Page 92 of Life’s Too Short

I paused for a long moment, turning away from her. I dragged a hand down my beard and then looked her in the eye. “I’ve wanted to kiss you almost every single day since the day I met you.”

And there it was. Out in the universe.

She stared at me, speechless. Shocked.

Nothing was going to be the same after this.

I wondered how much damage was done, if we’d even be friends now. We might have moved past her drunken misstep. But not this. My one-sided feelings would be too much.

I waited for the letdown that I knew was coming. The gentle “I don’t see you that way” or “It’s me, not you.”

She looked at me with wide apologetic eyes and licked her lips. “Adrian, I’ve wanted to kiss you almost every single day since the day I met you too.”

It hit me like a storm throwing a door open. Everything inside me burst into chaos. My heart launched into pounding as hope ripped through me.

A small smile tugged at the corners of her lips. “And I’m not drunk now…”

I broke into a grin and was clearing the distance between us before she took another breath.

CHAPTER 22

LEARN THE NUMBER ONE SECRET TRICK FOR PERFECT ABS!

VANESSA

He crashed into me.

And I do mean he crashed. The impact knocked the emotional breath out of me and butterflies dove right from my stomach directly to my crotch.

His hands raked into my hair, his beard scratched my face, and his lips pressed warm against my mouth…

This.

This was the kiss he didn’t give me last night. This was the kiss that felt like a thousand kisses built up and funneled into one. He’d been holding this back for weeks. And I knew because so had I.

“I can’t believe you went to Vermilion without me,” he breathed against my mouth, smiling.

“I didn’t like it,” I whispered.

He bit my bottom lip gently. “Liar.” He grinned against my lips and then he devoured me again.

Oh my God, he was a good kisser.

He trailed his mouth along my jaw, down my neck, and over the bare skin of my collar bone and I gasped, tipping my head back. I still wore my jacket, and he peeled it off my shoulders until it caught around my back in the crook of my elbows. I shed it and it dropped to the floor behind me.

His breathing was ragged. He was already hard. A boner was pressing through his pants into the front of my dress.

“Let’s go to your room,” I breathed.

He nodded and then threw me over his shoulder. I shrieked and he turned us for his bedroom door.

“Wait, wait! The baby monitor!” I said, giggling, tapping his shoulder.

He backed up and leaned me over the table so I could grab it, laughing. Then he hauled me straight to his bedroom.

I’d never been in there before. It felt like he’d just carried me off to his lair, some inner sanctum that I’d never been invited to explore.

It smelled like him and looked exactly like the rest of the apartment. Dark furniture and a gray bedspread, neat and orderly. I wanted to look around, but I had more pressing activities to see to.