Page 83 of Beauty and the Beach
“So the razor thing,” I say again, and Phoenix rolls his eyes.
“What about it?” he says impatiently. “You can’t use my razor to shave your legs. Buy your own.”
“It’s just that I sort of already did,” I admit, tightening my arms around his neck. “Use your razor, I mean. The one you keep by the sink in your bathroom.”
His head rears back; even in the shadows I can see him blink at me.
I nod, trying not to laugh at his indignance. “Just once, because mine broke. So…is that a dealbreaker?”
“Goodgrief,Holland,” he mutters under his breath, looking pained. “You can’t use my stuff like that.”
“It’s just a razor?—”
“It’s notjust a razor,” he says hotly. “It’s aboundary—” But he breaks off and glares at me. “And didn’t I tell you we would only have this argument if you kissed me?”
“You also said that if I kissedyou, I would be yours.” There’s something light and airy bubbling up in my chest, something giddy.
“Yes,” he says, his eyes still narrowed on me. “You’ll be mine. So what? You still can’t use my razor.”
“So we’ll have a joint bank account, right?” I say with a shrug. “Which means what’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine.”
He puffs out a little laugh of disbelief. “You have two seconds to drop it, you completemenace,” he says against my lips then, “or I’m going to?—”
“What?” I say with a smirk. “Throw me over your shoulder? Pin me to a bookshelf? Put a dead fish in my mailbox?”
“Kiss you,” he says, grinning; I can feel every word he speaks. “Kiss you first and forever and Iswear, Holland, if you use my razor again?—”
“Sweetheart,” I say, pressing the word to his lips. “I likesweetheart.”
“Sweetheart,” he says, his hands on my waist pulling me to the edge of the desk. “Fine.”
Silence, stillness, for the space of two long seconds—infinity suspended in an hourglass, my pulse thrumming at the glaze of sheer longing in his eyes.
I don’t know who moves first. One instant our eyes are locked, our breath mingling, and the next we’re kissing—desperate, determined, the breaking of a dam. We fall into the motions with ease, the back-and-forth tug, the tilt of our heads, the slide of our lips.
“Such a pain,” he breathes as he breaks away and skims his lips up my jaw.
“At least I’m not in a secret relationship with myrazor—ow!” I say, laughing as he nips at my ear.
“Don’t be rude,” he murmurs between the kisses he trails back down my jaw. When his lips meet mine again, they’rehungrier, more demanding; his hands slide up my sides, and I scoot closer until I’m about to fall off the desk.
And it hits me just as his tongue traces the seam of my lips: he’s right.
I think I’m going to fall in love with my husband.
The storm laststhrough the night.
We search all the supply closets in the building when it’s time to go to bed, but we can’t find any blankets or pillows—not surprising, but still disappointing. So we end up lying on the hard floor in Phoenix’s office, our heads propped on the cushions we’ve removed from his leather chairs.
“So now that you’re madly in love with me,” I say—Phoenix snorts from next to me—“I have some questions.”
“No questions,” he says, his eyes closed. “Go to sleep.” He’s lying on his back, one hand resting neatly on his stomach; his other hand is by his side, fingers tangled loosely with mine.
“You don’t really think I can sleep on this floor, do you?” I say with a frown. “It’s like granite.”
He hums. “Such a snob.”
“I’m not a snob!” I say. It’s mostly true. “I just can’t rest on surfaces this hard. So let me ask my questions.” When he doesn’t answer, I roll my eyes. “Don’t pretend. I will pay you actual money if you fall asleep, because I don’t think it will happen. You sleep on a million-dollar mattress.”