S.E.C.R.E.T. (Secret 1)

“Well, you did take me by surprise, in a way,” I said, laughing at the mess he’d made. From the looks of it, his dolly had careened into Dell’s steel-topped kitchen island, sending all the pots and pans suspended over it crashing to the floor.

“Want some help?” I asked, extending my hand. What a face. If a bad boy could also be angelic, he would look like this. He was twenty-eight, maybe thirty, tops. He had a slight Cajun accent, too, local and very sexy. He unzipped his hoodie, shrugged it off and whipped it across the floor to get a better look at his injured elbow. He was oblivious of the fact that he was revealing a boxer’s torso under his white tank top, with intricate tattoos covering his arms and shoulders.

“That’s going to be a really nice bruise tomorrow morning,” he said, standing next to me.

He wasn’t tall, but his sexy brutishness gave him incredible presence. After he shook off the last vestiges of pain, he stretched backwards, taking me in.

“Wow. You’re really pretty,” he said.

“I … think we have a first-aid kit or something around here.”

As I walked past him towards the office, he grabbed me by the elbow and gently tugged me close to him

.

“So? Will you?”

“Will I what?” I asked. Hazel. The eyes were definitely hazel.

“Will you do this Step with me?”

“That’s not how you’re supposed to say it.”

“Damn,” he said, racking his brain.

He was so cute, but not too swift, this one, which I suppose didn’t matter.

“You’re supposed to ask, ‘Will you accept the Step?’ ”

“Right. Will you accept the Step?”

“Here? Now? With you?”

“Yeah. Here. Now. With me,” he said, cocking his head, giving me a crooked smile. Despite his rough-hewn exterior, and a hairline scar on his upper lip, he had the whitest teeth I’d ever seen. “Are you going to make me beg?” he added. “Okay, then. Pretty please?”

I was enjoying this. A lot. And decided to play it out a little longer. “What are you going to do to me?”

“I know this one,” he said. “I’m going to do everything you want, nothing you don’t.”

“Good answer.”

“See? I don’t totally suck.” So sweet and so sexy. “So? Will you accept the Step?”

“Which one is it?”

“Uh … three, I think. Trust?”

“Right,” I said, surveying the damage in the kitchen. “You come in here just as I’m closing and wreak the kind of havoc that’s going to keep me here after hours cleaning up.” I put my hands on my hips and squinted at him as though I had to really think about my choice. This was too much fun. “And do you really think you’re in any shape to—”

“I don’t get it. Are you saying you don’t accept the Step?” He winced as though in real pain. “Fuck, I screwed up.”

After a good, long pause, I said, “Nah. I’ll … accept the Step.”

“Wooo!” he said, clapping his hands hard, which sent me giggling. “I won’t let you down, Cassie,” he said, flicking off the fluorescent overheads, leaving us lit only by the warm glow of the streetlights streaming in through the kitchen cutout. He took a step back towards me and held my face in his hands.

In the end it wasn’t the special late-night delivery or the accident that took me by surprise. It was this. This kiss. Suddenly he had me against the cool tile wall of the kitchen, his firm body pressing hard enough to let me know that he meant it; Jesus, I could feel him getting hard. A second later, my shirt was off and tossed on top of his hoodie on the floor. There had been no kissing the first two times and I hadn’t missed it. But this, this was something else. My knees softened to the point where he had to move his hands to my waist to prevent me from collapsing to the floor. When had I ever been kissed like this, with just the right amount of urgency? Never in my life.

His tongue explored my mouth, with a need that matched my own. He tasted faintly like my favorite kind of cinnamon gum. After a few more seconds of deep kissing, he gently bit my bottom lip, and then his beautiful mouth moved from mine down the side of my neck, searching and kissing and finally landing on a spot just above my collarbone. He kissed me there, demandingly, which made me sigh. His hands seemed to pave the way for his mouth, so after they had freed my breasts from my bra, his mouth eagerly followed. His mouth traveled over one nipple until its hardness sent him searching for the other one, while he slipped a hand down the front of my jeans to discover what I had suspected was true: I was completely wet. He stopped kissing me and held my gaze while his fingers explored me, his eyes glassy and intense. Then he took his hand out of my pants and put a finger into his mouth. I thought I would come right then.