Page 70 of Love In Hiding

She moved into his kitchen, opened his fridge and snagged out a bottle of water. He only grinned at her, then took it out of her hand, so she got herself another.

She wasn’t usually the type to make herself at home in a man’s space. Especially not this quickly. But there was something about Spencer that tugged comfort out of her without asking permission.

She brushed past him on her way to the couch, dropped onto the cushions, and kicked off her sneakers with zero grace. Her toes wiggled inside her socks, stretching them with relief. She wasthisclose to peeling them off too, but even she had limits. Bare feet might cross the line intotoocomfortable.

Not that he hadn’t already seen her in far less.

The memory of those two nights in a shared room, shared air, and shared proximity, blazed through her body again, the heat curling low and immediate and making her sweat in more places than appropriate to speak.

God. Had it really only been a few days?

It felt like forever and like five minutes ago all at once.

She twisted the cap off her drink and took a long, unladylike swig just as Spencer lowered himself onto the couch beside her. Close. Too close. His presence pressed into her space, warm and solid, making her muscles tighten with the awareness that she was all too familiar had been lacking in her life.

Uncomfortable…but only in the absolute best way possible.

“Problem?” he asked, his eyes holding hers steady.

She shook her head now, finished swallowing, then let him take the bottle out of her hand and set it down.

That same hand rested on her thigh, teasing the skin, his thumb running over the goosebumps forming. A contradiction to the heat in her body.

She plastered a smirk on her face and pretended her pulse wasn’t already thudding. “Are you done thinking?”

“I’llalwaysbe someone who has to think,” he murmured, leaning in until his breath caressed her lips. “I just needed another taste of you.”

Another shiver rolled through her. She lifted her arms over her head in a lazy stretch, then let them fall around his neck, pulling him in without pretending otherwise.

He moved closer, his mouth brushing hers once. Soft and testing before his lips parted. She matched him instantly, no hesitation, no slow wind-up. Nothing.

This kiss wasn’t meant for caution. It wasn’t made to simmer.

It launched straight into full throttle. Heat, hunger, and the kind of intensity that dared them both to hold on and not break apart under the force of it.

His hands found her waist, his fingers sliding beneath the hem of her shirt like he’d been thinking about it all night. Maybe he had. Maybe she wasn’t the only one replaying every almost-touch, every lingering look, every moment that should have been nothing but somehow felt like everything.

She shifted and straddled his lap before she could talk herself out of it. His breath hitched in a quiet, controlled sound, but she heard it. Felt it. And the pleasure boltedthrough her, hot and electric, that she was the one who might make him lose that unflappable control.

His hands tightened on her hips. “London…” he warned, or maybe pleaded.

She didn’t give him time to decide which.

Her lips traveled along his jaw, her voice a low whisper against his skin. “You think too much. Let me help with that.”

His laugh was rough and dragged out of him like he couldn’t stop it. “You’re impossible.”

“And you’re still talking,” she teased, biting lightly at his neck before pulling back to meet his eyes. “Kinda ruining the mood.”

Something shifted in his expression then. The restraint snapping, or maybe his intention was sharpening. Whatever it was, it lit him up in a way that made her breath catch.

He cupped the back of her head and kissed her again. Deeper this time, firmer, like he’d finally made up his mind.

She melted into it, into him, into the heat that had been simmering between them since the moment they’d been stupidly forced to share a hotel room. This was what they’d both been dancing around, what they’d both been pretending wasn’t building.

And now that it was here, now that it was real, she wasn’t sure she wanted to slow down.

She broke the kiss just long enough to whisper against his lips, “Are you still good?”