Page 18 of Kiss Kiss Bang
He took a step closer and her heart rate—her stupid heart rate—spiked.
“The point is . . .”
“The point is?” He smirked again.
What were they talking about? God, he smelled good. Why did he always have to smell that good? And those baby-blue eyes, they were so clear and mesmerizing.
“Uh . . . what were we talking about?”
He chuckled. “Do you think I’m here to discuss the way you kiss?”
“No. More like to discuss the way I was all over you in that picture.”
“I was one of the two people in that picture, if I remember correctly.”
“Well . . . yes. And?”
“And?” He reached forward, cupped the back of her neck and pulled her forward. “And, my cock was pressed against you. I know you felt it. My tongue was in your mouth. I almost got on my knees to taste you. You were desperate? No, sweetheart, I was fucking frantic. But now that I know that you haven’t had a man in five years, I’m glad we didn’t go any further.”
“You were? You are?”
“Yes, you deserve better than a quickie in an elevator. And don’t doubt, not ever, that I want you as much as you want me. Hell, I’m sure I want you more. Any man would be lucky to have you. Don’t second-guess that. Not ever.” Then his lips came to hers, but this time it wasn’t the crazed open-mouthed kiss from the elevator. This was soft and reverent but just as erotic because now she knew it wasn’t just the heat of the moment drawing them together. There was something else . . . some mutual attraction that maybe needed to be explored.
He kissed her one last time before lacing his hands around hers and pulling her to her couch as if he’d been in her house a dozen times.
“So why did you come over, then?”
“Is Sophie here?” he asked, and looked around.
“No, she’s with Winnie.”
“Okay good. I need to remember that she may be close by when we kiss,” he said it mostly to himself and then shook his head and sat down, turning toward her. “You asked me why I was here. One, we had a date and I had no intention of letting you cancel.”
So he hadn’t just given up. Not after the first time they’d met and not today. That made her smile big.
“The other reason is that we need to talk about that photo. While you’ve undoubtedly spent all day working yourself up as to how I felt about the picture or what people would think about the picture, you missed one very important thing.”
“I did? What’s that?”
“How is it that we took a service elevator and our pictures were splattered across the media? Inside the elevator?”
She hadn’t thought about that.
“I assume it was the hotel personnel who’d leaked the photos. From the camera in the elevator?”
“Livie, sweetheart, there weren’t cameras inside the elevator.”
* * *
The small relaxed smile she had on her face quickly evaporated. “Pardon?”
“We’d done a sweep of the entire hotel and so had the feds. ICS and the Secret Service had prepared for weeks for this event. The service elevator did not have cameras. I went back today and checked and there were none. I wouldn’t have kissed you knowing we’d be filmed, and I looked around the moment we got on the elevator.”
“So what are you saying?” This didn’t make any sense.
“I’m saying that obviously there was a camera, seeing as our photos were taken, but it wasn’t a standard issue security camera. There was some sort of bug inside the elevator. A small one we didn’t catch. It must’ve been placed after the feds swept the building that afternoon.”
Her leg began to bob up and down. “A bug? Why?”
