Kismet (Happy Endings 3)

He hums softly, perhaps in understanding. “That’s a good feeling,” he says a little heavily, and that weight in his voice makes me want to ask more questions.

But that’s not what tonight is. It’s not a date. It’s not dinner and a getting-to-know-you. This is a one-night stand with a hot British man.

Or so I hope.

Be bold. Have some bloody fucking fun in London.

I shove past the nerves, the fear of rejection, the what-ifs, and I go for it. “Would you like to kiss me?”

As soon as the words escape, my hand flies to my mouth. “I can’t actually believe I just said that.”

Heath tilts his head, studying me. “Do you want to take it back?” His voice is a low rumble, sliding over my skin. The air between us crackles, charged and sparking.

“No,” I whisper.

“Then, do you want me to answer, Jo?”

“Very much so.”

He doesn’t reply with words, but with deeds. He lifts one hand, cups my jaw, slides a thumb along it.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had a memorable kiss, one to crave later. The kind of kiss you imagine when you dream of kissing.

He lowers his head, inches away, then breathes out my name, all sultry and a little bit dirty in that growly, rich voice of his. “Jo,” he whispers, somehow stretching out two letters seductively, like he’s testing the flavor, letting it roll across his tongue.

It hardly feels like we’re in a bar in the middle of the city, with other patrons drinking pints or ale or shots or cocktails all around us. I don’t care about that while I’m caught in this promise of a kiss, in the giddy haze of anticipation.

He lets it build, his gaze lingering on my lips. Then he dusts his mouth softly across mine.

A soft, tender brush of a kiss.

This stranger kisses me in a bar, that most old-fashioned of meeting places. Kisses me like he’s savoring every second of this moment.

Like kissing is a treasure.

As his lips sweep over mine, I’m completely convinced that it is. It is a rare and precious thing, to be kissed like you matter.

I can barely breathe for how good it feels. My toes tingle.

Sometime later—it could be seconds, it could be another lifetime—we break the kiss. I feel woozy and tipsy.

He looks the same, wearing the barest hint of a smile. “Do you want to get out of here?”

“Is that a pickup line?” I ask, breathless.

There’s that cocky grin again. That action-hero charm. “It absolutely is.”

“It’s working.”

Twenty minutes later, he holds open the door of my hotel, makes a quick stop at the concierge desk, and then heads with me to the elevator.

The second the doors close, nerves wind tight inside of me.

The laughter and lightness from the bar disappear, and he’s all intensity. His eyes turn darker, almost brooding, and he stares, undressing me with his gaze.

The elevator climbs. Closing the distance in a heartbeat, Heath cups my face, and kisses the hell out of me. It’s a completely different kiss from the first one. This is deep and needy, a desperate kind of kiss, almost like he’s afraid I’ll vanish if he doesn’t devour me.

Heat rushes through me in delicious tingles that light up my skin.

That flip my insides.

That make me feel buzzed in all the best ways.

Devoured too. Consumed with the need that seems to radiate from him.

The elevator slows at my floor. Dings. We stumble out. My instinct is to talk, to fill the silence with words.

But I don’t know that anything needs to be said, and I don’t feel like throwing out a sassy comment or a note of banter. I’m an ocean away from my home and my friends and my life. All I want tonight is the purity of the physical connection.

Of intimacy with a stranger.

When we reach my room, I slide the card key against the door, and we tumble inside. In a second, he pushes me up against the wall and his kisses continue. He journeys everywhere. His lips travel all along my neck, across my shoulder, nipping my collarbone, licking the hollow of my throat. He kisses me like he’s mapping my skin with his lips and mouth and tongue.

My knees turn to jelly. I’m hot and achy everywhere, wanted in a way I’ve never felt before.

Maybe we can even do this again.

Not so fast.

This is just a one-night stand.

Don’t let your thoughts gallop away.

I focus on the here and now and linger in how good he is with his mouth as I take all of his kisses.

My thoughts turn hazier. They wander away, leaving the room, frolicking around London. This city’s not so bad, really—not if kisses like this exist in this place.

Have I just been kissing the wrong men all along?

Maybe I’ve been missing out. Maybe I’ve seen the wrong men.