Mr. Wrong Number(38)

He pulled open the door, wearing an unbuttoned dress shirt and nice pants, and there was an undone tie hanging around his neck.

“Guess what.” I pictured the apartment and couldn’t help but squeal. “I got the apartment!”

“Shut up—for real?” He gave me a wide grin that was like the role model for all other smiles. “Congratulations!”

I squealed again and then we were hugging. It was a total friend hug, a hug of supportive congratulations, but as soon as it commenced my brain was shorting out from the feel of his hands wrapped around my waist.

The smell of his neck.

The bumpy musculature of his shoulders.

I pulled back, but when I did—holy damn—his blue eyes were hot. I licked my lower lip, about to blabber some bullshit small talk, when his hands came up to my face and his mouth came down on mine.

No drift, no lean, no subliminal staring at each other’s mouths as if to suggestively remind the other that kissing existed. No, this was decisive.

My fingers curled into the white cotton that covered his shoulders, and his mouth ate at mine like it was a ripe fruit and he was starved for its sweetness. Had been starved for an age. His lips were wild and aggressive, teasing and biting and making me purr into his mouth, but the way he held my cheeks left no question that all of the choices were mine to make.

I turned a little, backing against the doorframe so he could lean all of his body into mine.

And he did.

It was fire and passion and starvation, and I wanted to wrap my legs around his waist and make the dumbest possible decision I could make.

But.

“Colin.” I panted his name through biting kisses. “What are we doing?”

“Fuck, Liv.” His eyes were dark and intense as he fed me razor-sharp kisses that rubbed his day’s stubble against my skin in the most delicious way. “I have no idea.”

I put my hands on his biceps—good God—and squeezed. “We should.” That tongue, shit. “Probably stop.”

“I know.” His teeth dragged over my earlobe and I felt it everywhere. “Why the hell am I kissing the biggest pain in the ass I know?”

I dug my fingernails into his skin as his mouth did wicked things. “Because I’m irresistible, you cocky dipshit.”

“Says you.”

His mouth was back on mine then, and the doorframe was digging into my back as our bodies were pressed so tightly together that I could feel every. Single. Inch. Of. Him.

Oh, holy hell.

“Colin. Really.” I freed my mouth long enough to repeat, “What are we doing?”

That was the exact second we heard Jack’s keys in the lock, so we jumped apart. I blinked fast, as did he, and he said, “Let’s not make this weird, okay? We were both excited and kind of forgot ourselves. No big deal, right?”

I nodded and touched my lips, trying not to look at the bare chest that’d just been pressed against me. “Right.”

Jack came in, slamming the door behind him as he carried a bag from Taco Bell over to the table. He barely shot us a glance as he sat down, so I murmured a “G’night, you guys” and slipped away into my room.





Colin


Holy shit. Had that really just happened?

I changed out of my clothes and threw them on the chair by the window, too wired to be bothered with putting them away. I paced my room like a caged animal, freaking out over my stupid punk-ass move.

I’d kissed Olivia.

I had kissed the little sister of my best friend like a total asshole. Why? Oh, yeah—because she had hugged me. I was such a big dumb oaf that the smell of perfume on her neck and the feel of her hands on my shoulders had made me lose my shit.

Fucking weak much?

Jack would kill me if he ever found out, and that would be the total right move, by the way. I’d seen him go apeshit over harmless little pricks sniffing around his sister’s back when she was in middle school, and I knew it’d be no different today.

Hell, if Olivia were my sister (praise Jesus that she wasn’t), I’d react the exact same way.

The worst part about it was that even as I cursed myself for my stupidity, I couldn’t stop thinking about the way she’d kissed me back. Because it’d been exactly the way she’d said it would be when she’d texted Mr. Wrong Number. She liked it hot and heavy and up against the wall, right?

Her kiss was definitely a preview of that unholy hotness.

After another hour of mentally kicking my own ass, I laced up my shoes and went for a run. Clearly my mind wasn’t going to get tired, so maybe if my body did, sleep would eventually come and save me from my thoughts.





10





Olivia


“I cannot believe what I’m hearing.”

“I know,” I said, carrying two glasses of prosecco over to the table. Sara was unboxing our food—fried ravioli and a loaf of focaccia from Caniglia’s—and staring at me as if I’d grown a second head. I gave her a sheepish grin and murmured, “I can’t quite believe it myself.”

She’d called last night, right after the kiss and smack-dab in the middle of my mental freak-out, to see if I wanted to grab food and catch up sometime. I said something desperate like “can we tomorrow, please?” and thankfully, she was down for a quick happy hour. I hadn’t planned on telling her about the kiss, but the minute she’d walked into the condo and asked how I was, I’d blurted out the whole thing over our first bottle of wine.