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She opened her mouth to respond but closed it again as his thumb ghosted over her bottom lip, just long enough to send her willpower unraveling.
She swallowed.
“One kiss,” she said, already melting.
“So generous,” he murmured as he brought his mouth to hers.
It was a new kind of kiss. She’d had frenzy. She’d had passion. But this kiss was lazy, it was a thank-you, it was a connection forged on shared breath, sealed by the tug of his teeth against her bottom lip. Equal to the others, it still left her breathless: reeling and dizzy. He briefly held his forehead against hers as they came apart. Then he grinned, swooping in for a second kiss, a quick peck, before retreating.
“That,” Aster began, “is the perfect way to turn around an awful morning.”
“I said one kiss,” Molly reprimanded with absolutely no resolve.
“You know, I take it as the highest compliment that you feel like you have to ration time with me so you can focus.” He teased the last word, looking far too smug for his own good. “I like being a distraction.” He sipped his coffee, a poor affectation of innocence on his face.
Molly narrowed her eyes, trying desperately to ignore the heat spreading across her cheeks. “Do you enjoy making me blush?”
“So, so much.” His smirk shifted to a full smile as he said with an astounding nonchalance, “Maybe I’ll add to next year’s resume how I’m madly in love with the woman who once lodged a cheating complaint against me. If she can change her mind about me, why not the school?”
Molly’s breath caught. On an intellectual level, she knew he loved her. Why else would the man have endured the last three months of his life? But he hadn’t ever said so out loud. Not in such plain terms. And not to her. She assumed he avoided saying it so as not to overwhelm her, like most of the other things he played close to the chest.
She certainly hadn’t expected to hear it said so casually while barely caffeinated first thing in the morning.
He must have noticed her sifting through the shrapnel of that particular land mine, because his smile flattened. But he didn’t leave her to wade through the destruction alone.
Her heart leaped when he helped her pick through the pieces.
“Too much?” he asked.
“Surprising,” Molly said, biting her lip. “That’s all.”
“I would have hoped it isn’t surprising at all,” he said. He caught and held her gaze. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, and I don’t want you to feel like we’re not on the same page. When you’re ready to hear it more directly, just let me know.”
Molly nodded. That moment of eye contact, if stretched end to end, would have been infinitesimal, a blip in a bigger picture. But in the landscape of all the missing time in Molly’s head, it became one of the single longest moments of her life.
“I should head to work,” Aster said, ending the small eternity they’d stepped into. “I’ll be late tonight too.”
“You will?”
His demeanor shifted, tightened. “I have a legal meeting. Not another assault, don’t worry. It’s about some financial stuff. Great Bishop burdens I have to bear. It’s a long story, and it’s one I plan to get to soon. But today of all days is . . . not the right time for it.”
“Okay,” Molly said simply.
“Okay?”
“I trust you’ll tell me.”
He blinked at her, a certain level of awe settling across his face. Molly had to sip her coffee to conceal the slight wobble in her composure.
“Oh,” he finally said. “Right.”
She shrugged. “I’ve always imagined you uber-wealthy heirs spend your time embezzling from trusts or something anyway. So have fun.”
He barked a short, almost startled laugh. He had the look of a man who didn’t quite believe the sight before him. Shaking his head, a slight “huh” puffed from his mouth before he walked to the door.
He looked at her one last time, as if considering saying something else, but ultimately decided against it.
Not five minutes later, the front door opened again. She expected to see Aster. He’d left in such an odd state, she wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d forgotten something.
