“I bet you couldn’t hold still if you tried,” he said, his voice a low warning.
She frowned at him, folding her hands into her lap. Her brows went up as she accepted his challenge, but a second later, she pulled the inside of her bottom lip between her teeth.
“Told you.” He cupped her chin and pulled her lip free from her teeth with his thumb. The moment he touched her, his big “thinky” brain shorted out. He knew he shouldn’t kiss her. Knew he was reacting to the stress from work, or Evan’s and Angel’s suggestions that Kimber liked him. Or maybe he was simply responding to the attraction that had lit between them last night in the brief, heated space separating their bodies. The same attraction that burned now. He knew all of those things. Intellectually.
But he leaned across the short distance and laid his lips against hers anyway.
A sigh drifted out of her mouth and her eyes fluttered closed. As if he was giving her the best gift in the world. His pants grew tight in an instant. A smart guy would pull back, excuse himself to bed, and apologize for being rash. He was a smart guy. So why was he still moving his mouth gently along hers?
Because she tastes too damn good, came the answer. He traced her bottom lip with his tongue; tasting the red wine on her mouth, savoring the notes of raspberry and dark cherries lingering there. Delectable.
Wrapping her arms around his neck, she leaned into him, one knee digging into his leg, and pulled his head toward hers. She darted her tongue into his mouth while he fought to keep pace. He clasped her at the ribs, holding her against him, and matched her mouth blow for blow. It was erotic as hell to have this woman literally writhing against him, her soft braless breasts pressed into his chest, her mouth making his brain relay information in sluggish Morse code.
“Your knee,” he said between her devouring his mouth. He cupped her knee in his palm to relieve the pressure—the bruise she was leaving on his leg—and slid her leg aside.
“Oh,” she breathed into his mouth. Her glassy eyes cleared and she abruptly pulled away and sat back on her heels.
He sat in exactly the same position, his back to the couch, arms at his sides, erection throbbing loud enough for the neighbors to hear…
She grew restless, eyes darting around the porch, shoulders shifting. She reached for her Pinot Noir and took a drink. So fidgety.
He chuckled.
After she swallowed her wine, she frowned. “What?”
“Nothing.”
The main difference between her and him was she had no clue what she was capable of; probably didn’t know where she’d be in two years. He knew what he was capable of. Knew who he was, and who he wasn’t. He’d plotted and planned his life out in incremental pieces for the last decade. Where he’d bet Kimber had been flying by the seat of her tantalizingly tight pants since adolescence.
“Where do you see yourself in five years?” he asked, curious if he was right. But he was. He knew it.
She let out a short laugh. “Back on the interview clock?”
“Just trying to prove a point.”
Anger flared in her green eyes. “What point? Don’t dance around it. Just say it.”
Fair enough. “You’re looking for who you are. You’re tempting and sexy and I can see that you like me. But you also don’t know what you want.”
He’d offended her. A scowl bisected her forehead. “And you do?”
“Yes.” He wanted predictability, a company that excelled, a glass of thirty-year-old scotch on the balcony of his penthouse.
“I’ve liked you for a long time, Landon.”
Her honesty and the turn of the conversation took him by surprise. He broke his casual position by bending forward and taking a drink. When he leaned back, she was waiting for his reaction. Maybe for him to say he liked her, too. And he did. But telling her that would set high expectations.
Too high.
“I know you do.” He hated to ruin her peaches-and-cream worldview, to point out the thorns in her rose-colored glasses, but he didn’t want to lie to her, either. “I don’t want to sully who you are,” he said. “I don’t want to see you jaded. Bitter.” Like me.
She blinked a few times. “Wow. Cocky much?”
He sniffed. “Not cocky. Just honest.”
She shifted in her seat, her shoulders going back, her chin lifting in defiance. Her nipples pressed against the beaded owl on the shirt she wore, a distracting view, but he forced his eyes back to her face. Eyes that flared with bottle-green anger. Redhead. He’d never dated a redhead before. Maybe the lore was true and she was every bit the hothead she appeared to be right now.