Page 80 of Touch of Class

Gillian’s eyes lowered to her lips, and Daphne warmed all over. “Like that. All you have to do is look at my lips, and I get flushed. It drives me nuts, and it bothers me even more that it doesn’t seem to affect you at all.”

“No, it does.”

“What?”

“It affects me,” Gillian said softly. “Your mouth affected me before I kissed it. Maybe that’s the point. It’s not that you don’t affect me. I’m just used to it. Your lips caught my attention the first day you swept me off my feet. You’ve been under my skin since the day we met. You’ve flustered me every time we’ve ever spoken. The kiss didn’t change that, because I was already there. Hell, I kissed you because you’d had me tied in knots for years.”

Daphne hadn’t thought of that, and the new information had a hard time penetrating her brain. “You’re saying the kiss didn’t change anything because you’ve been living where I am now?”

“I wouldn’t say the kiss didn’t change anything for me,” Gillian corrected. “It made me feel a little safer being open with you. It helped me feel like I understood parts of myself, and you, better. It allowed me to open up the other night, which in turn allowed me to talk to Brooke in ways I hadn’t for a long time.”

Daphne’s resolve began to melt. Then she caught herself. Gillian was saying a lot of new and endearing things, but she’d done so before only to leave Daphne more confused than ever. “I want to stay frustrated with you. It’s clear-cut, easy, familiar.”

“It is all of those things,” Gillian agreed, but then she undercut them both by letting her emerald gaze land on Daphne’s lips once more.

“I’m serious, Gillian. If you keep looking at me that way, I’ll lose all my will to fight with you.”

“Would that be such a bad thing?”

“Probably.” She wavered. “I’m not sure I could keep myself from kissing you, and this time there wouldn’t be anything academic about it.”

“Okay,” Gillian said slowly, “and that’d be complicating, obviously.”

“God, you have a gift for understatement. It would be bad, a disaster even. I mean probably not the kiss itself. I imagine the kiss would be very, very good.”

“That sounds like an idea we could test.”

Daphne held up a hand. “I don’t consent to any more experiments.”

Gillian smiled. “Not all my interests are intellectual.”

Daphne stared at her.

Gillian stared back.

Neither one shrank or stepped back as the tension and heat spread between them. When had this turned into a game of erotic chicken? Surely one of them had to blink first. There were two fully grown, emotionally aware women in the room with every reason to put an end to whatever train wreck they were speeding toward.

She could do it. Daphne could be the one to have it together for once. She could be the one to set the boundary or define the limit. Doing so would probably feel satisfying and mature and competent, all of which would pale in comparison to the feeling of Gillian’s lips on hers, but still, Daphne opened her mouth, fully intending to say something to right the ship, but she never got the chance through the impact of their mouths colliding.

She was pretty sure Gillian had started the kiss, but the argument seemed small and petty at this point, because Daphne was all in.

They were all over each other. Hands in hair, on waists, all hot breath and tongues and grasping for more. Daphne backed Gillian up against the wall and slipped a hand inside the hem of her perfectly pressed shirt, brushing against warm, soft skin.

They kissed with abandon, no longer testing or searching, so much as consuming. Oh, the things she wanted to do to this woman. Her brain flashed with a million images of her unraveled in Gillian’s arms, but her mind couldn’t fixate on any single one of them with her body in overdrive.

Her own pulse pounded so loudly in her ears she barely heard the front door open, but she definitely noticed it slam shut, followed by accompanying laughter in the hall.

The two of them wrenched apart, chests heaving, eyes wide, and faces flushed as Robin called, “Gilly Bean, boss time’s over. We’ve come to abduct you.”

“Or, you know,” Sawyer added, “take you out with your full consent.”

Gillian sagged against the wall, and Daphne stared at the floor, the ceiling, anything she could not to look at her there all freshly kissed and struggling to find her bearings without cracking again. And yet, as fun as that may be, she wasn’t ready to explain anything about what was happening here to their friends and colleagues. She couldn’t even explain it to herself.

Maybe this interruption was their saving grace, a forced chance to slow down, to think things through, to find an exit ramp. With that thought and a deep, steadying breath, she sank onto the futon with all the faux casualness she could summon and called, “We’re in my office.”

Footsteps fell closer as Gillian straightened her shirt and ran a hand through her hair, managing to look perfect again. Daphne rolled her eyes, but this time the emotion felt more like admiration than annoyance.

“There you are.” Robin strode through the door followed by her person. “What’s up, Buttercups?”