. Which really wasn’t a surprise.
What I hadn’t expected was, for the first time in a very long time, I felt something other than death too.