I sighed.
Finally. Let’s play ball.
She spoke hurriedly to her friends on the dance floor and then pointed toward the restroom. They said something back to her, but I could see the secret smiles on their faces. They knew where she was going and what she was doing.
Em meandered away from the dance floor. She glanced over her shoulder only once to see if I was following, and I was. When she realized I had interpreted her gesture, she smiled and then tried to smother it. We meandered into the darkness, past the restroom, far enough away from the crowds.
When she turned back to face me, her cheeks were pink from dancing and being here in this moment. “You were watching me.”
“Is that a crime?” I asked.
“Suppose not. Why were you watching me?”
“Because you’re the most beautiful girl in the room, and I like the way you move.”
“Jensen, this could never happen.”
“You mentioned that,” I said, sliding another step toward her.
Her back pressed up against the exposed brick wall.
“Do you know who I am?” she pleaded.
“Em. And that’s all I need to know.”
I trailed a loose lock of her dark hair between my fingers. Her eyes were open and raw, showing me all the thoughts roaming through her head. She wanted me. I wasn’t wrong in that regard. She might have rebuffed me, but she hadn’t been able to walk away.
“Fuck,” she whispered.
Her hand ran down the front of my suit, and I leaned into her.
“Yes,” I agreed. “You tell me to go away yet ask me to come here. What exactly do you want?”
Even though she wanted me, her head was warring with her body. Tension and desire mingled in the space between us. I could move in and take her lips with my own. I wanted to. But I didn’t want to take. I wanted her to offer. Like she had offered to come back here with me.
“I don’t know. This is a bad idea,” she whispered.
“Seems like a good idea to me.”
She released a breath. “I’ve had a lot to drink.”
“Me, too,” I said, taking a step closer.
“And, now, I really want to kiss you.”
I chuckled. I liked her blunt honesty a lot more when it was directed toward me positively rather than negatively.
She practically glowed at my laugh, and her eyes darted down to my lips. “But we can’t.”
“Can’t?”
She shook her head a miniscule amount and then tugged me a little closer. “Nope.”
“You want to kiss me,” I said, stepping into her personal space and glancing down at her lips. “But you can’t. Or won’t?”
“Oh, I will,” she breathed. “But I shouldn’t.”
Then, she dragged me against her, and her lips landed on mine with a tenacity that was enthralling. Our lips touched, and the world ceased.
I ran my hands around her waist and pulled her flush against my body. My tongue licked along her lips, begging for entrance. She opened up to me at once, and our tongues met as we flat-out made out in the back of the building.
And she was a fucking amazing kisser. I could do this all day. Even though my dick was telling me to move faster, my brain was saying that this was incredible. Her body against mine. Her lips on mine. Her heartbeat ratcheting up to meet mine in tempo.
It was a life-shifting kiss. One of those that came only once in a lifetime. The kind that you didn’t want to mean more. You wanted it to be a lust-induced kiss in the dark, but you couldn’t even fool yourself. This one was everything.
I didn’t know how long we stayed there, kissing. It could have been hours or days. My brain could not function beyond that moment.
But, eventually, she was pulling away, stepping back, shaking her head. And I had no idea what any of those motions meant.
Hadn’t she just had the same kiss I had?
She touched her lips. They were swollen and red. “Jensen…I…we…”
“Em,” I whispered, reaching out for her.
But she slipped through my fingers and disappeared into the night. I tried to follow after her, but one minute, she was there, and the next minute, she was gone.
My own fucking Cinderella. Great.
Chapter 7
Jensen
My head pounded the next morning as my phone blared on the nightstand. I grabbed it and pressed Accept without looking at who it was. Fuck, how much had I had to drink last night?
“Hello?” I said.
“Hello, Mr. Wright,” my receptionist Margaret said. “I hope this is a good time. I got the paperwork in that you need to look over, and you told me to contact you as soon as it arrived.”
“Yes. Thank you,” I said as I tried to crawl out of bed.
Work. Of course, it’s work.
I listened for a few minutes more as Margaret continued to discuss the paperwork.
I stumbled into the bathroom and downed a pair of Tylenol. I appreciated Margaret’s enthusiasm for the merger, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the logistics of the paperwork until I got rid of this headache.