Page 71 of The Thing About My Prince

His finger reaches my knee and stops, but the electrifying tremors shooting from it do not.

“This is not about me. And we really need to work on this book.”

“And I’d bet,” he continues as if I’ve not spoken, looking at me from under his raised brow as he wraps his hand around my knee before sliding his fingers up my leg, “that there’s a reason you kissed me earlier.”

His touch skirts the edge of my laptop, sending sparks dancing up my inner thigh, straight to an inconvenient and unauthorized destination.

“Like I said.” My voice catches in my throat, making me cough when his hand comes to rest at the crook of my hip. I scroll and swirl the cursor around the blank document on my computer like I’m busy with very important things. “This is about you. So how about you tell me a happy story from when you were a kid. I need something to balance out all the shitty ones.”

He picks my hand off my keyboard and pulls it toward him.

And I let him. I fucking let him. Why am I letting him? An interviewer should not hold hands with their goddamn subject. Not even if the subject has highly holdable hands whose touch has made their panties damp and their chest tremble in an unfamiliar way.

“Tell me why you kissed me.” He draws my hand toward his mouth. Oh Jesus, he’s going to kiss it, isn’t he? My pulse can’t take the anticipation and is threatening to burst from my wrist and my neck and wherever the hell else my pulse pulses.

Now my hand is close enough to his mouth for his breath to warm it.

My heart thumps against the inside of my ribs, and damnthat increasing wetness between my legs. How can someone doing nothing other than holding your hand and breathing on it be such an extreme turn-on?

“You answer my question.” As he speaks, his lips brush the back of my hand with a tantalizing tickle. “Then I’ll tell you a happy story. Deal?”

He presses his lips against my skin. The contact is soft and filled with affection, yet somehow also the sexiest thing that’s ever happened to me in my life.

I drop my head back against the headboard and close my eyes. “You’re killing me, Oliver.”

“Good,” he whispers, gently turning my hand over and dotting a line of delicate kisses across the sensitive skin at my wrist.

How is this making my clit throb so hard? How is this making me want to throw my laptop onto the floor, rip his clothes off, and straddle him?

It’s ridiculous, and I need to get a goddamned grip.

In one swift move, I pull my hand from his, tuck my legs underneath me, and turn to face him. “I kissed you because I wanted to. Like really fucking wanted to. Because you’re ridiculously attractive. And smarter than you think. And a better person than you think. And pretty great company. And all those things make you even more ridiculously attractive. But it’s irresponsible. And unprofessional. We can’t be kissing or holding hands or tickling each other’s thighs?—”

“It tickled?” He wiggles his eyebrows and gives me the hottest smirk that makes me want to slam my mouth on those delicious plump lips again.

I tilt my head and give him an exasperated sigh. “We can’t do any of those things.”

“No more kissing?” He pushes out his lower lip in an exaggerated pout that reveals the shiny, pink, damp part and makes my mouth burn with the need to be on his again.

I resume my previous position but pull my laptop fartherup my thighs so it virtually covers my crotch, as if it’s some sort of chastity belt to save me from myself.

I’d move to the desk if it wouldn’t mean we’d have to talk at a volume that the bug might pick up.

“No more kissing.” I stare at my blank screen. “Now you have to tell me a happy story from your childhood so I can write this damn book and then we can both get on with the rest of our lives.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

OLIVER

Lexi stretches to turn on the lamp on the nightstand, making the mattress shift under us.

Now that it’s almost dark outside, sitting here with the only light coming from her laptop makes this feel way more intimate than any interview should.

But of course it feels bloody intimate. Only three hours and another excruciating dinner ago, we had the most staggering kiss of my life.

And I intend to keep it intimate. Sitting here next to her in the half-light makes me more relaxed and at ease with someone than I ever thought possible.

It feels good. And, dare I say it, right.