It started off almost sweet, almost like the kiss they would’ve had under the mistletoe a year ago in front of all their coworkers. He pressed his lips to hers for the second that would’ve been appropriate for that kiss, but just when she expected him to pull away, he urged her mouth open with his tongue. He tasted of hot chocolate and courage, and she opened up for him, kissing him back like she wanted both for herself.
His hand was splayed full across her cheek by now, a warm imprint on her skin, and she felt suddenly dizzy at the idea that he was touching her, that she could touch him back. His ink-covered arms, his broad shoulders, the strip of skin where his T-shirt rode up . . . she was greedy for all of it.
But she was too shy to assert herself like that, so she settled for resting her hands lightly on his thighs. The denim was rough beneath her fingertips, and she tried not to press hard enough to feel the heat of him through the fabric. Already her stomach was a swirling flame, licking up into her chest as he deepened the kiss.
“Touch me,” he said.
Her hands tightened reflexively. So much for not feeling the heat. “Where?”
He smiled against her mouth. “Anywhere.”
She skimmed up his arms, pressing her thumb into the branches of the tree tattoo, letting her fingertips slide under his shirt sleeve to reveal the rest of it. He watched her with a hooded expression, giving a slight shudder when she scraped her nails against the dimple in his shoulder.
“I’ve never really cared for tattoos,” she said, and could’ve kicked herself. Why would she say something like that now?
“Oh yeah?”
She swallowed, giving him a sheepish smile. “I seem to be kind of fixated on yours.”
“？’S all right,” he said. “I don’t mind being objectified.”
He reached up, lifted the glasses off her face. He folded them gently before placing them on top of the fake moss in the potted ficus. “I’ve never seen you without your glasses,” he said, smoothing her temples with his fingertips.
She let out a small huff of a laugh. “That’s because I need them to see.”
It was scarier, when they slowed down like this. It gave her time to think about what they were doing, to wonder if they were making a huge mistake. Even if Asa was determined to have a do-over of the mistletoe kiss, surely they were long past that now. She’d have to see him at work tomorrow—later today, technically. She’d have to look him in the eye knowing all the things they’d revealed to each other, all the places their hands had been.
At the same time, she didn’t want to stop. They’d only kissed and she was aching down to her core, crying out for more of his hands, his mouth . . .
None of this was like Lauren. She wasn’t the type to get carried away with passion, and she wasn’t the type to make out with a coworker after hours on the floor of her own office.
She definitely wasn’t the type to straddle that coworker until she was sitting on his lap, but somehow his hands were on her hips and she found herself so close she could see that his eyes were a thin rim of gray around large, black pupils.
He pulled her in for another long, deep kiss. She tugged on the hem of his shirt, and he broke off only long enough to whip it over his head, before returning his mouth to hers. She slid her hands over the bunched muscles in his shoulders, the flat plane of his chest, letting her fingers brush lightly over his nipple. It was an experimental touch, tentative even, but for a minute he leaned his head back against the wall, breathing hard.
“God, Lauren,” he said. “You have no idea.”
He didn’t finish that thought, but she could finish it for him. You have no idea how good this feels. You have no idea how long I’ve wanted this.
He pushed the cardigan down off her shoulders, and for a minute she was trapped like that, her arms at her sides, his hands holding the bunched fabric around her wrists. Then he had her lower lip between his teeth, was sucking at the sensitive skin where her neck curved into her shoulder, was kissing along the swell of her breasts at the neckline of the dangerous red dress.
He pulled her closer, and the motion made her rub along the hard ridge of his erection. He swallowed her gasp with a kiss, but it turned into a moan as she felt the friction of him through the thin cotton of her underwear.
“Asa—” She didn’t know what she was asking for, but he released her wrists, his fingers biting into her bare thighs under her dress as he dragged her across him again. This time, the sound she made wasn’t like any other she’d made before—halfway between a grunt and a cry.