“I forgot to mention that a beautiful girl swam in that pool with me and slept in that sun too. She’s starving. I’d better take her out for pasta. Carbohydrates and oil, covered in cheese.”
“I’m enjoying this food fantasy,” I manage. I want to be that girl so badly I could howl.
“We’d walk back to the villa in the dark, and I’d pull down the zip of her red dress. I’d feed her champagne and strawberries in bed to keep her strength up.”
“How are you coming up with this stuff.” I’m so enraptured I’m almost slurring. If this is what his holiday daydream is like, I wouldn’t survive his bedroom.
“Then I’d wake up and do it all again the next day. With her. For weeks.”
I stare at the painting and imagine standing with him under the glittering dark purple sky, the headlights of faraway cars illuminating the rows of poplar trees lining the road.
I have to say something. Anything. He’s looking at me, clearly entertained.
“Lucky bitch.”
He laughs out loud at that. I fire off my next quiz question.
“You’re shipwrecked onto an uninhabited island. What three things would you take with you?”
“A knife. A tarpaulin.” He thinks for a long time on the last item.
“And you. To annoy you,” he amends.
“I’m not an object. I don’t count.”
“But I’d be so lonely on the island,” he points out. I think of him sitting alone in the all-staff meeting.
“Okay. So we’re crawling up the beach and I’m cursing your name for pulling me away from civilization and hair-care products and lipstick. What then?”
My shiver from the movement of his lips on my earlobe shakes the couch. When I feel the press of his mouth to my throat, I groan out loud.
He turns the TV off, and for a moment I’m certain he’s about to walk me out. Or pick me up and throw me on his bed. It’s hard to tell. He raises his hands into my hair, softly trailing his fingertips through it, until he reaches my scalp. My eyelids flutter.
“I’d build you a shelter and find you a coconut, and then we’d pass the time.”
“How?” My voice is barely more than a whisper.
“Probably like this.” He presses his mouth to mine.
Chapter 17
We both suck in a breath and the room has no oxygen left.
Last night he picked me up under a streetlight and gave me a kiss that was calculated to leave me wanting more. Now I know what my problem has been today. I’ve been craving.
Images of us in another life in Tuscany are still behind my eyelids as he kisses my mouth open, touches my tongue with his, and breathes. He sighs. He’s wanted this. He’s been craving as badly as I have. My mouth is vanilla, his is mint, and they combine to create something delicious.
A miracle has occurred, and I don’t know when, but I know it now. Joshua Templeman does not hate
me. Not a bit. There’s no way he could when he kisses me like this.
He loosens one hand from my hair and spreads it across my jaw, stroking my skin, cupping and tilting my face. It’s so completely sweet, even as our tongues begin to get filthy.
I slide my knee over his lap, feeling my inner thighs stretch.
“I swore to myself I wouldn’t come here tonight.”
“Yet here you are. Interesting.”
We both look down at my thighs on his, and I can’t stop myself from sliding my hips forward.
This new position splices power and adrenaline into my blood. I put my hands on his collarbones and look him over. His hair is still a little damp. I cup the nape of his neck in my palm and press my hand against his heart.
I start a slow slide down to his chest, ribs, testing the density of flesh. He’s so firm I can trace the lines between each muscle, even through a T-shirt. I try to tug up the bottom of the shirt but it’s pinned under my knees.
Impatience rips clean through me. I nearly tear his shirt off but I force my fingers to loosen. He must see this flash of violent cavewoman, because he closes his eyes and his throat hums in a groan.
“Sometimes you look at me like you’re . . .”