Page 21 of Naughty or Nice

My brow rises—she has to be teasing. I search her gaze and it dances with humour. I would have had her saying blue—yellow, even—but pink...

‘Now you look like my mother when I told her the same.’

I laugh as I imagine the scene and see humour reflected in her gaze. She looks beautiful, amused, so at ease suddenly, and it warms me through. It feels like old times. When the banter was so quick to spark between us.

I smile. ‘I bet she was all for yellow—am I right?’

‘Yellow, or even blue, anything but pink.’

She shakes her head softly and there’s a silent exchange, an acceptance that we still work.

I can feel it.

And then it’s gone.

She stiffens as the mood shifts and I grapple to get it back. ‘Whatever floats your boat, I say.’

She takes a breath, visibly composing herself as she turns away to place her glass on the side.

‘You do,’ she says, her eyes coming back to me, her voice low, her eyes intent. ‘Right now.’

The swift change from light-hearted to sexual unsettles me. My eyes narrow. Is she forcing us back to sex? Taking away our connection? The personal talk?

You should be happy.

She gives her head a small flick as her eyes stare into mine. ‘Or have you changed your mind?’

Fuck that.

I’m moving before I know it.

Fuck personal. Fuck talk.

She’s in my arms, her hands beneath my jacket shoving it down my shoulders. I throw it to one side, pulling her back against me and seeking out her mouth, instinct driving me, making me forget not to kiss her. She turns away, arching her neck and offering up the creamy expanse of skin instead.

The gesture cuts deep and I scrape my teeth against her—a nip of punishment and acceptance in one—and the whimper it draws triggers a groan of my own. Christ. The series of things I want to do to her, with her, is rampaging through my brain, and my arousal strains painfully between us.

I run my hands over her dress, seeking out the fastening—a zipper, buttons, anything. It’s frustrating as hell. ‘If you don’t get this off, I swear I’m going to rip it.’

She laughs at me. The husky lilt driving me crazy.

‘So impatient...’

‘I’ve had ten years to wait for this. I call that patience enough.’

Her eyes widen as she stares up at me and she’s momentarily still.

Shit. Too much.

‘Off,’ I command, wanting her back in the moment, to forget what I said.

And she turns away to pull the escaped curls over her shoulder. ‘The zipper is concealed in the back.’

I find the fastening and slowly—too slowly for my tortured cock, but too quickly for my struggling control—I lower it, exposing her exquisite skin, her spine that I want to trace with my fingers, my lips, my tongue. Goosebumps prickle where the fabric parts, calling to me, and I press a kiss to the nape of her neck, breathing her in.

‘You are beautiful, Evangeline.’

She shudders on a breath, turning her head so that I’m on the periphery of her vision, her lashes low, her forbidden lips parted. The zipper stops over the curve of her bare arse and I remember her thong sitting pretty in my pocket. I smile. She went to dinner like this, bare and exposed, thanks to me.