Page 198 of The Friends and Rivals Collection

Like I said, proximity usually wins.

In this case, it’s not only trumping the miles that often separate us, it’s stomping all over any restraint I might once have had.

There are no miles now. This is a battle of inches. And I’m losing.

Gladly fucking losing, because my pulse races rocket-fast, and my skin is hot, just from being near her. “So, what do you think? You and me. Bad idea?”

She shakes her head. “Definitely not bad.” She swallows. “Good idea?”

“Maybe the best idea?”

“Would it be?” she whispers.

“What do you think?”

She’s breathing hard, and I love that. She licks her lips, her cheeks flushed. “Want to know what I think?”

“You know I do.”

She lifts one hand and places it gently on my chest, pressing her fingers against my pecs. Even through my shirt, her touch triggers an instant response—a rush of desire to every molecule in my body.

“Sometimes I wish you still visited San Francisco,” she says. “I liked it the few times I saw you out there.”

We played pool one night when I flew into her hometown en route to a tour in Tahoe.

Another time, I took her out to her favorite sandwich shop for a tomato and mozzarella panini for lunch, before I met the guy I’ve since hired as my West Coast manager.

That’s when I learned of her impressive appetite.

Or, of how much bigger her eyes are than her stomach—that stomach I want to touch, and I have permission to at last. I run the tips of my fingers down the fabric covering her belly, and she gasps—a quiet but sensual little sound that leaves no room for argument. She’s into this.

“I definitely wish you were in New York City more,” I tell her, traveling to her arm, brushing my fingers down her bare skin.

Goose bumps appear on her flesh, and she feels so good to touch.

Her eyes flutter closed for a second, maybe more.

When she opens them, those hazel irises are fiery with lust.

“I wish you weren’t friends with my brother,” she says, her tone unexpectedly dark. It gives me pause. I don’t see why Max would be an issue. Not for us. Max isn’t the type of guy to be a territorial asshat, and I’m not the type of guy he has to worry about with his sister.

“Why?” I raise an eyebrow in question.

Mia shakes her head. There’s something she’s not telling me. “It just makes it harder . . . and other reasons.” She doesn’t elaborate. I’m not sure I want her to right now. Not when we’re both finally saying the things I’ve wanted to speak out loud and hear.

Besides, we know the score.

And yet, we’re still here, barely any space between us, the elevator rising higher, dinging softly as it passes each floor.

“There are always reasons.” I lift my hand to her hair, brushing it away from her face.

She moves with me, her cheek following my palm, and the most desperate look crosses her eyes.

Like she can’t bear not to be touched right now.

“But are those reasons more powerful than the fact that I’d really like to kiss you right now? ”

My muscles relax, and heat shoots through me.

It’s a spectacular relief to give voice to how I feel, and a huge turn-on, too.

Now she knows. We aren’t playing poker anymore, holding our cards too close to the vest. I still don’t know how much either one of us is willing to bet and willing to lose, but we’re in the same card game.

She trembles, and her voice is feather soft and so inviting when she says, “Kiss me.”

Hell to the yes.

I cup her cheek, rubbing my thumb across her skin, and it’s as if she dissolves, as if she floats, and I can feel how incredibly mutual this attraction is.

However, she’s also incredibly short.

I don’t line up that easily with her. When I line my body to hers, my hard-on meets her navel. That’s not the big issue—though it is big . The pressing issue is I’m more than a head taller. I dust a quick kiss to the top of her hair, laughing, to emphasize my point.

She laughs, too. “You’re a foot taller.”

“More than a foot.” I lower my hands to her hips and lift her up, setting her ass on the bar in the elevator. She lets out a little squeal. Out of the corner of my eye, I see floor fifteen light up on the pad as we pass it.

This is going to be one fast kiss.

But I’ll take it. I’m inches away from her soft, sensual lips. She parts them, and I close my eyes, dipping my mouth to hers, then the elevator slows.

On the seventeenth floor.

I groan and huff in frustration.

She winces, as if not kissing is as painful for her as it is for me.

The doors whisk open.

She slides off the bar, her feet hitting the floor as a fortyish-year-old woman strolls into the elevator, carrying several empty canvas grocery bags.

She wears electric-blue glasses, and her black hair is twisted high in a bun.

Earbuds blast some kind of loud music in her ears, and she clutches her phone, bopping along with it, and gives us a quick nod.

When the doors close, she stabs the down button, then mutters under her breath, probably because she’s realizing she entered an elevator going up.

I sigh heavily, because she’s not even headed in the same direction as us. She doesn’t even need this ride.

I look at Mia, right next to me. She brushes her hand over her hair, smoothing it out though I didn’t get to mess it up like I wanted.

She shrugs and gives a what can you do smile as the elevator slows again, approaching my floor.

Then she rises on tiptoe and dusts her lips along my jaw.

Now it’s my turn to shiver because . . .

holy fuck. Those lips . I want to feel them all over me.

I stare hard at her for the last two seconds of the ride, my eyes trying to say everything.

I want you so much.

The twentieth floor comes far too quickly, and I grab my backpack with my cat in it and give her a tip of the cap. “Time for your conference call, Jackrabbit. I don’t want you to be late for it.”

She smiles. “ Considerate. You’re considerate, too.”

This time I take it as a compliment, because from Mia, I know it is.