I lose it first. The bright laugh bursts out of me, and Evan’s face lights up at it. For a second, we’re both standing in our bedroom laughing at a dead penguin suit on the floor, and it feels like one of those moments I want to bottle.
Then Evan steps back into me.
“You have no idea what you looked like tonight,” he says, voice low against the curve of my throat.
“I looked like a slutty penguin.”
“You looked happy.” His thumb brushes over my cheek. “And you looked like mine.”
I swallow, absorbing his words.
“I am,” I whisper.
His eyes flash, then his mouth is on mine again, and I stop thinking about anything except the scrape of his stubble and the heat of his hands. The way he turns me carefully, and lowers the zipper of my dress.
The fabric slips down, and his mouth presses to the top of my spine, then lower. One kiss for every inch of skin he reveals. When the dress falls around my hips, I step out of it carefully, still in the heels.
Evan makes a sound so reverent it almost makes me laugh.
“Jesus Christ.”
I glance over my shoulder, and his hands slide around my waist from behind, palms spreading over my stomach as he pulls me back against him. His mouth finds my shoulder, and I reach back and thread my fingers through his hair.
“Evan.”
“Yeah, baby?”
“I don’t wanna go to sleep, yet.”
His gaze lifts to mine in the glass of the mirror. “No fucking chance.”
One hand slides down over the front of my panties, and I suck in a breath when his fingers press there.
“You’ve been teasing me in these all night,” he says against my neck. “Walking around like you had no idea what you were doing.”
“I knew.”
His laugh is low and rough. “Yeah? That why you’re already so fucking wet?”
I nod, my head tipping back against his shoulder as his fingers start to move, barely enough to count. But my thighs shift restlessly, anyway.
He pauses, then turns me in his arms, eyes searching mine. There’s always a moment with Evan where the heat pauses long enough for him to make sure I’m still with him. Still here. Still choosing this.
“Green?” he asks.
I slide my hands up his chest. “So green.”
His mouth crashes into mine immediately and he lifts me, my legs wrapping around his waist, heels pressing into the backs of his thighs as he carries me to the bed.
He braces one hand beside my head while the other trails down my body, pushing my panties aside with a controlled impatience that makes me smile against his mouth.
“Something funny?” he asks.
“You’re very serious for a man who was a penguin ten minutes ago.”
His teeth graze my bottom lip. “Keep talking.”
“Bossy.”
