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“Not even then. I watched you eat two entire shrimp cocktails as an hors d’oeuvre. Like my word choice?”
I stiffen, too shocked to comment on his correct use of hors d’oeuvres. I did do that. “You were counting?”
He dips his chin, stubble brushing my cheek. “Like I said, I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”
He’s so close that I can feel his hot breath prickling the hair on my neck, burning, spreading through me. He has to be lying, but no one’s listening, so why the theatrics? But this is what Lawton does, he messes with people, tries to throw them off.
The safe beeps.
Our bodies tighten.
“It worked,” I whisper.
“Open it.”
I pull open the door right as I hear heels click down the hallway. I know that pitter-patter.
“Bobbi’s coming,” I say, dragging a hand down my face.
“No shit.”
I turn around to scowl up at him. “Okay, my plan D was to say I got lost, but that won’t work, since this room is right across from the bathroom. She wouldn’t believe that. I could—”
“Kiss me,” he rumbles.
“What?”
“Kiss me.”
“Why?”
“ ’Cause we need a cover,” he says. “We can say we got caught up and ‘distracted.’ ”
“You think they’re actually going to believe we were so horny for each other that we had to make out in an office?”
He shrugs. “Why not?”
“We’re pretending to be married. It would be more believable if we said we found her vacuum and wanted to test her cordless Dyson.”
He towers over me, pins me to the door. “Just kiss me.”
There’s an edge to his voice that has my heart pumping harder. He waits. The footsteps grow louder. I’ve already kissed him once, I can do it again.
“Fine,” I say. “You better make this believable.”
He smirks. “Try not to moan my name too loud.”
And then he lifts me up, drops me on the desk, and claims my lips with his own.
21Sabrina
Lawton pushes me back, swiping who knows what off the desk. Things clatter to the floor. A stapler? Paper clips? My brain? I don’t bother looking.
He drops me on top of the mahogany wood, and I interlace my heels behind the small of his back while gripping his hard shoulders. I try to keep my movements mechanic, two-actors-in-a-rom-com, because I don’t want this kiss to be good. This is a man who has stolen my targets, who wraps his words in barbed wire, so he’s not allowed to make me feel something good.
His tongue sweeps through my mouth, tasting of salt and spice and mint.
And oh—so good.
