Taking Him Down

Her blush burned hotter than ever. “Are you asking me on a date?”

“Say yes and find out.”

She glanced out the window, champagne courage abandoning her. Dammit, why did she have to clam up at moments like this? But for once, her mouth sided with her body. “Okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. Okay.”

Rich shook his fist in triumph. “Nice. Frigging finally.”

She laughed. “I hesitate to fuel your already turbocharged ego. But yes, fine. I’ll go out for a drink with you some evening after work.”

For a long moment they didn’t speak. Rich’s darting eyes seemed to watch her with some sly persuasion of fondness, as though she amused and baffled him equally. Must be a rarity for him—a woman who didn’t visibly melt into a puddle in his presence. Thank goodness he didn’t know how wobbly he made her knees, simply passing by her office.

Her gaze snagged on his mouth, on the sexiest set of lips she’d ever seen. Always ready with a smirk or a curse-riddled diatribe. She wondered what else they might offer.

She was staring. They were both staring, though the pointedness of it didn’t seem to unnerve Rich a jot. Then again, he routinely peered into the eyes of men hell-bent on knocking him unconscious.

“What?” she asked, unable to bear the suspense.

“I dunno. were we about to kiss?”

Her heart pounded. “Oh. I didn’t think we were. I was just staring because you were staring.”

“I was waiting for some little female signal. But your poker face is stone-cold.”

Kiss me, she wanted to say. Tackle me. Rich was too much for her to get hung up on, but for a fling? For some fun in the back of a cab? Not her type, but so exciting. So unlike any man she’d ever experienced. Not that there’d been many.

Without her willing them to, Lindsey’s lips parted. And it was all the invitation he needed.

His hand was at her neck, strong and warm, and as he ran his thumb along her jaw, she felt sparks prickling. He lowered his face to hers, noses touching first, then mouths.

It was as though she’d never done this before. He felt so new, so different after all those years with the same man. Heat pooled in her cheeks, her chest, between her legs.

They twisted in their spots, hands seeking faces, seat belts binding laps. Rich tilted his head, parted lips asking to take this kiss deeper.

His mouth grew hungrier, tongue seeking hers. She found his collar clutched in her hand, no clue how it had happened. His kisses made Lindsey’s head swim, made her most scandalous exploits seem a chaste hand-holding. What on earth would sex with this man be like?

Ooh, terrible thought. Terrible, brilliant thought.

He broke them apart to murmur, “I’ve been wondering for weeks what you taste like.” He freed the buckle of his seat belt and slid beside her.

Lust folded in on itself, desire making her entire body tight and hot and angry. His hand was warm and broad, thumb on her cheek, fingers fanned possessively over her jaw.

She stroked his chest through his shirt, touched his face, fascinated by his soft skin, rough stubble, the texture of his bandage and the edge of the cut it hid. Maleness personified, an entirely new species.

His mouth was perfect—pushy, masterful, sinful. His hands felt so good on her neck and shoulder…how amazing would they feel elsewhere?

Just as her mind began to wander, she felt a funny sensation at her hip, a tingling that wasn’t in any way erotic. She wrested her lips from his.

“Is that your phone?”

“Just a text. Like I care.”

His mouth was on hers again, hungry and impolite. How long since she’d been kissed this way? Ages and ages and ages. Maybe never. She grasped his shirt, crisp cotton in her fist, hard muscle under her knuckles. He had to hunch to keep their mouths on par, seeming so big and looming and wrong and awesome she wanted to claw him.

Another intrusion from his phone—a nagging ping.

“Maybe it’s a manager,” she teased, lips still pressed to his. “They want you so badly, they’re texting at 3:00 a.m.”

“Probably some drunk friend. They’ll call if it’s important.” He took her mouth.

No one’s kissing had ever done this to her before, made her so hot she could feel herself getting wet. Just from kissing.

But again, a ping had her pulling away.

Rich sighed. “Hang on. This is going to drive me up a frigging wall.” He checked the screen, face lit white. “It’s Mercer.” He hit a button, eyes darting, brows pulling together in a frown. After a few seconds he turned his phone off.

“Everything okay?”

Rich blinked, gaze focused past her, out the window. “Yeah, yeah. Everything’s fine.”

Whatever the urgent bro-message had been, it killed their make-out session dead. Rich shifted back to his side and buckled his seat belt with a cold snap.

Her heart sank.

At least this fixed her worries about seeming rude by not inviting him up. Though it would’ve been nice for the kiss to end under duress, at her curb, all fraught with both of them wishing it could continue in somebody’s bed. She’d have ended it, been the one to seemingly muster self-control, since there was no way she’d have told him it was because her ex was upstairs. She could have—should have—left this unflappable man all flustered and won this round of their little sexual-tension battle.

“This is me,” she said as they reached her building. She forced a smile, hoping she looked unaffected to have lost his attention to a text, and so suddenly. The greatest make-out session of her life, clearly just a whim in Rich’s estimations.

“Thanks again for coming out.” He laid a perfectly, horribly chaste kiss on her cheek.

“Oh, sure.” She folded his jacket on the seat between them.

“Take care.”

“You, too.”

And with a thank-you to the driver, she was on the sidewalk. Rich waved her toward the building and she heard the cab pull away once she made it safely into the foyer.

Her legs were lead as she headed up the steps, and she was halfway to her apartment when she realized it.

The most obvious answer was usually the correct one, and the most obvious answer was that it hadn’t been Mercer who’d texted, but some girlfriend Rich had neglected to mention. Or, equally gutting, a better offer for a night’s recreation.

And just like that, her sails went limp. Just like that, she realized she’d been a fool to think she might be anything more to him than a convenient female body.

She entered her apartment, and as she closed the door, she wasn’t just shutting it on the hallway or the October chill. She shut it on her gullible heart and her weak body, for having made her lose track of her head, if only for a night.

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