AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Is that so?” I asked, sounding mildly surprised, like kissing her hadn’t occurred to me.
When the truth was I had been wrestling the urge to set my mouth on hers from the moment I had walked into her kitchen.
“You said kissing is what we do now.” She said it like an accusation.
We were about five minutes away from her house. It was now or…well, not never, but certainly later. I didn’t want later. I wanted now. I pulled over to the strip of brown grass between the dirt road and the ditch.
“What are we doing?” she asked.
“Well, Red, it occurred to me that you have a point. Kissing is what we do now, and you haven’t kissed me today. I’m giving you a chance to rectify that.”
I unbuckled myself and her, then reached under the seat for the lever, pushing it back all the way to make more space between me and the steering wheel. It didn’t add much. I was a tall man, and my legs stretched far. But it was enough to haul Bethany over the console and settle her on my lap, which was exactly what I did.
“Luke! You can’t just manhandle me like that.”
I might have taken her protestations a little more seriously if her voice hadn’t sounded all fluttery.
I grinned, slow and lazy. “Sure I can, Red. I’m big. You’re little. It’s no trouble at all.”
“I’m not little. I’m five-six. The perfect height for a ballerina, I’ll have you know.”
“And I’m six-three. That gives me nine inches on you. The perfect manhandling amount, in my opinion.”
She giggled. Fucking adorable.
Then she shifted on my lap. Suddenly she stopped being adorable and started being something else altogether.
“You still aren’t kissing me,” she pointed out.
It took everything I had not to rectify that. Immediately. But I wasn’t going to do that. Not this time.
“See, here’s the thing, Red. Kissing goes both ways. I haven’t kissed you, but you haven’t kissed me either. And to my way of thinking, it’s your turn to make a move. It’s only fair.”
Her eyes widened. She rolled her plump bottom lip under her teeth and shifted nervously on my lap. I bit back a groan. She was going to kill me. It was so hard to keep my hands relaxed on her waist. To not flex them just enough to encourage her to lean forward. To not slide one up her back to cup her neck, holding her still so I could take what she offered.
“You…you want me to kiss you?” she asked. Her eyes searched my face.
“No, Red. I manhandled you into my lap and told you to kiss me because it’s Opposite Day.” My restraint was wearing paper thin.
“Hmm.”
My coat was unzipped. She slid her hands underneath the down layer to my chest, where I knew my heart was pounding hard against my ribs. Could she feel it? Did she know the power she had over me right then?
Her gaze dipped to where her palms lay flat on my chest, her copper eyelashes fanning against her freckled cheek. When she looked up at me from beneath her lashes, there was a glint in her eyes.
Oh, she knew. She fuckingknew.
“Maybe I will.”
She leaned forward until her mouth was only a breath away from mine. She would have felt air from my lips if I had been breathing. Which I wasn’t. Bethany in my lap and the lack of oxygen made for a dangerous combination. I was lightheaded from it. Just when I thought she would finally kiss me, she veered to my ear.
“If you ask very, very nicely,” she whispered.
Her words went straight to my dick. This time, I couldn’t check my groan.
“You want me to beg?” I asked roughly.
I could feel her lips curve in a smile against the hinge of my jaw. “I do. I really, really do.”
