“That’s not . . . damn it!” He broke off with an inarticulate sound of frustration and he paced away from me a step or two, as though I annoyed him so much that he couldn’t stand to be near me. “I didn’t come here to fight with you!”
I had to laugh at that, but it sounded more like a scoff. “Of course you did. What else would you want to do with me?”
His eyes flared, and oh, no. I really hadn’t meant to say that. Before I could blink he had stepped closer, impossibly closer, crowding me against the bar. I barely had time to draw a startled breath as he took my face between his hands and his mouth came down on mine.
Holy shit, Simon Graham was kissing me.
Twelve
This was nothing like the staged kiss we’d shared during the handfasting ceremony. This kiss was determined—hot and purposeful. Simon had run out of words for his argument and had decided to use his mouth in a different way. He kissed me like he had something to prove.
Just as my brain registered what was happening and I started to respond, he wrenched his mouth away. But he didn’t go far; he leaned his forehead against mine, his hands still cradling my face. I dragged my eyes open but they were heavy, like I’d been drugged. I struggled to focus on him.
I wasn’t the only one who seemed drugged. His eyes were hooded and half-closed, and his gaze stayed fixed on my mouth. “Emily.” My name was a sigh, a low and desperate sound my body responded to in an instant. “I’m sorry. God.” Even while he apologized he pressed his lips together, as if holding on to our kiss. Savoring it. He swayed into me and I caught my breath, anticipating another kiss, but he straightened up instead. He dropped his hands and I missed his touch immediately. “I shouldn’t have—”
No. “Shut up.” I didn’t want him to say he regretted kissing me. I didn’t want him to say anything at all. Talking made things go wrong between us, and his mouth was only a breath away. Now that the shock had worn off I wanted him back.
So I hooked my fingers in the open collar of his black shirt and tugged. I had just enough time to see his eyebrows swoop up in surprise before his mouth crashed onto mine again. This time I was ready, and I gave him a soft place to land. I opened my mouth under his, welcoming him, inviting him in. He sank into my kiss with a groan.
Simon kissed like a pirate. His lips were soft yet demanding, but his tongue . . . plundered. There was no other word for it. One hand cradled the back of my head, fingers anchored in my hair to better steer our kiss, while his other arm went around me, pressing me close. I loosened my grip on his shirt to slide my hands along the back of his neck. He was hot under my hands, but he shivered at my touch and kissed me harder. I was surrounded by him, by the scent of warm leather and warmer skin, and when his mouth traveled to my jaw, my throat, his tongue tracing a line that his lips followed, I pressed myself closer, eager for more of that heat.
He groaned again, and kisses became nips at the base of my throat as his hand tightened at the small of my back, pulling me into him. It was my turn to shiver at the rasp of his beard against my skin and the hard lines of his body against mine. Your typical English teacher shouldn’t be this well muscled, but I was quickly finding out there was a lot about Simon that wasn’t typical.
The world around me began to spin, and my chest felt tight. This was new; no man had ever kissed me until I swooned. It was a heady thing at first, but it became uncomfortable fast. My passionate grasp on the back of his head quickly became a desperate clutch of his shoulders as I tried to stay upright.
Simon noticed the change immediately, and when my knees buckled under me his embrace immediately went from amorous to supportive. “Whoa.” He caught me by the elbows and held me up. “Hey. Are you okay?”
I nodded and tried to speak, but breathing seemed more important, and it was hard to do. His eyes turned assessing, sweeping up and down me.
“Shit. You’re still laced up. Hold on.” He tugged at my bodice with an urgency that had nothing to do with passion. Of course. It wasn’t Simon’s kiss causing me to swoon. It was lack of oxygen due to ten hours in this costume followed by some after-work making out.
A few more tugs and the garment loosened enough that my rib cage relaxed, and I sucked in a deep, sweet breath. Another couple of breaths, and the dizziness subsided. I sagged into him, resting my forehead on Simon’s leather-and-cotton-covered chest, and his arm came around my back.
“Better now?” His lips brushed the shell of my ear and a thrill went up my back at Simon’s voice, low and oh so close. How had the sound of his voice gone from annoying to arousing so fast? Maybe I was still oxygen deprived.
I nodded against his vest. “You’re good at unlacing wenches. Very efficient. Do that a lot?”
“Well, I am a pirate, you know.”
That surprised a laugh out of me, and his smile widened as I straightened up. “You’re not, though.” Being this close to him was making my voice low and throaty, and it was all I could do to not pull his mouth back to mine.
He raised his eyebrows—both of them this time; he wasn’t showing off. “Not what?”
“A pirate.” Because the whole time he’d been here, when he was arguing with me and when he was kissing me, he wasn’t speaking with an accent. And he’d called me Emily. Not Emma. So he wasn’t Captain Blackthorne right now. This was Simon kissing me, not the pirate. Right?
“Aren’t I?” He stepped closer, trapping me between the bar and his body. My heart pounded as the rough pads of his fingers stroked back up my throat, plunging into the tangled knot at the base of my skull . . .
“Emily? Are you still back here? You missed the whole thing!”
My head whipped around at the sound of Stacey’s voice and Simon dropped his hand, backing up a step or two. By the time she appeared I was leaning on the bar, drinking a bottle of water, as though nothing had happened. Cool as a cucumber. Simon was a discreet distance away, cool as . . . well, cool as someone who’d been kissing a girl on a warm summer day. I took in his slightly flushed cheeks, his mussed hair, and the glint in his eyes and wished like hell that Stacey hadn’t come looking for me.
But she wasn’t alone. “Hey now, what’s going on here?” Mitch looked from me to Simon and back to me again, taking in my loosened bodice with raised eyebrows and a cheesy grin. “Now I see why you weren’t at pub sing. A little rendezvous with a wench, huh, Captain?” Now that he wasn’t in character, Mitch was back to being a one-man innuendo machine.
I shot a wide-eyed look in Simon’s direction. The three of them were established friends. I was the newcomer. What had happened between us was too new to give a name to yet, so I would follow Simon’s lead on this.
“Oh, knock it off.” Stacey dug an elbow into Mitch’s side. Not that he felt it; it would have been like elbowing a brick wall. “Em stayed behind to fix a banner that fell. Simon probably ended up helping her.”