I exhale. Fuck if she isn’t sexy as hell when she’s all riled up and wanting to wrestle my ass.
“Probably.”
Probably. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She’s down at the bottom of the steps now, so we’re eye to eye. If I leaned forward far enough, our noses would touch.
“You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself if I tossed you twice.”
“You…” I say, not finishing the sentence because I have no idea what to say. I really am the idiot my brother is always telling me I am. Why don’t I listen to him more?
“Me what?”
“You…wouldn’t dare.”
“You don’t know what I would or wouldn’t dare.” Her snicker is quite adorable. “You don’t know anything about me.”
She’s right; I don’t know anything about her. Everything I thought I knew about her from talking to her cousin before the wedding and bachelor party and rehearsal and reception was that Chandler Westbrooke was raised conservatively. Went to private school. Never broke rules.
Quiet.
Sweet.
Studious and smart.
But then she went and dropped me on my ass and left me confused as fuck.
Now she’s standing here, definitely wanting to karate-chop me into oblivion, onto the hard, cold ground.
Again.
Never judge a book by its cover.
People aren’t always what they seem.
“Do it,” I goad—as if I’m on the fifty-yard line at the beginning of a football game, talking shit to an opposing player during the ball snap. “Come on.” I lower my voice. “Do it.”
She steps off the stoop and onto the sidewalk next to me.
We have a stare-down, despite our size difference, her eyes appearing shifty and—
“Jesus Christ!” I shriek when my feet leave the ground, more wits about me than the last time she had a grip on my body, black shirt suddenly soaking on the cool pavement. “What the fuck, Chandler!”
I’m out of breath and the wind is knocked out of me, but this time, she’s bent over me, hair hanging in a cascade alongside her face.
Her smirking, grinning face.
…I think.
It’s hard to tell from this angle.
“You dick,” I say, winded. “Warn a guy first.”
Her hands go to her knees. “What would be the fun in that?”
“You’re only five feet tall—how are you doing this?”
She’s not really five feet tall. I’m just being dramatic.
“My sensei was one of the best.” She does a petite bow, pressing her hands together in a prayer-like pose. Leans in closer. “Are you okay?”
“Other than the fact that it’s raining? Yes, I’m fine.”
She’s bruised my ego enough to last me a lifetime—or put me in the hospital. Diagnosis: butthurt feelings and butthurt ass.
“Most people don’t get hurt from being flipped—it’s all in your head, and besides, you’ve been hit harder by grown men than little old me.”
Sure, she might be small, but she’s mighty, hair beginning to glisten from the mist lightly falling down on us.
Angelic.
Her black silky shirt is starting to cling to her body the way silk tends to do when wet, her boobs falling forward in her bra from the position she’s standing in.
Shit.
The fall must have addled my brain because I find myself watching her lips move when she leans in closer instead of listening to her speak—but maybe she’s doing the same thing too because I swear to god her eyes are trained on the lower half of my face.
She straddles me, hands cupping either side of my head. “Are you okay? I didn’t want you to hit your head on the asphalt.”
“It’s concrete, not asphalt.”
She drops my head. “Yup. Still the same old you.”
What’s that supposed to mean?
Her hands rest on her waist now, but she hasn’t moved from her position above me.
Leans in closer—close enough that I can feel her warm breath.
“What are you doing?” I want to know since we’ve determined I’m fine and my brains are in fact not addled. “Why are you still standing there like that?”
I can’t move unless she does.
Yes you can.
It’s raining harder now, a mix between a mist and a torrent. A steady rhythm of precipitation—nothing that would stop a football game already in progress, but enough to drench us and leave me wiping the water from my eyes.
Do something, Wallace.
Either sit up, or tell her to move, or lift her off yo—
Chandler sits.
On top of me.
“What are you doing?” I ask again, hands lying flat on the wet ground, moving—for now they need a purpose.
“Stop talking,” she tells me. “It just makes me dislike you more.”
Dislike me more? This from the woman who’s seated on me like she’s riding a pony at the county fair? What the hell is even happening right now?
Chandler inclines forward, and before I fucking realize it, her lips and mouth are on mine and she’s kissing me, and my hands are bound for her ass. Waist. Thighs.
Wet rain. Wet mouth. Wet kiss.
I pull her down farther, arms going around her back in an embrace, palms running over her spine. Over her soaking wet silk shirt that’s now probably ruined.
Neither of us seems to care.
We roll so she’s on the bottom and I’m braced over her, Chandler’s fingers raking through my hair.
Briefly, I acknowledge that she is probably the only woman I’ve ever met who wouldn’t complain about kissing someone on the concrete ground in the rain, ruining their expensive shirt. Their hair. Their makeup smearing from precipitation.
My hand is on her thigh, squeezing it gently, kneading it…running my hand up and down the outside of her jeans, even though they’re soaked.
I can’t believe she kissed me.
I can’t believe we’re down on the ground making out and her tongue is actually in my freaking throat.
She tastes amazing, like dessert and wine and curiosity.
We kiss a little longer before she plants one final peck at the corner of my mouth to draw the session to a close and I pull back to look at her. It’s not easy to study her face in the dark, even with the street lamps, which do nothing for visibility—not with the weather—so I draw back more and rise to my knees.
Reach out to grab her hand and lift myself up, off the ground, helping her up, too.
She wipes the hair out of her face. Wipes the water from her forehead, eyebrows, and from beneath her eyes.
Her face isn’t as bad as one would expect, considering we were lying on the ground.
“You don’t look terrible,” I state, for lack of anything more clever to say post-make-out sesh. “It could be worse.”
Chandler runs a hand over her mouth. “Thanks.”
I can’t stuff my hands in my pockets because they’re soaked, but she goes to the stoop and climbs the stairs, presenting me with her back.
I wonder if she’s going to invite me in for like, a hot shower or something. A nightcap? Sex?
Yeah, sex would be good. It’s been ages and I like her well enough after tonight that I’d actually bang her.