His eyes dart back and forth, searching mine. “You do?”
I nod, my hand circling his pounding heart. “I do. I’m sorry you were hurting so badly. I wish—”
“I’m fine.” Words evaporate on my tongue as Christopher drags his thumb over my bottom lip, his fingertips whispering along my throat, then down, across my collarbone. “After this,” he says quietly. “Let me take you home. Please.”
I bite my lip, a thrill coursing through me. “You want me to come to your house?”
“Your apartment, I meant. In the city.” He leans in as if he’s going to kiss me but seems to stop himself. His eyes dart down to my breasts, and he groans.
“What is it?”
“That damn sweater. Don’t you have anything else to wear? I can see straight to your belly button.”
“I don’t mind if you see straight to my belly button.”
“I mind,” he says darkly.
“Are you two coming?” Mom calls from the dining room.
I smile and shrug. “I’m happy in my sweater, so you’re stuck with it. Now, come on. I’m starving.”
“I’m starving, too,” he grumbles as I gather the salad bowl and tongs, then head for the dining room. “And it sure as hell isn’t for potato soup.”
? TWENTY-EIGHT ?
Christopher
Dinner lasts a lifetime. And it doesn’t last nearly long enough. Because I’m just as desperate for Kate as I’m terrified of what I’m about to do—try something I’ve never done before, something I’ve actively avoided my entire adult life: brutal honesty, naked intimacy.
Emphasis on naked.
It’s taking superhero strength not to think about every erotic thing I want to do with her after this, when I’m sitting between her parents at their dinner table.
A rush of something primal and possessive burns through me as I watch her laugh at a wisecrack her dad tosses into the conversation. Her cheeks are pink from the warmth of the room, her dimples deep, her hair an upswept swirl of chestnut and auburn that I ache to undo and watch spill down her back.
My hands curl into fists beneath the table.
Goddamn that sweater wrapped around her the way I want to be, kissing her collarbones, gliding over the slight swells of her breasts, hugging her waist. I see exactly where my hands belong, stroking her nipples, sweeping down her ribs to her hips.
My teeth grind as my cock helplessly hardens, thick and angry in my jeans. I’m in agony.
“Christopher?” Maureen’s voice earns my attention.
“Hmm?”
She tips her head. “You seem distracted. Everything all right?”
Kate picks up her water glass and lifts her eyebrows.
I stare at Kate, struggling not to broadcast in my expression how fiercely I want her, how good it feels to have told her the truth in the kitchen, to know she believes me. I still can’t really believe that she’s letting me sweep her away after this, that soon I’ll have the satisfaction of taking my sweet time with her instead of our frantic chaos last night, incredible though it was. I stare at her and can’t make myself stop picturing how slowly I’ll strip away her clothes and kiss her everywhere except where she wants. How I’ll work her up until she’s begging for my mouth, my cock, my hands, to give her relief.
“Christopher?” Maureen says again.
I blink, a rare rush of heat hitting my cheeks. I can’t believe where my mind went, when her parents are sitting right here.
“Sorry.” I shake my head a little and have a sip of my wine. I don’t taste it at all. “I’m fine, yes.”
Kate lifts a spoonful of chocolate mousse to her mouth and slowly slides it past her lips, hollowing her mouth when she does. Her mouth parts and her tongue flicks the tip of the spoon.
I put a fist in front of my mouth and breathe deeply. I’m going to die.
Kate tips her head, then leans in, which presses her breasts together. By some superhero strength, I manage not to look at them. “I’m ready to go if you are,” she says.
The final thread of my restraint snaps. I stand abruptly, sending my chair scraping back, then pick up my plate and bowl to hide how physically in hell I am. “Yes. I’m ready. Thank you for dinner,” I tell Maureen and Bill.
“Of course, dear,” Maureen says, smiling up at me.
“Don’t worry about the dishes,” Bill tells us as Kate and I gather up our plates and silverware. “Go on and have your fun.”
“We can throw them in the dishwasher,” Kate says. “It’ll take ten seconds.”
I’m already ahead of her, storming into the kitchen, rinsing my plate, bowl, and silverware under the water, then setting them in the dishwasher.
“Okay. Love you!” I hear Kate tell her parents.
The door swings open from the dining room and Kate walks in. I watch her set down her dishes, then stop abruptly and turn, disappearing from the kitchen, before reappearing. She shrugs on her coat and her beat-up cross-body bag, while I shove her dishes into the dishwasher. Somehow nothing breaks, even though I’m not remotely watching what I’m doing.
I stare at Kate, who looks so her right now, with that messy bun and her ratty jacket and beat-up bag. Something inside me snaps. I kick the dishwasher closed, close in on her, then walk her back to the counter, my hands on her hips, my mouth a whisper from hers. “I want to kiss you, Kate. Very badly.”
She blinks up at me, her eyes growing hazy as her hands drift up my arms to my shoulders. For a moment, I’d swear I have her, that her mouth’s about to meet mine, but then she ducks out from under my arms and spins away. “Not yet.”
“Not yet?” I turn, breathing roughly.
Slowly, she backs toward the door, like a cornered animal, a flush on her cheeks, a feisty glint in her eyes. “Not yet,” she says again.
“Katerina, what’s—”
My voice dies off as she turns the handle, then wrenches open the door.
? TWENTY-NINE ?
Kate
I’ve barely made it to the bottom step of the back stairs when Christopher’s arm wraps around my waist and spins me his way. I gasp, shocked by how fast he is, how quickly he whips me around and pins me against him.
And then he bends, scoops me up, and throws me over his shoulder.
I squawk as he starts to march us across the yard.
“Christopher!”
“Katerina,” he says pleasantly.
“What are you doing?” I squeak.
“Giving you exactly what you deserve for trying to run off.” He lifts a hand and swats my butt.
I squeak again. “Did you just spank me?”
“And if I did?”
“Stop it!”
He grins. I hear it in his voice. “Why? Because you don’t like it? Or because you don’t think you should?”
I turn bright red. Reaching down, I swat his ass back. “Put me down, you caveman.”
Immediately he stops and crouches, letting me slide down his body.
I’m a little wobbly, and I grip his arm, steadying myself as he slips a hand around my waist to steady me, too. Words evaporate on my tongue as I stare up at him, his face cast in sharp moonlight and shadowy darkness, as the wind rattles bare branches and whips between our houses.
“Why did you tell me not to kiss you yet?” he asks quietly.
I stand there, silent longer than I’d like, struggling for the courage to explain myself, to confess that I’m scared of how much last night meant to me and I’m scared it isn’t the same for him—that for him this is a low-stakes bet, and for me, it’s the wager of my life.
“I’ll tell you,” I promise. “Soon. Just . . . not yet.”
His jaw tenses. “You keep saying that—not yet.”
I smile softly. “And I mean it.”
He sighs, hanging his head. “Let me get my jacket.”
He darts away up the stairs to his back porch, punching in the lock code, then disappearing inside. I wander slowly toward his house, inspecting it. Oddly, it looks a little outdated and weather-beaten. The windows are the same ones I grew up seeing, at least thirty years old. The paint on the sill is peeling here and there. The house’s exterior looks tidy but worn down.
Christopher’s got more money than God. So why hasn’t he used it to keep up the place?