Levering forward at the hips, she looked over her shoulder at him. For a moment he thought she was going to warn him to go easy or something boring but instead she shot him a wry smile. ‘Do you think I can trust you not to put up your father’s awards on eBay or something equally as impulsive?’
‘Ooh…’ Now thatwouldbe kinda awesome. ‘Probably not.’ He wasn’t sure this strange mood he was in could be trusted with anything. Picking up his glass, he downed the last finger of cognac, sucking in the velvety kick on an indrawn breath. ‘Better hit the sack too, just in cases.’
‘Love Actually?’
‘Ha!’ He pointed at her. Or at least in her general direction anyway. ‘You got it.’
‘I’m not a complete heathen,’ she said, rolling her eyes as she stood.
Oliver also pushed to his feet, flicking the TV off with the remote, plunging the room into darkness apart from the muted light spilling over the awards on the top shelf. Casper had already disappeared up the stairs by the time Oliver was following behind Paige, her tiger stripes swaying from side to side with all the natural grace of the animal itself which was really quite hypnotising.
She took the first two stairs and he dragged his eyes off her ass as he realised he really hadn’t thanked her for today. ‘Thanks,’ he said. Her foot faltered on the third step. ‘For today. Seriously. I know I made a fuss about going but it’s given me a much deeper insight into my father. It was something I truly hadn’t expected.’
Slowly, she turned, her elevation equalising their heights and putting her far closer to him than was good for his sanity right now. Her full lips were a ripe, red rouge as her familiar zestiness tickled his nostrils. The lush rise and fall of her cleavage was right there in his peripheral vision, daring him to look. To touch.
To prove that it was indeed as soft as it looked.
Oliver’s mouth turned dry as the shavings in Pavarotti’s cage and the air in his lungs followed suit. The low, slow thud of his pulse beat loud in his ears as the air around them seemed to bloom, thick with possibility.
‘Even if you were roped into taking Oscar in for young Stevie’s show and tell?’
Despite the intimacy encroaching around them, Oliver laughed, ‘Yes.’
She laughed too and they were both laughing and it felt damn good. But it didn’t ruin the intimacy; if anything, it intensified as his gaze zeroed in on her mouth. It was close – so close he could smell the minty note of her toothpaste on her breath.
Would she taste minty? Would the mix of cognac and Colgate be as heady in actuality as it was just thinking about it? The thick surge of blood beating through every pulse point in his body demanded he find out.
‘You’ve been a real godsend, Paige Barker, you know that?’
He hadn’t planned on saying that – hell, none of this was planned – but it was true. Except it appeared to not be the right thing to say as she seemed to flinch and the shutters slowly came down on her laughing eyes.
Which was more than Oliver could bear. So, he leaned in and kissed her, sliding in before they shut for good.
Alsonotplanned. And, for a second, they both just stood there in the startling moment, bodies tense, joined only by two sets of stiff, unmoving lips, Oliver unsure about his next move.
Smooth, dude. Real smooth.
Should he withdraw and apologise? Brace for a kick to his balls? Or slide his hand into her hair and deepen the damn thing like every cell in his body was demanding? The moment stretched, one beat, two. A couple of seconds suspended in time, the fate of the kiss hanging in the balance, his heart not beating at all right now, also suspended as if the very next beat depended on how the moment played out.
Then she made a little noise at the back of her throat, the kind of noise that came from deep primitive places and her entire body relaxed, the tension holding her rigid oozing away, her lips softening on a sigh that Oliver felt right down in his own primitive places.
His heart kickstarted and he breathed her in as his lips moved gently, opening a little, brushing across her mouth, probing, coaxing, growing a little bolder as she responded to the deepening, kissing him back a little.
Chaste and tentative for sure but definitely reciprocal.
A hot, giddy rush of triumph and pleasure surged straight to Oliver’s head and buzzed through every cell of his body. He’d had a lot of first kisses in his life. Many had been way more X-rated than this but none of them had been with this giddying woman who had confounded him from the start and was confounding him even now. The taste of her lips like the taste of his father’s cognac – ripe, full-bodied, off-limits.
Addicting.
Alas, it did not last long, her abrupt withdrawal a confusing moment for both of them if the way she stared at him was any indication. Her breathing was as ragged as his as her tongue absently touched her bottom lip like she couldn’t quite believe what had happened.
Clearing the thickness from his throat, Oliver broke the burgeoning silence. ‘Paige?—’
But she shook her head vigorously, cutting him off, which wasn’t a bad thing given he had no idea what he was going to say next.
‘Don’t,’ she whispered.
Oliver wasn’t sure what she meant by ‘don’t’. Don’t talk. Don’t look at me. Don’t try and make this better? So he just said, ‘Okay,’ because he’d say anything right now to ease the torment from her features.
