Page 51 of Pick Six

“I promise. Unless you lied when you said you weren’t scared of Xavier men…” he trails off as he raises a brow at me.

“To be clear, I saidasscared. Not that I was completely free of the emotion.”

“So I scare you?” His hand slides around the side of my neck, his thumb stroking the edge of my jaw.

“Sometimes,” I answer quietly.

“It’s mutual, you know. The way you just talked up there, fuck…”

“Yeah well, no girlfriend could sit there and listen to him talk about you that way.”

“So this is part of your girlfriend act?”

“No. This is part of my weird crush thing. Where it’s scrambled parts of my brain that normally kick in and tell me not to tell off a senator at his dinner table.”

“Well whatever it was, it was hot as fuck. And combined with your confession last night, Saint… you’re fucking torturing me.”

“Well, we can’t have that…” I whisper back, feeling my heart kick up.

“I’m not breaking your rules again unless you tell me to.” His eyes dart down to my lips, and I’m ready to break anything if it means he’ll put me out of my misery and kiss me.

“I think there could be a temporary reprieve.”

“Yeah? You gonna give me a hall pass?” His lips pull up in a grin and it makes him even more handsome in this light, and I hate him a little bit for it.

“A short one…”

“For how long?”

For however long it takes him to kiss me and make me forget how much I want him.

I shrug. “I guess until we have to go back for dessert.”

He has a thoughtful look on his face, like he’s doing calculations in his head. “I can make it work.”

“What?”

He threads his fingers through mine and tugs me along gently behind him as he hurries to a door on the other side of the conservatory.

“This mean the tour’s over?” I question where we’re headed.

“No there’s one more room you’re gonna see.”

“Okay, you going to clue me in?”

He opens the door and I gasp. Because tucked away on this side of the house is a small sitting room, perfectly decorated as though the owner just walked away from the antique furniture a few minutes before.

“Someone had a very high-priced soul.”

“Grandma Ada. She hated Grandpa Hammond, so she had this and the conservatory built so she could get away from him.”

“That’s…” I choke out a laugh. “Brilliant or sad, I can’t decide which.”

“Both, I’d guess.” He shuts the door and I hear the lock click.

I have all of one second to feel my nerves rise at that sound before he’s on me, his hands in my hair, and his mouth on my neck. He kisses his way down my throat and chest, pulling the neckline of my shirt down as he makes his way over the tops of my breasts.

“This little conservative thing you’ve got going on here fucking does things for me, Saint. The way you wear your hair like that too.” His hand slides under my shirt and bra and toys with my nipple as he pushes me up against the bookshelf behind me.