“About what?”
Again, I’m expecting one thing but something entirely different happens. Instead of answering with his words, he touches me. Of his own volition.
His hands wrap around my neck, his fingers spanning the entire length of my throat, tilting my face up. My eyes are wide; I can feel it. I can feel them popping out. I can feel my heart popping out too, bursting with too many beats.
He’s touching me.
Touching. The litmus test of attraction.
“I’m curious about,” he whispers, his breath wafting over my nose, drugging my senses. “Why the fuck do I want to kiss you?”
“What?”
My hands reach up and hold his wrists. I feel like my world just went unsteady and I can’t stand up straight without his help.
Did he just… Did he say he wants to kiss me?
There’s a slight frown on his forehead, as if he’s genuinely perplexed. As if I’m a riddle and so is his desire to kiss me.
“It doesn’t make sense.” His gray, almost black, gaze flicks back and forth. “You’re my patient. You’re my responsibility. I’m supposed to fix you, not think about your lips. I’m not supposed to think about your mouth or the taste of your tongue. If you really taste like you smell.”
“How… How do I smell?”
His chuckle is short and harsh as he moves his hand and grabs my face. “Like lemons. Like you’ve been sucking on lemon wedges all day long with that pink mouth of yours.”
I feel the heat of his hand on my flesh. He’s burning up, slowly boiling over. “I-I… It’s the lime jello,” I reply, as if that’s the most important thing in the world right now. Explaining the source of my smell and possibly my taste too.
His grip on my cheeks increases. “That was for me, wasn’t it? That whole lie about getting kissed in a dark alley.”
Oh God. Why’d he have to bring that up?
Again, I don’t know what I was thinking. I was so overcome by this urge to show off. To tell him without telling him that I’ve been thinking about him. Dreaming about him. And that I’m not ashamed of any of it.
My cheeks are possibly the same temperature as his fingers now, all heated up with embarrassment and lust. Even though I want to look away, I don’t. I stare into his passionate gray-black eyes and nod. “Yes.”
He shakes his head once. “Is that how you want to be kissed, Willow? In a dark alley, pressed up against a wall?”
I know I’m panting. Probably even salivating right now. My thighs are trembling. There’s a buzzing inside my stomach because yes, I do want to be kissed like that. I do want to be devoured, eaten up, swallowed in.
By him.
“Yes. Like that.”
“That’s what you want, don’t you? For a man to go so fucking crazy for you that he can’t afford to be a gentleman. That instead of dropping you off at your front door and walking away with a chaste goodnight kiss, he pushes you against it and fucking kisses the breath out of you.”
Yes. So much yes.
He’s gotten closer to me with every word out of his beautiful lips and I go on my tiptoes to bring our mouths even closer. “No. Not just any man. You. I want you, Simon.”
A shudder ripples through him, like a shock wave. It ripples through me, as well. Why did I wait so long to say his name? It was stupid. I’m not going to be so stupid anymore.
Well, aside from what we’re doing right now. It doesn’t feel stupid, even though it should, for all intents and purposes. Especially after his whole moral and ethical argument.
“You’re not my type,” he growls, pushing his forehead against mine.
“I’m sorry?”
“You’re young. You’re reckless. Inexperienced. You believe in happy endings, don’t you? Fairy tales and fucking magic.”
His breaths are wild, frustrated. Like believing in good things is a bad habit. Believing in something bigger than you is silly.
I frown, pressing harder against his forehead. “Of course I do. If someone like me doesn’t believe in magic, then there’s no hope for anyone else. There’s no hope for me. And it’s not a bad thing, you know. It’s not a bad thing to believe in something. In fact, it shows that you’re brave and –”
His mouth pulls into a humorless smile. “And you don’t know when to shut the fuck up.”
“Hey –”
“Willow.”
He flattens my cheeks with his hands, asserting all his stupid authority over me. Too bad it only makes me hornier and I have to clench my thighs against the shivers running through my lower body.
“What?” I somehow manage to squeak.
“Shut the fuck up.”
I gasp; how dare he?
But it gets swallowed up by his mouth.
I freeze. It’s happening.
He’s kissing me.
Simon Blackwood, the ice king, my psychiatrist, is kissing me. His lips are on mine and they are moving. Slowly, thoroughly. They are so warm and alive and wet.