Patrick grunted. He had to stop doing that, especially when they were alone. It turned her on too much. Dear Lord, she had to get out of here. He must have had the same idea because they reached for her tablet at the same time, causing it to stop teetering and fall.
They both went for the falling tablet, but Sasha caught it. And when she tried to lift her head, her hair was caught in between the metal links of Patrick’s watch. She tried to yank away, but that caused a snap of pain. She stopped struggling when he said, “Stop moving.”
Whenever he told her to do something, her body just did it before her mind could get defiant. It should bother her, but it was for her own good in this case.
“If you move slowly around the desk, we’ll get your hair untangled.”
She got up into an awkward half-crouch, hoping that none of her bits were on display. She skirted the desk in that position until she could stand up with Patrick’s forearm resting on top of her head. It would be laughable if it wasn’t quite so dangerous. It didn’t even matter that they’d started out this meeting chaperoned and six feet apart. And now they were touching—a mere breath away from kissing. If she still believed in God, she would think he was trying to fuck with them. Setting them up to fail.
“Hold on.” Patrick lifted his other hand and tried to disentangle her hair from his watch. It gave her the chance to study him from up close. She didn’t know when she’d have the chance again, so she drank him in. She tried to memorize the way he smelled, the way he quietly talked to himself as he worked.
She loved the shape of his jaw. Some might call it severe, but it read to her as strong. Steady. If she raised up on her tiptoes, she could run her lips over it. What would it be like to be able to do that? She knew she wanted that despite it being impossible, not because it was impossible.
In her mind, she could close her eyes and imagine waking up to that jawline every morning. She wanted to hear him muttering and cursing over fixing things in a small house that they shared. He made her think of white picket fences and family meals. It wasn’t what her parents wanted for her—charity galas and auxiliary boards—but she didn’t care. She’d never felt like she really fit anyway, which made her good at her job. She could always see everything that could go wrong, so she fixed it. The picture in her head of what kind of life she could have with Patrick—if he wasn’t a priest and he wanted to make a life with her—felt like it fit. Thinking about it felt like sinking into a warm bath.
And she could see this beyond the undeniable sexual charge between them now. She could see growing old with Patrick, taking care of him the way he took care of everyone else.
“Just give me another minute.” He glanced down at her. God, it was unbearable to be this close to him without being able to touch him. It made her want to crawl out of her skin.
“Just yank it.” Sasha was getting too excited being this close to him. She wasn’t sure what she might do if she didn’t get away from him and out of this office right fucking now.
“No.”
His being so calm about it made it even worse. “Why not?” It wasn’t even that much hair.
“I like your hair attached to your head.” He looked down and met her gaze. She froze and stopped struggling.
Even though he’d referred to their mutual attraction, he’d never mentioned anything in particular that he liked about her appearance before. The idea that she affected him in a primal and visceral way and not just in his head was appealing. She didn’t understand it when she usually felt the opposite—she’d always worried that the men of her acquaintance cared more about what she looked like than what she felt or thought.
Sasha maneuvered the few millimeters between them and planted her lips against his. And then she didn’t do anything else because this was a huge mistake. But that didn’t make her pull away.
* * *
—
PATRICK HADN’T BEEN KISSED in well over a decade. Until Sasha planted her pillow-soft lips against his, he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it. This was a terrible idea. Sister Cortona could walk back in at any moment, and then she’d for sure report him.
The other night had been too far, but this—her mouth against his, open and breathing her fresh minty breath into his mouth. It was ruin. She was ruin. And he wasn’t going to let it go.
They stood there for so long, lip to lip, that she started to pull away. The part of him that was touch-starved and lonely and needed relief more desperately than he did salvation grabbed at her waist and stopped her. Instead of pulling away, she bent her head toward where his watch was still tangled up in the silk of her hair and licked his lower lip with her tongue.
He shuddered at her touch and flexed his palm against her. She let out a throaty laugh/moan hybrid, and he broke.
He could have gotten her hair untangled faster, but he’d been greedy for a reason to keep her near. And—God help him—he wasn’t sorry at all now that her body was pressed against his, and their tongues danced.
He’d thought about the taste of her so much, and the reality was so much better than he’d ever imagined. He was a starving man, and she’d put a banquet in front of him. If he could have managed it without hurting her, he would have her bent over his desk and begging for him to give her the release she’d given herself in front of him the other night.
It was depraved, but he was past caring.
Their bodies moved against each other awkwardly until he dropped the hand that was stuck to her and cupped the back of her head. That only brought her closer, and he groaned and cursed.
She turned him into a man that he’d forgotten he’d ever been—selfish, greedy, a man who wanted things that he couldn’t have. She’d ruined his hard-fought contentment, but somehow it didn’t take the legs out from under him. He felt more alive than he had since before he could remember.
She turned and sat on the edge of his desk. He backed her up until his thighs wedged hers open. He wished he could see the skin on her thighs as her dress rolled up, but he settled for squeezing one. He was so beyond the idea that he wasn’t going to cross his own line and think about this while he relieved himself in the shower for decades to come that it wasn’t even funny.
He wasn’t sure how long the kiss lasted, but he knew when it ended that Sasha was holding scissors and a huge lock of her hair was floating down to his desk.
Then, she was a few feet away from him—looking stricken. He wanted to take that away. This wasn’t her fault, and he was starting to think it wasn’t his. Their connection was rare and precious and felt like nothing else he’d ever experienced. He wanted to go to her, to put his arms around her and reassure her somehow.
But she’d cut off a hunk of her hair to get away from him, which must have meant that she was thinking a whole lot more clearly than he was in that moment.