Nothing felt better than this.
His arms tightened around her, his arousal stiff and aching as Paige kissed him with a passion and hunger he’d never imagined. Luke was hers in that instant, in the moment when she licked the roof of his mouth and a shudder went through him. He knew it was unmistakable, that she would have felt the effect her mouth had on his entire body. But he didn’t want to hide it. He wanted Paige to know what she did to him. That whatever was between them kindled his body like nothing else ever had.
His hand moved down her hip and gripped the curve of her bottom in the thin, silly pink shorts she’d chosen. He nipped at her lips, and she responded passionately. The kiss went on so long that when they broke apart, he staggered a little after he set her on her feet. Her fingers fluttered to her lips. She smiled slyly as if she’d gotten away with something.
“Definitely flying,” she said with a grin.
It was all Luke could do to keep from groaning with desire at her flirtatious remark. She was irresistible. He had to calm down, thin
k of cold water or spreadsheets or something that wasn’t sexy as hell and smiling at him like the cat who got the cream.
“That kiss,” he began, but he couldn’t think what he had meant to say beyond it.
“Yeah, it was. I guess you got game after all, Conners.”
“I’ll take that as admission you were wrong about me.”
“I never said you didn’t have useful skills. I just underestimated them. You could make a fortune teaching a class probably. Online courses for men who don’t know how to kiss.”
“I don’t think it’s something you can teach. It’s more of an innate instinct,” he said, trying for humor and bravado when he couldn’t even marshal his body’s response to her from six feet away.
“Oh, I bet you could teach the technique at least. You can’t expect every student to be a prodigy, but you would be doing the women of the world a favor. Spreading a beneficial life skill among men who lack guidance in that arena.”
“Somehow, I don’t like the idea of people paying tuition to watch me essentially make out with a webcam,” he said with a grimace.
“Perhaps a demonstration video. I could volunteer. You know, for the greater good. You could show a video of you and me, doing what we just did.”
“I think that’s more of a PornHub thing than an instructional video. So as flattering as it is that you think I could teach a class in kissing, I couldn’t stand people watching a video of us, of you that way.”
“You really think we were hot enough to get on PornHub?”
“Is that, like, a goal of yours?” he laughed.
“No, it’s gross, but also I’ll take it as a compliment. A weird one, because clearly you think people would get off watching us make out on the squash court. So, it’s odd, but also makes me feel like a total goddess at the same time.”
“I assure you as a man—a man who’s having a truly demented conversation, by the way—that plenty of people would be excited by just watching, listening to us. What just happened. That sound you made, when I first—” Luke had moved toward her again, closing all the respectful distance between them and his hand was on her cheek.
“When you licked my lips. That was the hottest thing ever,” she said lightly, her eyes locked on to his, “It made me want more. And I’m not that kind of girl.”
“What kind of girl is that? The sort that likes kissing?”
“Slutty. I don’t go around kissing people in public places and, like, moaning out loud.”
“Sounds to me like you’ve been kissing all the wrong people. Because if you don’t want to kiss in a public place, or he doesn’t kiss you until you’re moaning, then something’s missing. Do you want me to kiss you again?” he asked.
Luke asked it archly, hoping he sounded flirtatious and not just desperate. Right now, he wanted to kiss her more than he wanted to keep breathing—her lips had become essential to him, the noises she made and the soft way she reached for him and played with the hair at the back of his neck. Everything about her felt necessary, erotic and somehow both familiar and dangerous.
“Yes,” she said, “But if we start, I don’t think we’ll stop. So don’t.”
“That’s not fair. You can’t tell a man you want him to kiss you, looking like that with your lips parted, and just expect him not to do it,” he teased.
And he was teasing, but at the same time, he was serious. He wasn’t sure he could keep from kissing her. He wasn’t sure he could stop himself from kissing his way from the corner of her perfect pink lips right along her jaw and all the way down to that sensitive spot behind her ear. She’d shivered when he’d just touched her there. His mouth could do greater things, he was certain. All of a sudden, Luke Conners realized that he wanted to make her scream, make her lose her mind with pleasure more than he’d ever really wanted anything in his entire life.
Nothing else seemed quite as urgent—not the Johnson deal or what the board thought of his lifestyle choices. Because here was Paige, her lips still swollen from his kisses, her chest rising and falling in quick rhythm and her eyes dark with arousal. He could satisfy her so easily, with such wicked pleasure for them both. He lowered his lips to hers.
“Oh, gosh,” she whispered, her lips clinging to his at once, her tongue questing for his.
She broke away, jumped back from him, her face red. She didn’t look at him, but she was visibly shaken. She took another step back, then another.