Irresistibly Yours (Oxford #1)(40)

“What’s going on with you?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said, the single word managing to sound huffy.

“Look, I’m sorry you had to see that, but—”

“It was hardly appropriate, Cole.”

“The only thing inappropriate is Meredith. The woman is up here every other week. Thinks that Oxford is her personal hunting ground for her next flavor of the week. Lincoln’s rejected her one too many times, so she’s moved on to me.”

Penelope pointed an accusing finger at him. “You didn’t seem to mind.

“I don’t want Meredith,” he said quietly, “but Tiny, you can’t go around telling me you hate my kisses and then get mad when I try to give them to someone else—”

“I never said I hated that kiss,” she interrupted.

He broke off, and then his smile was slow and sexy.

Too late, she realized she’d walked into the trap of a very, very skilled seducer.

“Is that so?” he said, in a low, sexy voice.

She rolled her eyes and tried to play it off. “I just meant, it didn’t suck.”

“But you didn’t want me to do it again,” he said, moving toward her.

“I—I didn’t think it was a good idea,” she said, backing up.

He continued moving toward her and Penelope’s butt hit the desk; she was completely out of room to back away.

Cole paused when there were just inches between them.

“That’s not an answer. Do you want me to do it again? Have you been thinking about me? Kissing you? Touching you?”

She could feel his breath on her face as she glanced down to avoid eye contact.

A mistake, because her eyes latched onto his arm.

No suit jacket today, and he’d rolled his dress shirt up to his elbows, exposing forearms covered in crinkly, gorgeous arm hair.

Gorgeous arm hair?

Oh, man. She was in trouble. Serious trouble.

She tried to move to the side, but his hands came up, caging her against the desk.

The posture was an almost exact replica of the scene she’d walked in on just minutes earlier, and it was exactly the reminder she needed that Cole didn’t want her.

He wanted conquests.

Penelope folded her arms across her chest and forced herself to meet his eyes. “Go call Meredith back if you want to get frisky on a desk,” she snapped. “I’m not interested.”

“Aren’t you?” he said, his eyes on her mouth.

“I just said I wasn’t.”

“So you don’t want my lips on yours? You’re sure?”

Penelope hesitated. It was just for a second, but she saw from the flare of triumph in his eyes that he’d noticed the pause.

“Leave me alone, Cole.”

His palms were so close that with just the slightest movement of his thumbs, he would have brushed the outside of her hips.

Hips that were tiny and boyish instead of lush and curvy. If she leaned forward, her chest would brush his, but it was a chest that was flat and barely filled out a bra.

And still, she wanted…She desperately wanted.

“Penelope.”

His voice was gentle now. More concerned than seductive.

“What?” she said, her own voice low. Defeated. Maybe a little sad.

“You really don’t want me to kiss you? I’m not going to force myself on a woman, so if you tell me to go, I’ll go. You want me to release you, I’ll release you. But I’ve gotta tell you, babe, the way you’re looking at me…”

She felt a spike of anger. “You were just kissing another woman.”

“Actually, she was kissing me.”

“And I’m sure you were just standing there, not enjoying it.”

“I hadn’t decided whether I wanted to get into it or not,” he said.

She made a disgusted noise, shoved at his shoulders. “You’re disgusting.”

He held fast, refusing to move. “The thing is, Tiny…When it comes to you, I don’t have to decide. I don’t have to stop and think about if I want to kiss you. I know. I know every damn day when I see you put on mascara in the reflection of your computer monitor because you forgot to do it at home. I know when we go get coffee together and you can recite every single thing that happened on ESPN the night before. I know when I share my French fries with you at lunch and you eat all of them. I know—”

Penelope placed her lips against his.

She didn’t mean to. Really she didn’t. She didn’t remember making the decision to move.

But she had, and she was kissing Cole.

His response was immediate, his lips fighting with hers to get control of the kiss, and yet his hands never moved. He used nothing but lips and body heat to seduce her.

But Penelope used her hands. His tongue slipped into her mouth and she made a little sighing noise as her hands lifted to tug at his collar and hold his lips to hers.

He tilted his head, deepened the kiss, and if Penelope thought the kiss in the snow had been out of this world, this kiss was in an entirely different universe. A universe where gorgeous men wanted to kiss tomboys.

Objectively, she knew that he only wanted her because she’d rejected him. A man like Cole liked a challenge. After this kiss—this wonderfully wanton kiss that she’d initiated—his ardor would cool and he’d be off to chase some other woman.