Page 56
“All right.”
“Even if I like it.”
His attention stays on me.
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
I wait. Kell tilts his head slightly. “Same for you.”
Three words. That’s all.
My jaw unclenches before I realize I’d tightened it. I take a deeper breath, and it reaches somewhere the last several haven’t.
Not because he solved everything. He didn’t. He assumed the rule belonged to both of us. I put my bowl in the sink, then his. Kell watches me rinse the spoons while I give sensible Laura one last opportunity to take over.
She’s had a long and generally successful career. She owns matching storage containers. She schedules dental cleanings before the reminder card arrives. She doesn’t have sex with men who came into existence less than a week ago.
I’m still rinsing one spoon long after the marshmallow is gone. The water turns cool over my fingers before I finally shut it off.
I dry my hands and turn around. Kell is standing near his chair, waiting. He doesn’t move toward me, and somehow that makes my decision easier.
I cross the kitchen. He keeps his hands at his sides as I come closer, waiting for me to decide what happens next.
“I’m not saying this is uncomplicated.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not saying I’ve solved any of what I just said.”
“Okay.”
“I’m saying I want you.”
“That,” he says, “I understand.”
I put my hand against his chest. The resonance is already there, faint and quick beneath my palm. It travels into my hand before I even reach his mouth, a living tremor that makes the contact between us feel charged before the kiss begins.
Then I kiss him. Kell’s hands come to my waist, then stop there. The restraint lasts about three seconds because I move closer, and his arms tighten around me.
This kiss is nothing like the first one.
He has learned. God help me, he’s learned. My mouth opens for him without thought. Heat pulls low in my belly when he draws me closer, and the kiss that overwhelmed him earlier now feels like something he’s already begun to understand from the inside.
His hand moves along my back, and I fit myself more firmly against him. The resonance deepens.
It comes through his chest into mine, a low hum I can feel beneath my skin. My nipples tighten beneath my bra, suddenly oversensitive where my breasts press against him, and the vibration seems to gather there until even the fabric between us feels too rough.
Kell stills. Then he pulls back just far enough to speak.
“Different.”
I’m breathing harder already. “What?”
“Here.”
His fingertips skim the side of my breast through my blouse, barely touching. My body answers anyway.
