The Sexpert

And that’s when all the buttons on my sensible, professional button-down collared shirt go flying off in all directions.

“Oh, shit!” That’s me.

“Oh, shit!” That’s Andrew.

And then we’re both looking at my breasts.

I’m wearing a tank top, so we’re not actually looking at my breasts. But my girls are quite spectacular. Which is why I hide them underneath a professional shirt every day. And to top it all off, the tank is white, and my bra is pink, and… yeah. You can see it through the shirt.

“Um…” Andrew begins. And then he just smiles.

“Thanks a lot!” I say too loudly.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “But you were going to fall and I just…” Then he’s laughing.

“It’s not funny! I have two more hours until lunch and I have to walk around like this until I can scoot home and change!”

I push him away. This time he’s got his hands up in the air, letting me know he’s not going to touch me. And I take a step up, determined to push my way past him this time, but then my cute little ballet flat that has absolutely no tread on the sole slips and I fall to my knees on the stairs, palms down to catch my fall.

And in that moment, somehow, some way, Andrew’s fingers are tangled in my hair. Like he was gonna save me by the ponytail.

I look up, hot with embarrassment, and find myself eye to eye with—yes, you guessed it—his junk.

He laughs again.

“This is not funny,” I say, scrambling to my feet then backing down a few steps to put some distance between us. “What are you doing here anyway? You’re down on forty-nine. These two floors are for Le Man. Go back to your floor!”

I’m wagging my finger at him, which is dumb, so I stop doing that.

He bends down, eyes still on me, and we’re like… way too close. Like his lips—those lips I kissed last night—are just mere inches from mine because even though he’s crouching down on the step, I’m three steps down.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Grabbing your tablet,” he says, his hand reaching out to pat the stairs to find it by touch, because his eyes have not strayed. They are locked on mine. “God, you’re adorable,” he whispers.

And now I’m looking at his lips. They are very nice lips. You don’t often think about a man’s lips until you’re presented with a set of spectacular ones. Lips like his. Which are just a little bit plump, and look very soft.

They are soft, I recall from last night.

And then he says, “Eden.”

And I swallow hard and say, “What?”

And then he kisses me. He barely has to move at all, that’s how close we are. The universe really is conspiring against me because when I walked into this stairwell thirty seconds ago there was no scenario that ended with me kissing Andrew Hawthorne.

I know what I should do. Push him away. Or run away. Or… or… pretty much anything else but let him kiss me, but that’s what I do.

I let him.

And then I take it one step further. Because I kiss him back.

What happens next is like… a choreographed dance or something. It has to be. There’s no other plausible explanation for how he gets to his feet, steps down the stairs, backs me down the stairs until my back is pressed up against the landing wall, and threads his fingers into my falling-apart ponytail while never breaking lip contact.

And it is the most amazing kiss. I’m talking half-open mouth with just the right amount of tongue. And he tastes like cinnamon. Like he was chewing a stick of Big Red or crunching on a cinnamon Tic-Tac just seconds before this whole encounter happened. Or maybe I’m imagining that because I’m obsessed with sweets?

Who cares?

“Shit,” he says, catching his breath and backing away.

I stare into his eyes. Which, like his lips, are very nice. “I gotta go,” I whisper. “The art department is waiting…”

But I don’t get to finish because he leans back in and kisses me again.

And this is when we get… hands-y.

I don’t know what I’m thinking. Probably not thinking, which, I realize, is the problem here. But my hands are on his upper arms, feeling his muscles underneath his shirt. And his hands are on my arms, riding up my shoulders, gripping them tightly before they slide down and…

Holy shit.

I moan into his mouth as he grabs my breasts and squeezes.

Voices outside the stairs make us both pull away quickly and I get this feeling. Like… what a magnet must feel like when it disconnects from a piece of iron.

He smiles at me.

I’m too busy wondering how this all just happened in the span of ninety seconds to smile back. And then he turns away, just as Lydia from data entry enters the stairs, and disappears down below.