Page 67 of IRL: In Real Life
He pulled back just far enough to look at me, and up close, his eyes were darker than they had been across the table. Hungryin a way that made my whole body answer before I could decide whether I wanted to let him see it.
I kissed him first this time.
Harder.
His hand moved to my thigh under the table, fingers pressing in just enough to make me shift closer and open a little toward him. My breath caught. His mouth dragged from mine to the corner of it, then down to brush my jaw before coming back. His beard rasped softly against my skin. His cologne lifted warmer now that I was in it, mixed with mint and bourbon and the heat of his breath every time he pulled back just enough to keep from doing too much.
That might have been the part that made it worse.
He was holding back.
I could feel it in the controlled grip at my waist, in the restraint of his hand on my thigh, in the tension moving through him every time I leaned closer and he had to decide how much of me he was going to take in a corner booth where anybody could have rounded the wrong corner and seen us acting like we had no home training.
Everything about it felt too good. Too easy to get lost in.
By the time we finally pulled apart, I was breathing through my mouth and hot all over. My lips felt swollen. My nipples ached. My pussy was wet enough to make me shift carefully against the booth, irritated by my own body and still wanting more of the exact thing that had caused the problem.
Micah kept one hand at my waist and let his forehead fall against mine for a second. We sat there like that, close and quiet, both of us trying and failing to act like what had just happened had not rearranged the room.
“Damn,” I whispered.
He laughed once under his breath, still breathing hard. “Yeah.”
I looked at him then. Really looked. At his mouth. His eyes. The way he was trying not to touch me more than he already was and clearly hating the effort.
“You are trouble.”
His thumb brushed once over my side, slow enough to feel like another kiss.
“No,” he said quietly. “This is.”
And the bad part was, he was right.
One week in, and already this felt like a bad idea I wanted with my whole body.
nine
. . .
By the timeI got back to my Benz, I was still hard as a fucking rock.
Hard enough that sitting down felt impossible.
I shut the door, dropped my head back against the seat, and let out one slow breath through my nose like that was supposed to do anything useful.
It didn’t.
Talia was still all over me.
I could still taste her. Mint, liquor, gloss, and something warmer underneath that had been hers alone. I could still feel the way her mouth had opened for me, the way her bodysoftened first and then answered, the little shift in her when my hand moved over her waist and thigh.
And her ass.
The weight of it had filled my lap like it belonged there, soft and heavy enough to make every decent thought in me start looking for the exit. That kind of ass a man felt with his whole body, not just his hands. Even through her dress, through my clothes, I had known exactly what I was holding back from. Every time she shifted, every time that softness pressed down against me, my dick had gone harder, meaner, like my body was offended by all that restraint.
And then that lowdamnagainst my mouth had gone straight into me and made a home there.
I closed my eyes, which was dumb as hell.
