‘That’s a … a … another way of sayingmousy,’ she whispered. Fear threaded through her tone but also something else … something like anticipation.
‘Look at me,’ he said against her neck, and she shuddered. His hand moved from the side of her head to her cheek and he put steady pressure on it until he’d turned her face to look at him. His forehead rested against hers for a moment. ‘You could never be mousy,’ he muttered against her mouth, and then he kissed her.
She flinched at the contact and he slid his hand back through her fucking fantastic hair to the back of her head to turn her where he wanted her. His other hand moved across the soft material of her jumper from her stomach to her back. She was stiff in his arms for a moment before his mouth started moving softly against hers.
‘It’s okay, baby,’ he said against her lips. Somehow that flipped a switch. She melted into him as soon as the wordbabyleft his mouth. Her hands, which had been clenched in her lap, now moved: one into his hair and the other onto his bicep.
Then she kissed him back.
This was not a confident kiss; is was not an experienced kiss; and God knows Pav had kissed more than his fair share of confident, experienced women. But it was, hands down, the most unbelievable erotic experience of his life. He hadn’t even moved past first base but he was more turned on by this simple kiss than he ever had been before. So when she suddenly tore away from him and launched up from the sofa to run around it to the other side he was stunned and it almost felt like he was in physical pain.
‘Baby, what on –’
‘D-don’t youb-babyme!’ she cut him off, her face flushed with colour and her hair wild around it, which had the unfortunate effect of enhancing her beauty and making Pav’s pain level ratchet up another notch. ‘Y-you with your “babies” and your “loves” and your st-stupid forearms.’
Pav frowned. ‘My forearms? What on earth do my forearms have to do with anything?’
‘I’mnotyour love though,’ Millie said, and her body started shaking as she stood her ground.
‘Okay,’ Pav said, keeping his voice calm and level and standing slowly from the sofa. ‘Okay, let’s go back to the beginning here. Tell me what I’ve done to upset you, all right? We’ll work from there.’
‘I … I … you’ve scrambled my brain!’ she threw out helplessly, and then wrapped her arms around her shaking body. Pav’s chest clenched again and he held his hands up, palms forward in a gesture of surrender.
‘Millie? Take a deep breath and slow down, okay? Can you come here to me and sit down again.’
‘N-n-no,’ she choked out, shaking her head furiously. As he watched the blood drain from her face, Pav had a sudden vision of that awful moment before she passed out in the lecture theatre, and he started to feel some real concern.
‘Right, if you can’t come to me, I’m going to come to you. Okay?’
‘Don’t come any closer,’ she shouted, her arm coming up to ward him off.
‘It’s okay,’ he told her, taking a few slow steps towards her, his hands held out in front of him like he was approaching an easily spooked animal. ‘Slow your breathing down, Millie, okay? Can you do that? She closed her eyes and shook her head.
Somehow Pav knew he needed to get closer. He made it to her outstretched hand and moved forward so that it was resting on his chest. After a few beats, her hand grabbed a handful of his jumper and she pulled him forward. Pav took another chance. He wrapped his arms around her and moved her body into his with both her hands now resting on his chest and her arms pressed between them. ‘Breath with me, baby. Okay?’ She let out a puff of air, and as his chest expanded under her hands she took in more air. After another minute their breathing had slowed right down, and she was no longer shaking.
‘Is it safe to ask what that was about now?’ he said tentatively as he stroked her hair.
‘I like to do research,’ she told him nonsensically, her voice muffled as she spoke into the wool of his jumper.
‘Uh … okay?’ he said slowly, and waited.
‘I’m not a spontaneous person. I make decisions based on an extensive knowledge of the subject matter.’
‘Right …’
She sighed. ‘All I know about you is that you are … I mean, you seem to …’
He gave her a squeeze. ‘I guarantee that what you think you know about me will be bad.’
She pulled away from him then and he let her go back a couple of inches but kept his arms around her.
‘I do not want to conduct a conversation whilst engaged in an inappropriate embrace.’
Pav couldn’t help it then: he smiled. ‘Inappropriate how?’
Millie narrowed her eyes at him and he barely held in his chuckle. ‘You shouldn’t be holding me,’ she told him.
‘Why not?’
