“Isn’t that why we’re here? To ask each other questions?”
Her shoulders lift into a weak shrug as she continues to avoid my gaze. “Yes, but this wasn’t one of the questions I was planning on asking you. I’m not even positive I want to know the answer to this, but if I don’t mind your answer, then I could offer a suggestion to make this more interesting.”
“Can you do me a favor first?” I ask.
“Okay.”
“Can you look at me?”
I can tell she isn’t expecting me to say that, but she doesn’t hesitate. She lifts her head, looking at me straight on and giving me her full attention.
“This is how I want to talk to you,” I tell her. “If I didn’t care about seeing your face, I could take you back to your car and we could have this conversation on the phone.”
“Would you rather we do that instead?”
“No, I hate talking on the phone. Ask me what you were going to ask me, but keep your head up.”
She nods once, then takes a quick drink before she goes for it. “Were you okay with what I did last weekend?”
“Which part?”
“When I kissed you.”
My eyes drop to her mouth, and the memory of what those lips are capable of has me slowly hardening underneath the table. Plus, now they’re wet.
Wet and fucking perfect.
“That night, before you left, you said I shouldn’t have done that, and I’ve been trying to wrap my head around why. I think maybe I just surprised you, or maybe you like to initiate things, and that’s why you said it.”
“I haven’t kissed anyone in nine years. You did a little more than surprise me,” I explain through an even voice, lifting my eyes back up to hers and dropping a hand to my lap.
“You haven’t . . .” She leans over the table, letting go of her glass and flattening both hands in front of her. “You haven’t been with a woman in nine years?” she asks quietly.
“I’ve been with a lot of women. I just don’t kiss them.”
“Why not? That’s like . . . sometimes the best part.”
I tilt my head with a grin that has her blushing so fast, it’s as if I’m showing her exactly what she’s doing to me underneath this table. I watch her slowly sit back before I continue.
“If you think kissing is the best part of being with a man, then you’ve been with the wrong ones.”
She pinches her lips together, fighting a smile. After a subtle shake of her head, she replies. “I think kissing is a very important part of it. It connects you to the other person in a way that sex can’t, in my opinion. And I’m honestly not sure how you can sleep with someone and not want to kiss them. Isn’t that one of the things that draws you to another person? Wanting to see how they kiss?”
I adjust my shorts discreetly, giving my erection room to breathe. Christ, I’ve never gotten hard this quickly. I feel like a goddamn teenager.
“I don’t know. I don’t pick up women to kiss them. And when I do get them alone, that’s the last thing on my mind.” I brush my hair out of my eyes and lean against the booth to stretch my back out. Silence looms between us as Beth takes a lot longer than I’d like to respond to me. The smile she was fighting seconds ago is no longer a threat as the corners of her mouth pull down in confusion, tightening her soft features. “Beth.”
“Yes?” she asks, never once dropping her head, even though I’d bet money on her wanting to do that right about now. She seems uncomfortable, maybe even a little wounded. I’m not sure if it was hearing that I wouldn’t have kissed her had things gone my way that night that’s gotten to her, or something else. Maybe it’s my announced habit of sleeping around that has her shutting down on me. Either way, I don’t like her quiet like this.
“To answer your question,” I begin, trying to coax more conversation out of her. “Going that long without kissing someone, and having it be you, and that mouth, and the way you did it, grabbing me like that and not giving me a choice . . . you surprised the hell out of me, sweetheart, but I have never been more okay with something in my entire life. The fact that I know you’re going to pull that shit again on Saturday has me fighting off an erection every five minutes.”
Her lips slowly part. Shock. I’ve shocked her? Is my obsession not as obvious as I think it is?
“Wow,” she finally says after giving me nothing but silence for thirty-seven seconds.
Yes, I counted.
“I was just expecting a one word answer to that.”
“Ask me again.”
The corner of her mouth lifts into a smile, and fuck me, if my chest doesn’t tighten at the sight of it.
“Were you okay with what I did last weekend?”
“Yes.”
“So if I were to suggest whoever wins this competition, gets to do what I did . . . you’d be up for that?”
My brows pinch together. “Do what you did?” I repeat, trying to understand.