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Oh-uh-mm.My words fail me, stammering in my head before I can even utter a sound.
Shirtless, he stands in the doorway with jeans that hang low on his hips, revealing a glorious V of muscles in his lower abs that seems to point downward.
Downward to a place where I just shouldn’t be looking.
But who couldn’t?
Oh my.
I’ve never stood this close to a bare chest that looks like it should be featured in an underwear commercial.I only had a few boyfriends before I got married—and all of them combined together probably didn’t have half the muscle mass that this guy does.
Dumbfounded, my jaw gapes and I stand there, speechless.
“Everything okay?”he asks.
Okay?Okay?
I feel like that bespectacled kid inA Christmas Storywho, when he finally makes it to Santa’s lap, is so intimidated by the red-suited man that he can’t remember what the heck he wanted for Christmas.
“Uhhh… yes.”I finally manage to reply.
“Did you forget something?I’d have brought it over.You shouldn’t be walking around this—”
“Stop,” I suddenly cut him off.“Look.I—you—we’re living in two totally different realities.So you might not be seeing all this the same way as I do.”
“I’m not?”
He looks bewildered.And bewildered never looked so hot.
“No.I mean—after Christmas…” My voice trails, almost losing the nerve.Almost, but not quite.“That’s a few days from now.And that’s a fewlessdays that I can do whatever I want, whenever I want.A few days less that I don’t have to schedule a babysitter or make excuses to my son or try to hide the fact that I’mabsolutelyattracted to you in a way that I kind of wondered was even possible for me at this point in my life.”
A smile edges upwards on his chiseled, infinitely delectable face.“It does seem like a waste of precious time.”
“Exactly.”I feel the heat rising from me like a hot flash, twenty years too early.“And youdidmention that you can get by at work on just a couple hours of sleep.”
“Absolutely.”
“And I even shaved, so....”Without letting another moment pass, I take two aggressive, completely uncharacteristic steps through his door and latch my hands at the base of his neck pulling him downward toward me.
There’s nothing tentative about my actions, for once.It’s like I’m driven by a need that was programmed into my DNA long before I took my first breath.
And when he kisses me, every tiny fissure in my heart fills with passion.
It feels beyond words.
His lips are firm against mine as his hands slide to my back, holding me close.Only when I feel his warmth against me, do I realize how cold my skin was from the walk over here.It makes me fuse more closely to him, as though it’s all the excuse I need to steal his heat.
His body feels like granite against me—hard planes of muscles that I savor as I let my hands move downward to his back.Touching him as I soak in his kiss suddenly sets my core ablaze with desire.
Seeming to sense it, he pulls his lips from mine barely an inch.“We can take this slow,” he whispers.“There’s no rush.”
“But there is,” I counter.
He doesn’t understand.He doesn’t know how often some emergency can shift my plans.He doesn’t live inside a brain that, when the sun rises tomorrow, will inevitably remind me why I just can’t get too close to this man.He doesn’t realize that with each passing day, all that I want to experience with him tonight will feel even more out of reach, until finally, I’ll convince myself that I just shouldn’t play with fire.
And he is fire to me.There is no doubt about that.
“I want this right now, Harris.I need—Ideservethis,” I dare to finish, almost as though I’m trying to convince myself just as much as him.
