A Darker Past (The Darker Agency #2)(20)
“I’m saying that I was never interested in easy. You, Jessie Darker, are truly unique. You are stubborn, and strange, and brilliant. And yes, you are difficult, and I love that about you. You don’t accept things at face value. You question and learn and rebel.”
Warmth rippled through me, and my heart swelled. “Aww, you know just what a girl likes to hear,” I said, punching him lightly on the arm.
He caught my wrist and held tight. “My overall point is, you have nothing to worry about.”
“I kinda figured since, yanno, Elaine is dead and all.” Unless of course he had another hundred-year-old ex waiting in the wings.
His voice softened. “From anyone, Jessie. Do you really think I waited all this time to find you only to have my head turned by someone else?”
I sucked in a breath. Confession time. I fished into my pocket and pulled out a pack of gum, then handed him a piece. “This whole relationship thing,” I said, trying hard not to cringe. I hated slapping a label on what we were. Sure, I’d already told him I loved him, but I was willing to bet my toes he hadn’t heard and that was fine by me. I so wasn’t ready for that. “It’s new for me. All of it. The letting myself fall for someone, the jealousy…”
“Ahh,” he said, snickering. “So you were jealous.”
“Of course,” I admitted. “Which was obviously ridiculous because, really, who other than me could possibly put up with you? You’re stuffy and old-fashioned, and—”
The rest of my sentence was cut off by Lukas’s kiss. He pulled me close, winding his arms around my waist with a ferocity that sent a tingle down my spine and ignited an explosive fire in my stomach.
I kissed him back, threading my fingers through his hair, the taste of peppermint gum teasing my tongue. This was rare. Lukas was the perfect gentleman. Granted my influence sometimes caused him to cave, but for the most part, I had to be the one to push things. Of course, when I did, and he got going…fireworks.
He backed me up against the pine tree and slipped his hands beneath my coat, fingers knotting into the material of my shirt. The warmth of them was like an inferno that threatened to spin me out of control. Suddenly the frosty January air was aflame.
When we’d first kissed, I’d been terrified to do it wrong. Kissing wasn’t exactly in the pro column of the Jessie Darker skill set. But I’d gotten through it. Lukas was the first guy I’d ever locked lips with, and each time since then, I got a little more courageous. A little bolder.
Lukas made a move to pull away, arms sliding from beneath my coat, but I stopped him by grabbing one of his hands and guiding it down to my butt. Okay. It was more an inelegant shove than what I’d envisioned to be a sexy slide, but the outcome was the same. Lukas’s hand. On my butt.
Oh my God…
This was an entire universe of new territory for me. We’d messed around, but this was different. Dangerous and exciting. He faltered for a second, probably shocked and scandalized, but I’d made a decision, and I was sticking to it. I kissed him again. His reservations melted away, and he was kissing back with even more enthusiasm than before. A small noise escaped his throat. The sound of it made my knees weak. My stomach flutter. A mix between a growl and a moan that was by far the most amazing thing I’d ever heard.
The kiss became desperate, Lukas winding his free hand through my hair. The feeling that came with it—a slight tug accompanied by a subtle sting—did odd things to my stomach. His other hand, still on my backside, gripped hard and pulled at the denim as he deepened the kiss. The sudden severity of it all made me gasp.
He jerked away, freezing.
So there we both stood. In a dark corner of Dobbs Park, out of breath and steaming despite the thirty-something temperature.
Lukas, still breathing raggedly, let his forehead fall against mine. “I’m—that was—I apologize.” His hands, the one tangled in my hair and the other cupping my backside, hadn’t moved.
My own breath, still coming in uneven pulls, puffed out in a plume of white against the chilly air. “That was kind of intense.”
He tilted his head to the side, skimming his lips across my ear and down the line of my jaw. “I know it’s wrong, but I don’t want to stop,” he whispered.
I didn’t either, but truthfully, this wasn’t really the time or place. It was my fault. The whole butt grab thing had been too much. The guy was a hundred-and-fifty-year-old virgin for crap’s sake. There had to be some serious build up in there.
I pulled away and slipped out from between him and the tree. “I can’t say stopping is really the first thing on my mind either, but other than the fact that it’s freezing out here, we’re kind of exposed. There’s a killer sledding hill just beyond the lake. I do not want to be responsible for scarring some poor kid for life if they catch us. We should really get back to the office, anyway. See what Mom and Dad found out.”
He nodded, but didn’t say a word. Picking up the bag from where it’d fallen in the snow, he backed away, eyes locked on mine. There was a hunger in them. Feral and desperate. A spark of fire I’d never seen in him before.
A large part of me jumped to high alert.
Chapter Eight
I slammed the book closed and stood with a groan. We’d been at this since late afternoon, when we’d gotten back from Dobbs Park. “This is pointless. This lightning dude isn’t in any of our books.”