Then he finally kissed me, with the softest brush of his lips against mine, and I could no longer feel my legs. Jolts of crackling pleasure lit up synapses I didn’t even know I had.
But as soon as it had started, it was over. The kiss was tentative, like he was asking a question and waiting for an answer.
It was like wandering in a desert for three days straight and then only getting one single drop of water.
It wasn’t enough. I wanted to drink deeply. I was very thirsty.
“What are you doing?” I asked, hating how breathless I sounded. “Don’t stop.”
That weapons-grade grin of his was back, and instead of kissing me again, he said, “First test completed. Your lipstick is not sticky.”
“I could have told you that,” I grumbled.
“What are you feeling right now?” he asked, his eyes glittering intensely at me.
Frustrated. Annoyed. Like I wanted to kick him in the shin for giving me the barest taste of something I was dying for. “I . . . I don’t know.”
He saw it for the lie that it was. “Nervous? Excited?”
Completely turned on? Was that okay to say?
“Your cheeks are flushed.” He touched one, and his fingertips were warm and smooth against my skin. “Is your pulse racing? Your skin is warm.”
That was a lie. My skin was shivery and cool, and he was the one heating it up with his touch, but I couldn’t quite form the words to tell him that. It was hard to imagine that a man this size could be so gentle and careful.
“Did you want me to keep going?” he asked in a voice rough with an emotion I couldn’t quite identify.
“Yes.” I pushed up on my toes to close the distance between us, but he moved his head back slightly, just out of reach.
“If this is going to be for science, we need to set up some parameters.”
Screw the parameters. I wondered if there was a way to say, I need you to pin me up against that wall and kiss me like you mean it for science.
“Marco?”
“Polo,” he responded, grinning at me.
“You’ve made your point. Would you please just shut up and kiss me?”
He returned his lips swiftly to mine this time, but it was a gentle press. He held still for a second, letting us both be in the moment. Again those electrical flames lapped at my skin, demanding release. I needed a real kiss. I made a sound of protest against his mouth, and that seemed to change the situation.
Now he was moving against me, causing a delicious friction with our lips. It was still soft, gentle, teasing me. Promising so much more and only willing to give me this tiny fraction of it for now.
Stupidly, I had thought some small kiss like this would satiate the craving I had for him. We would kiss, I would get over it and move on, but that wasn’t happening. It was making everything worse.
I pushed up against him, wanting more. He was being so careful with me, his kiss intense and gentle at the same time.
Only, the gentleness started to fade. Bit by bit, and the passion inversely increased, and he kissed me with a devastating slowness and thoroughness that had my limbs trembling, as if they’d been zapped and rendered useless.
His heart beat against my hands, hard and fast, his chest heaving like he’d been running. I realized that it was from keeping himself in check. Trying not to overwhelm me.
Didn’t he know that I’d welcome it?
How could something be so slow and soft and yet intense and sensual at the same time?
“Taste. Good,” he murmured against my mouth, and some part of my brain wanted to laugh—he sounded like a caveman. I liked the idea that I was having that kind of effect on him.
But then his fingers were tangled in my hair, cradling my head as he kissed me over and over again. My somatosensory cortex lit up like the Fourth of July.
Somehow, like he knew or was an actual mind reader, Marco moved me over to the wall. I was grateful for the support and the way that he had trapped me in place, kissing me like he had all the time in the world and planned on doing a thorough but sweet job of it.
And despite the fact that he was holding back and not ravishing me on that conference room table, the connection between us? That was real. It was almost . . . chemical. And I knew a little something about a chemical reaction.
On the outside, Marco and I seemed like two things that shouldn’t go together. Like baking soda and vinegar. But when they were combined?
It created something new. Something powerful.
It made science fair volcanoes erupt.
His mouth slanted over mine again as he changed the angle of his head and the pressure on my lips, distracting me from my train of thought. Kissing him was like kissing an open electrical current but without any pain. Shocking and stimulating and exciting.
He shuddered against me and pulled back from the kiss. We were both gulping in air, trying to breathe normally. I had joked earlier that Leighton was going to need some oxygen, but if we kept going like this, I was the one who was going to need that ambulance.
Marco rested his hands on either side of my head against the wall. “How was that?” he asked.
“Nice?” It was literally the only word I could think of. But it felt imprecise, and as a scientist, I hated being imprecise. “No. Not nice. Something else.” My brain was too fuzzy to concentrate.
He reached over to trace the outline of my lips with his index finger. “Electric?” he asked.
“Yes.” How did he know that?
The smooth glide of his fingertip against my sensitive lips had me making a strangled noise and pressing back against the wall. His fluttery-light touch made my synapses fire and hum under my skin.
Then I did what I’d wanted to do before that day in my room—I reached out and kissed his finger. His breath hitched, and that small sound thrilled me in a way I didn’t know was possible.
His lips quickly replaced his finger, and while he was still kissing me carefully, he was doing it thoroughly and I was enjoying the exploration. He pressed me against the wall, the hardness and strength of his chest pushing against my soft curves.
I felt a buzzing sensation that I at first wrongly attributed to whatever he was doing with his mouth and then realized it was his cell.
Pulling my head back slightly, I said, “I think your phone is happy to see me.”
He seemed a little disoriented, his gaze unfocused. He reached into his pocket and pulled his phone out and checked the screen. “I’ve been summoned,” he said. “We should go.”
I think I nodded. I intended to nod, but my whole body felt lethargic and nonresponsive to my internal commands. There should be a sign that popped up on my forehead that read ERROR 404 ANNA_FUNCTIONINGBRAIN.EXE NOT FOUND.
Marco took me by the hand and led me out of the room. The hall lights weren’t bright, but they felt blinding by comparison to the dark room we’d been in.
I noticed that he was grinning with that heart-destroying smile. “What are you smiling about?”
“The final analysis is completed. Your lipstick passes with flying colors.” He wiped his mouth, but he wasn’t wearing any of it. The lipstick had stayed put, like it was supposed to.
We passed by a mirror, and I yanked on his hand to stop. “Look at me,” I said. My hair was all over the place, and my lips looked swollen. There was a blush still on my cheeks, like all my blood had rushed there to make sure it didn’t miss out on the kiss. I tried to smooth my hair down.