Page 51 of Reckless
“You do.”
I sat back.“What exactly are you suggesting?”
“That we decide what public touch looks like and how we react before someone’s watching.”
I froze.Kissing him was a distant long forgotten dream I’d stuffed so far down as impossible I’d never thought it.
“No,” I said and shook my head.
One side of his mouth moved.“You’re thinking about it.”
“That’s because I have a functioning imagination and bad luck.”
I pointed the pen at him.“Don’t.”
“Stand up.We are practicing not stealing.”
“Okay, fine.Let’s get this over with quickly.”
I should have said no again.But I stood.
He stood too.The table between us felt smaller than it had any right to.
“Relax,” he said and brushed my hair behind my ear.
“Not sure that’s possible.”
His gaze dropped briefly to my hand.“Give me the pen.”
I handed it to him because holding it felt ridiculous.
He set it on the table and came right back to me.
“Public baseline,” he said.“If we’re entering a room together, if someone greets us, if my mother is watching too closely, this.”
And he stepped in and placed his hand on my back.
My body instantly ached for more.Heat followed and damn, he smelled clean, expensive and faintly like something woodsy I wanted to be offended by and wasn’t.His hand lifted.
“That’s all?”
The question itself hit me harder than the movement.
My skin pulled tight everywhere as he brushed against my fully clothed skin.
“Maybe just the lower back,” I said, because apparently that answer was waiting in me, alive and ready to betray me.“But not my waist.”
His eyes held mine for one rough second before his hand settled, warm, at the small of my back.
I forgot how to breathe and my body reacted like a fool.Heat skated down my spine.I went hyperaware of every inch of myself at once.
“Too much?”he asked.
I sighed but tried to meet his gaze.
“Not if you’re trying to ruin my life,” I said.
One corner of his mouth curved.“Good.Your reaction reads well.”
