Page 65 of Mixed Signals
“What is it we said the other night?” I brush my lips over the curve of his jaw. His big body shudders against me and he pins my hips with his against the sink in a sudden, rough jerk. A moan catches in the back of my throat. “Maybe we should revisit the details of our arrangement.”
FIFTEEN
CALEB
I can’t catchmy breath.
I don’t understand how I went from unloading the groceries to pinning Layla against her kitchen sink.Patience,I’ve been telling myself every day since the beach.Restraint. She might not want you to kiss her again.
Though I’ve certainly wanted to. That feels like an understatement. Everything in my body has been begging me to, every single time I’ve seen her. When I walked into the bakehouse the other day, she had a bright orange scarf twisted through her hair, an old, faded band t-shirt tied in a knot at her waist. She smiled as soon as she saw me and I wanted to hoist her up against the refrigerator in the back. I wanted to curl that scarf around my fist andpull.
I know I should be holding myself in check, reminding myself of the arrangement like Alex keeps telling me to, but fuck. It’s hard to keep my distance when it feels so good to be close to her. When she looks at me and it feels like she could want this even half as much as I do. I can’t pretend with Layla, and I don’t want to.
I like this better, anyway. Layla doesn’t deserve someone tucking away parts of themselves while they’re with her. If I want to, I can kiss her at her kitchen sink and enjoy every damn second of it.
I smooth my hand down her back.
“Can I ask you a question?” Layla’s voice is low, her hands toying with the top button of my shirt like it’s personally offended her. She twists it one way, and then the other. Her pink fingernail scratches at the bare skin in the gap between and I almost fall to my knees.
I swallow hard. “You can ask me anything.”
“What would we be doing if we didn’t have an arrangement?” She slips one button free and moves to the next. “If I were someone else, tell me what you would have done the last time you wanted to kiss me.”
“The last time?”
She hums and nods her head. “Yes.”
“Well.” I comb my fingers through her hair and hesitate, then gather it all up in my fist. She tugs against my grip and a small moan catches in the back of her throat.Christ.“I’d have waited on your front porch for you to get home from work with a bunch of groceries. So I could make you dinner at home. Because I wouldn’t have been able to stand the idea of being somewhere I couldn’t touch you. Because I would have wanted to be alone with you.”
Layla’s head lolls to the side and I press a lingering kiss against her pulse point, at the space below her ear. My restraint crumbles with my lips against her soft skin. She smells like caramel and sea salt. Like an entire tray of baked goods, fresh from the oven.
“I would have waited for you to shut the front door and then I would have put the groceries down by the steps. Helped you with your bag and backed you against that little window, right by your door.”
Layla makes another small, wonderful sound, her hands clenching in my shirt. I want to lick that sound from the corners of her mouth, feel it with my lips in the space between her breasts. I want a thousand things in a thousand different combinations.
“I’d have picked you up and wrapped your legs around my waist. Like the other night, do you remember?”
She nods.
“I remember, too. We fit so well together like that,” I mumble. I haven’t been able to think of anything else since. I go to bed at night and think about how perfect Layla felt in my arms. How every inch of her lined up perfectly with every inch of me. “I would have held you there against me and kissed you hello.” I brush my lips against hers teasingly. “I would have gotten carried away, I think. Dragged my mouth down your neck to the edge of this pretty shirt. I probably would have slipped my hands under your skirt to see if you wanted me as much as I wanted you.”
Air rushes out of her. “Caleb.”
I cling to the threads of my restraint and try to hold myself together. I lean back until our hips are no longer tucked tight, needing the space. She looks at me with heavy-lidded eyes, her gaze lazy as she catalogs me. Shoulders, chest, stomach—I feel her gaze like a fingertip against my bare skin, all the way down. She catches her tongue between her teeth when her eyes hit my belt. Lower, where I’ve thoroughly worked myself up.
I prop one hand against the countertop at her waist and ignore the need rushing through every inch of my body. “That’s what I would have done.”
She blinks at me. “All of that sounds very agreeable, for the record.”
“Good to know.” The kitchen suddenly feels like it is eight thousand degrees.
I turn back to the cutting board and the two freshly washed tomatoes sitting at the edge. I need something to do with my hands or I’m going to flip up Layla’s little orange skirt and see what sounds she makes when my mouth is somewhere else.
I have to swallow against the sound caught in my throat.
“In the spirit of our agreement,” Layla hesitates. “I have a confession to make.”
“I’m all ears.” I’m allthumbs, too, apparently, as the tomato rolls right out of my grip. I fumble with the kitchen knife and catch it before it can tumble its way to the sink.
