Page 37 of Believe In Us

As we looked at each other, heavy as that conversation had just been, it felt like a breeze gusted through the room, blowing it all away. The air filled with heat, sparks all around us.

Chapter Twenty-One

Lincoln

Kaleidoscope

Chloe’s hand was warm in mine, silence falling between us through several echoing beats of my heart. While my heart ached at hearing what she had been through, it was as if the world tilted on its axis, the way light through a prism rays apart and lands differently on everything it touches.

The desire between us burned so hot and with such force it was almost another presence entirely. Like a living current drawing us toward each other the way a tide rolls toward shore.

I watched Chloe’s shoulders rise a little as she took a shuddery breath. Lifting a hand, she closed her laptop. Her other hand still held warm in mine. It felt almost as if we had silently agreed not to break our physical connection. She stood from her chair. The moment felt like molasses pouring out, slow and liquid.

I gave the slightest tug on her hand and then she was standing in front of me where I was still seated. “Come here, sweetheart,” I murmured. Me, who had never called anyone sweetheart in my life.

She sat on my lap, her feet dangling to one side. For a long moment, we simply looked at each other. I took in the barely-there dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks, her round blue eyes, the way they darkened as pink tinged her cheeks, and her mouth with its plump bottom lip and the top one curved like a little bow. When she smiled it was slightly lopsided, not obvious, but a touch.

She studied me in return, and I didn’t know what she saw. But the bitter side of me, the angry side about life and all that had happened, dissipated completely when I was in her presence. The bitterness couldn’t rise to the surface with her, so, originally, I’d almost wanted to avoid with her because feeling angry felt safer than feeling anything else. But ever since I’d kissed her, and well, after the other night, that annoyance was long gone.

I should’ve been panicking. What the hell was I doing? There wasn’t even a hint of panic inside. Everything just felt easy and right with Chloe. I had to clear my throat to speak, emotion beating along with my heart, its force almost like that of a rolling drum rising to a crescendo inside me.

“What are you thinking, Chloe?” I whispered, lifting a hand to smooth her hair behind her ear, gratified when I felt goosebumps rise on her skin.

“I’m thinking maybe this isn’t smart,” she said, the vulnerability in her gaze twisting my heart.

“It might not be,” I said carefully, although I hated saying it.

She let out a soft sigh, blinking, before she lifted a hand and her fingertips traced lightly along my stubbled jaw. “How is it that I never see you clean-shaven, but you don’t really have a beard either?”

Her shift in conversation drew a chuckle out of me. “I’m lazy. I just use the trimmer.” I shrugged, feeling a sheepish smile tug at my lips.

“Lincoln, you’re anything but lazy.”

“I guess I’m lazy specifically about shaving.”

When she giggled, oh my God, she might as well have grabbed my heart out of my chest and held it in both of her hands. Knowing the pain she had faced, the betrayal, and recognizing the underlying warm sweetness of her personality, the lightness to her that called to me on such an elemental level, the fact that she could still giggle like that after everything, just fuck me.

Of course, it was impossible to have Chloe with her soft curves in my lap without my body reacting the way it did. I knew she could feel my arousal, and with anyone else I would’ve been able to keep that at bay. But with her, I couldn’t keep anything at bay. My arousal, my desire, my raw need, my fascination with her, the emotions she elicited just by being her, all of it. I couldn’t talk myself out of it, and I didn’t even want to. Not anymore.

“Well, I’m glad you just use a trimmer,” she said, before she took me by surprise, leaning forward and dusting her lips across mine quickly, just once, before leaning back again.

My heart was pounding so hard I could barely hear over the rush of blood. My breath was short. My body was on fire for her.

“Even if it’s not smart, it feels…” She paused, returning to her original concern, and I was all but leaning forward to hear what she was going to say.

She cleared her throat, suddenly looking uncertain, and I offered, “Easy?”

She blinked, her eyes going wide. “That’s what I was going to say,” she whispered, her tone almost wondering.

My breath went from short to shallow and almost shaky.

“So what should we do? I know better, but I like you a whole lot, Lincoln.” Her tone was almost somber.

Mine was gruff. “I like you a whole lot, too, Chloe.”

This time, when she dipped her head, she pressed a kiss in the little divot at the base of my throat, and it was like a drop of lava, the heat radiating outward. I laced my hand in her hair as she lifted her head, and when our lips came together it felt as if lightning cracked through the sky, electrifying everything around us, inside us, between us. Together, we dove into the storm of that kiss.

By the time we came up for air, my nervous system felt as if it had been shocked awake, a wave of heat racing through me like an electrical current. All I wanted was Chloe. Now. And yet, a tiny, distant voice in the storm reminded me I needed to not rush this again. I needed to not let my need run roughshod over giving her more than a fast encounter in her office. Not that it didn’t hold appeal, but we’d already done that in the kitchen. I needed to savor her.