Page 29

In the kitchen, Sincere pulled out a high-back stool at the island and told me to sit.

Knees pulled to my chest, I watched him go through the steps to make a single shot of espresso and grinned at the contented look on his face when he took the first sip.

“You laughing at me, Goldy?”

Sincere cut his eyes at me but all it did was make me laugh harder.

“Never.” My words came out on a breathless giggle and when I blinked, he was no longer halfway across the kitchen but standing right beside me.

Setting his coffee on the island, he spun my chair until I was facing him. On instinct, I dropped my legs. And on instinct, heseemed to fill the space between them, bracing his hands on the cushion on either side of my hips.

Timid, sweet Sincere from the night before was gone, and he’d been replaced by a man with nothing but confidence and intensity shining in his eyes.

We got locked in another staring contest, but this time neither of us looked away.

“I’m really trying to take your lead on this, Goldyn. But I’ve wanted to kiss you since the second I found you on our couch.” His breath fanned over my freckles with how close he was and I was tempted to move closer. I wanted him to want me. I wanted him to kiss me. “Your lips are so fucking pretty.You’reso fucking pretty.”

My pussy was weeping now, completely overstimulated by the way he said every word and inched closer and closer to me.

“So kiss me,” I breathed. And that was all it took. All I had to say before he had me swept up in a kiss that felt like home.

I wasn’t a coffee drinker, but I could get used to the taste of it on his lips.

He broke the kiss before I could memorize the softness of his mouth and the urgency of his tongue against mine.

“Sincere,” I whimpered, cupping the side of his face and letting my forehead rest against his.

“Fuck. Don’t do that, Goldy. I’m already fucking this up.”

I frowned, some of the haze lifted as I searched his face. “Why do you say that? That you’re fucking something up when you’re just being yourself?”

He’d said it at Lucky’s yesterday, and now he was doing it again. But he wasn’t fucking anything up. Didn’t he know how beautiful it was when people showed up as exactly who they were?

Sincere tried to move away from me, but I held fast to his face, making it harder for him to retreat. “Stay right here and answer me.”

He tucked his bottom lip into his mouth and shook his head.

“Please,” I added in a softer tone.

“My fault, Goldy. I wasn’t trying to come on strong and persuade you to stay. That’s all. I want you to make the choice on your own. Not because I couldn’t keep my hands off you.”

“I told you to kiss me,” I reminded him, still holding his face. “And I think you want to do it again.”

His eyes slid shut. “Goldyn.”

“Do you want to kiss me, Sincere?”

“You know I do.” Those four words came out rough and desperate. I felt every syllable in my soul and spoke my next words directly against his lips.

“Then what are you waiting for?”

Sincere accepted the challenge in my question and gripped my hips, lifting me against him in one smooth motion. My legs hooked around his waist, my arms locked around his shoulders and my lips met his.

His tongue stroked mine with so much finesse, I could feel phantom strokes against my clit. The deeper he kissed me, the closer I tried to get to him. I was already wrapped around him, my limbs acting as his second skin, but it wasn’t close enough.

Moaning into my mouth, he pressed my back to the island and used his hips to pin me in place. The bulge in his pants pressed directly against my clit from this angle and now it felt like I was drowning.

“Sin—” I gasped, trying so hard to catch my breath. Every breath in left me before it could settle in my lungs. I’d never been kissed like this. Never knew Ineededto be kissed like this.