Room-maid(81)

For us to connect.

As his hands roamed, as he left trails of fire everywhere that he touched me, his kisses turned deeper. Wilder, fiercer, somehow even hotter.

I was in this little world that he had created, floating along in the darkness and the heat, my whole body throbbing with mindless want. He was scorching me from the inside out.

Then it wasn’t just my lips that he planned on claiming. One of his hands moved up into my hair and the sensation of his fingers against my scalp sent shudders through me. He pulled back gently, exposing the line of my throat. Then his mouth moved against that delicate skin, skimming it and pressing intermittent kisses to it, so that I had to grab on to his shoulders just to stay upright.

Then he went for the bottom of my earlobe, onto the spot just behind my ear that drove me wild. Like he’d instinctively known exactly where to touch me to make me fall apart in his arms.

The kisses stopped. He was still holding me, but not kissing me. It was more than my brain could work out, muddled as it was. I blinked several times, trying to figure out what was going on. Then he looked at me. He looked at me with so much intensity, with so much want and need, that it took my breath away all over again.

He looked at me like he loved me.

“Madison?” His tone was low, growly, and sent little shivers through me. “Do you think we should stop?”

That took my brain a beat to process. What? Had his tongue slipped? Did he mean to say, Come here and do that again?

I shook my head. I didn’t want to stop. “No.”

Worried that he didn’t believe me, I grabbed his face and dragged his mouth back to mine. I wanted to show him what I wanted. I also wanted him to feel the way I did, the way he made me feel. I wanted him to lose control, to be trapped under a spell of blazing torment.

And I was succeeding. He was frantic now, taking off his jacket, the strap of his laptop bag. I did my best to help him but my eyes were so unfocused that it was hard to see. This was taking too long and I needed his mouth on mine.

Unwilling to wait for him to start kissing me again, I reached out for his shirt, grabbing fistfuls of it as I pulled him to me.

His phone was ringing. We were both so caught up in what we were doing, what our kisses were creating, that I don’t think we noticed at first. But it rang and it rang, persistent.

“Tyler.” I muttered his name against his lips and he let out a soft groan of despair.

“I know, I hear it, too.”

Then he released me, and it was like stepping into an ice bath. Everything seemed cold and cut off and shivery without him right next to me. I crossed my arms over my chest, trying to ward off the icy feeling. It took a second for my head to clear, my eyes to focus. I tried to calm my shallow breathing.

But the desperate need I had for him? To keep kissing him? That wasn’t going anywhere.

“It’s the driver,” he said, looking upset as he ran his fingers through his hair. “I have to go.”

I knew he did. So I just nodded, keeping myself away from him so that I wouldn’t be tempted to try and change his mind. I had wanted to know what it would be like if he ever really kissed me and it was like . . . some out-of-body experience. Something beyond what I could fully comprehend. Like a roller coaster, jumping from a plane, climbing up a sheer rock face, finding designer shoes for eighty percent off, and Christmas morning, all rolled into one.

He put his coat back on and picked up his laptop bag. “Madison, about what just happened—”

“Don’t,” I said, stopping him. My heart sank in my chest. I wasn’t going to let him ruin this by asking me to forget about it, because there’s no way I could do that. “Don’t ask me to pretend this didn’t happen, because I won’t.”

“No.” He looked surprised. “That’s not what I was going to say.”

Oh. “What were you going to say?”

“I . . .” His voice trailed off and he glanced down, almost like he was gathering up some inner strength before his gaze met mine again. The fire I saw there nearly knocked me off my feet. “I want to be with you. I want us. Together. Dating.”

Now I had to be hallucinating. No way this was actually happening. “What?”

“You and me.” He took a step closer, reaching out with his hand to hold the side of my face. “I want this.” His thumb ran over my lips as he said the words and my lower abdomen tightened hard in response. My knees buckled. “And I want more.”

His voice was growly and seductive. All I could do was stare at him as my pulse throbbed throughout my entire body.

“Do you want that, too?” For the first time he sounded a little unsure and I was struck by an urge to laugh hysterically.

Did I want that, too? More than I wanted my next breath. This was my chance to tell him . . . what? I couldn’t admit that I was in love with him. He was saying he wanted us to get together, not that he had fallen for me. I couldn’t jump us fifty steps ahead. We would just have to go slow.

He waited expectantly, and I had to say something. “I . . . I want . . .” Why couldn’t I talk? It was like his kisses had muddled my brain’s ability to function.

His phone buzzed again, reminding us both that he had a car waiting for him. His jaw tightened. “I have to go. My timing sucks. But please, think about it. Don’t decide anything until I get back tomorrow and we can talk.” Then his tone became serious, almost dark. “When I get back there are . . . some things we need to talk about.”