Page 85 of Off the Mark
She hummed again. “At my service, you mean.”
“I trust you’ll make me work for it.” Our lips met again. “Because you were right, gorgeous. I love doing the work.”
Her next kiss burned, a wildfire that scorched, and I was opening wide for her. Letting her take all that she needed. Charlie rocked herself against my cock, moaning into my mouth. My remaining self-control narrowed to the thinnest thread. A wisp of a strand, but I clung to it in the end.
Because even though she was out here making my dreams come true, having sex at my neighborhood nonprofit was a professional deal-breaker for me. I had less than a week to pull off a series of financial miracles. Getting caught defiling Charlie in my boss’s old office was the exactoppositeof the thoughtful, visionary leader the rec center needed right now.
I clawed my way back to semi-coherence and broke us apart. We were panting in unison. Charlie nodded like she was in pain.
“Okay. We’re stopping,” she breathed.
“Definitely not kissing anymore.”
“Who wants to kiss? Not us.”
“Never been a fan myself,” I said mildly.
Though I immediately grabbed her face for one final, smacking kiss on her cheek—a kiss that had her laughing again. But she finally disengaged, moving from my lap and straightening her wrinkled clothing. Her eyes were still hazy, her movements hesitant. I stood too, limbs buzzing, head swimming, that primal part of me wanting to roar at how far away she felt now.
I raked a hand through my hair, and Charlie stepped closer, shaking her head.
“Here, let me fix it.” She carefully finger-combed the strands, and with her focus hovering near my forehead, I gave in to the urge to stare at her up close—the curl of hair around her ear, what looked like a scar under her chin, the splash of freckles across the bridge of her nose.
Yearning drove through me—deeper than simple lust, deeper than attraction, like my body was trying to signal to my brain the intensity of my feelings for this woman. Even when confused, even when trying my damnedest to dismiss them, they hadn’t stopped.
Fuckinganvil on the headwas right.
“There,” she said, moving back. “You look a little less like a tattooed bad girl just ravaged you on your desk.”
“And yet that’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
She snorted. “Never been a fan of kissing, my ass.”
But the moment she began gathering her things, a jittery nervousness surged between us. Was this what it felt like after telling a truth you’d kept close to the chest for years?
Was this what it felt to be…vulnerableagain?
Charlie’s throat worked as she began walking backward to the door. I noticed that her fingers trembled when she brushed her bangs to the side. “Anyway, uh…now that we’re not kissing, thanks for listening to all that stuff I said. Good talk?”
“Uh-huh. And same. Thanks for…thanks for listening. This was one of my favorite kinds of talking,” I managed.
“Cool, cool. Me too.” She was trying to get the door to unlock. Unsuccessfully. “I should probably go and do dirt bike things. And you should probably do your job. In this office. At that desk. And apparently I’ve lost the ability to, um, open doors.”
I was next to her a second later, tearing my gaze away from her swollen lips so I could prove that Ididknow how to unlock doors. I jiggled the handle. Pushed the lock to the side and nothing.
Okay, Ihadknown how to unlock a door before I’d been ravaged on a desk.
“It’s always been finicky,” I said, laughing nervously.
“Well, it’s not every day that you finally kiss your fake girlfriend,” Charlie said, just as nervously.
I forced another laugh. This was how I knew if we’d ever gone on a date for real, back in those days, I would have died on the spot.
One kiss—one very,very hotkiss—and suddenly door handles felt like advanced calculus.
It wrenched open, finally, and thank god there was no one in the hallway. I followed her the short walk through the front door, both of us squinting in the glare of the summer sunshine. I was fairly certain the air smelled sweeter, was evenmoresure that the sky was blue in a way I’d never seen before.
When I flicked my gaze back to Charlie, her face was dreamily tipped up to the sun. With a jolt, I realized I hadn’t said a word about my grandmother’s invitation. This morning’s conversation at Annie’s Park felt like it happened a hundred years ago.
