She looks at mine.
I can smell her—spice and clay and woman.
“Clay,” she says again, softer. “You gonna kiss me or just mansplain the rules?”
I exhale, long. “If I kiss you,” I warn, “I won’t stop.”
Her eyes go molten. “And if I want you to not stop?”
My control snaps tight.
I don’t kiss her.
I do something worse.
I bend low, mouth to her ear, breath hot over her skin. I feel her shiver.
“You keep looking at me like that, firecracker,” I murmur, “and you’re gonna find out exactly how not fireproof you are.”
She whimpers.
I pull back before I do what I want to do—hoist her on that counter, tug those shorts down, finally taste that smart mouth.
I step away. Hard. Like I’m tearing myself off.
She stares at me, eyes wide, lips swollen from nothing.
“You’re evil,” she breathes.
“You started it,” I say, backing toward the door.
“Coward.”
“Smart.”
“Clay.”
“Ember.”
We hold each other’s gaze like a live wire.
Then I nod at the mug. “Keep making stuff like that,” I tell her. “You’re good.”
I walk out before I can wreck everything.
That night I lie in bed, arm over my eyes, replaying it.
The way she looked at me.
The way she swallowed when I told her not to.
The way her body arched, barely, when I spoke in her ear.
I imagine it again.
Again.
Again.
