“That just earned you serious proof of the opposite. Because I promise you, I will kiss you in the only way you should be kissed.”
“What way is that?”
I gaze into her eyes, move my hips against her thigh so she can feel more of me, then say, “A real kiss should get you wet.”
She gasps, and I dip my mouth to hers and kiss the sound away.
She led our first kiss. She caught me off guard on the street with a fantastic ambush, but this kiss is mine.
I control it. I lead it. And I want to tease her. To make her squirm again, only this time with desire. This time she’ll be writhing to get closer to me, not to escape. I slide my tongue across her lips, and she opens them, inviting me to kiss her deeper. I don’t heed her wishes. Instead, I move to her jawline, kissing her there, along her soft skin, and up to her ear. Her skin tastes amazing, like sunshine and cherries, and maybe that’s the lotion she put on a few minutes ago, or maybe it’s just her natural scent. Either way, it drives me crazy. My bones hum with desire as I travel to the shell of her ear. I flick my tongue against her earlobe, and she moans.
“Ohhhh.”
It’s not the sound she made on the street. It’s louder. It’s freer. It’s unleashed.
And I fucking love it.
She pushes her hips up against me, trying to get closer.
I steal a glance at her closed eyes, the flush in her cheeks, the redness in her lips. She’s the piece of chocolate cake in front of me that I must consume. All of it. Now. Every bite.
I rope my hands in her hair, the blonde strands spilling over my fingers in a golden tumble. With all this fantastic hair in my hands, I’m compelled to tug it. When I do, she draws a sharp breath that turns into a soft moan. My fingers curl around her skull, and I grip her head tightly, holding her in place.
Returning to her mouth, I stop teasing.
Instead, I turn it up.
Crank the volume.
Kiss her hard.
Devour her.
Our tongues tangle, our teeth click, and I swear she’s melting under me, beneath me, into me. My veins thrum with lust, my cock is steel in my pants, and my brain is zeroed in on one thing—a kiss that makes her wet.
It takes all my resistance not to run my hand up her thigh, under her skirt, and across the panel of those white see-through bikini panties. But I don’t have to touch her to verify she’s turned on beyond any and all reason. I know in the little murmurs she makes, in the way her arms slink around my neck, in how her fingers curl into the ends of my hair. Most of all, the confirmation comes in the way she tries to rock into me. Her hips shift, move, seeking me out, and briefly my restraint snaps.
I move quickly, wedging myself between her thighs, thrusting once against her. A sexy cry escapes her lips. Her hands fly to my ass. The restraint breaks once more as she parts her legs for me, making room, inviting me to dry hump her on the couch.
Oh hell, do I want to RSVP to this offer. If I do, in a few more seconds her legs will be wrapped around my hips, and I’ll want to be fucking her. Friends or strangers, how could I not want to fuck her? She’s hot, she’s ready, and she’s raring to go.
I want to tug off those panties, sink into her heat.
But she’s my best friend, and I can’t do that.
Somehow, my common sense grabs the steering wheel, wresting control from my dick.
I break the kiss and jump away from her, standing in seconds. I need air. I need space. If I stay a second longer I’ll push the both of us too far, and I don’t want her to know the battle that just waged in my head. I give my best casual shrug, then say, “I don’t even have to ask if that got you wet.”
She blinks.
She scoffs.
She sits up and straightens her spine, squaring her shoulders. “I bet you’d like to know, cocky bastard,” she says, as she smooths out her shirt, adjusting it, then her skirt.
The moment is awkward. We were on the precipice of dry humping, but now we’re tossing zingers, and I’m still aroused to painful levels. This can’t happen again. We’ve conducted the test; she won’t feel uncomfortable pretending to be with me, and that’s all there is to it. Onward and upward, and the show must go on.
A family show. Not fucking porn.
She gets up and slips around the corner into her bedroom, and I use the break to adjust myself, take a deep breath, and imagine a locker room full of hairy men.
Fuck, I want to gag.
But it works. My erection fades away.
She returns, and when she bends over to grab her purse, I can’t help but notice she’s wearing the black lace thong now.
I look away so the grin on my face doesn’t reveal my complete cocky bastard-dom.
CHAPTER NINE
“So how about those Mets?”
As the elevator doors spread open on her floor, I guide the conversation away from that practice session on her couch. The final practice session. No more kissing rehearsals. Too dangerous.
“They’re having a good season,” she says as she yanks her purse strap higher on her shoulder, not entirely taking the bait.
“Good pitching will do that for you,” I say, pressing the button for the lobby and wondering when was the last time that we talked about baseball to cover up an uncomfortable moment. She’s a hard-core fan, due in no small part to the fact that she regularly crushes it in her fantasy baseball league. I’ve often told her if our bars fizzle, she should be a general manager, but she just laughs and tells me baseball is her love so she wants to keep it pure.