Chapter 10 #3
For a few seconds, the only sound was the elevator rising and both of us breathing like we had climbed more than a few floors.
Her cream top fit close across her breasts. The soft fabric showed the hard points of her nipples, and the sight pulled every bit of patience I owned into a fist. My gaze lifted to hers. She had seen me look. Her lips parted, and then she caught the bottom one between her teeth.
Every muscle in my body tightened.
“Don’t.”
She released it slowly.
“Don’t what?”
I pushed away from the wall and crossed the elevator before either one of us could pretend I was not going to.
“Bite your lip.”
Her eyes stayed on mine.
I stopped close enough for her perfume to get into my chest.
“That’s my job.”
Heat moved through her face first, then her body. I saw it in the way her shoulders softened against the wall, the way her chin lifted, the way she looked at my mouth like she had already decided to be reckless and was waiting for me to catch up.
“Then do it.”
My hand caught the back of her neck, and my mouth came down on hers hard enough to end the conversation. She grabbed my hoodie and pulled me in, and whatever space I had been trying to keep between us disappeared under her hands.
She tasted like strawberry, gloss, and all the trouble I had been trying to avoid.
I bit her bottom lip lightly, then sucked it into my mouth.
Her body pressed into mine with a little sound that went straight through me. I slid my hand down to her ass, full and soft in my palm, and squeezed before I remembered we were in a damn elevator.
By then, Imani’s hands were around my neck, her tongue touching mine, and my sense had left. The elevator chimed somewhere behind us. The doors opened, then closed again. Neither one of us moved, and I barely heard them.
Imani’s hand slid between us, slow and sure, and when her palm closed around my dick through my jeans, my forehead dropped to hers on a rough breath.
“Mani.”
She stroked me once.
My whole body went tight.
That one touch had years in it. Memory. Want. Nerve. Her hand knowing enough to make me remember what she used to do and different enough to make me wonder what she had learned since me.
I kissed her again because thinking was about to become a problem.
Her back met the wall. My hand slid under her coat, fingers digging into the curve of her ass while she rubbed me through denim with the kind of slow pressure that made it hard to remember I was supposed to be the one with control.
The elevator moved again.
Another chime cut through the sound of our breathing.
This time, the doors opened to a hallway I did not recognize.
Imani froze against me.
I lifted my head.
The little screen above the door said eleven.
For a second, neither of us spoke.
Then she dropped her forehead against my chest and started laughing under her breath.
I closed my eyes. “Damn.”
“We missed my floor.”
“We missed it badly.”
The doors started to close, and I reached out fast enough to catch them before some poor person came around the corner and found us standing there looking guilty as hell.
Imani stepped back first, smoothing her top with hands that were not as steady as she wanted them to be. Her lips were swollen. Her braids were mussed near her temple. Her eyes were bright and dark at the same time, and looking at her like that made me want to press the button for my floor instead.
I did not.
I pressed eight again.
The doors closed.
This time, I stood beside her instead of in front of her. Our shoulders touched. Neither one of us moved away. Her hand found mine somewhere between eleven and eight, and our fingers locked like we needed the help.
When the elevator opened on her floor, we stepped out quietly.
The hallway felt too soft after the heat of that elevator. Thick carpet. Low lights. The faint scent of flowers from some arrangement near the end of the corridor. I walked her to her door with my hand at her back, both of us moving slower than necessary.
At her room, she swiped the key and turned toward me.
For a moment, we stood there with the door unlocked and the whole night waiting to see which one of us would be foolish first.
I wanted to go in.
She wanted me to.
That was all over her face, in her swollen mouth, in the way her fingers still held the edge of my hoodie like she had forgotten to let go.
I touched her jaw.
This kiss was different. Slow. Soft.
The kind that asked for more by refusing to take it. Her mouth opened under mine, and I kissed her like I had all the time in the world even though my body was still arguing hard for the opposite.
When I pulled back, her eyes stayed on mine.
“Get some rest, Mani.”
Her mouth curved a little, disappointment and heat sitting together. “You too.”
Neither one of us believed that.
My thumb moved once along her cheek before I made myself let her go.
She went inside while I waited until the door closed. Then I stood there for a second with my hands on my hips, staring at the carpet like it had personally offended me.
I regretted not following her. I was pretty sure she regretted not asking me to.
Still, tonight felt like the right call.
Tomorrow could do whatever the hell it wanted.