The Decoy Girlfriend(71)
Taft promptly resolves to use the endearment more often. Every day if she wants. His fingertips brush her jaw, skating up her cheek and slipping into her hair to cradle her face. “Can I kiss you?”
“Finally.” Her voice is husky, heavy with want. “What are you waiting for?”
“So demanding,” Taft teases, but there’s no world in which he doesn’t oblige her.
He doesn’t start with Freya’s lips, like he’s sure she expects. The first kiss Taft perches is on her shoulder, a place he’s always found tempting. He’s rewarded by the shiver that goes through her, followed by the breathy, needy whimper as he drags his mouth up her throat to gently suck at her pulse point.
He’s careful not to leave a hickey, since he’s not sure how she’d feel about it, but from the way her fingers insistently dig into him, he gets the sense she wouldn’t mind. Smiling against her skin, his lips sweep along her jaw, the softness under her chin, and then, the final destination they’ve both been aching for.
It isn’t like the thought of kissing her hasn’t been devouring him ever since they first met at Books & Brambles, the barbs flinging from her mouth at such odds with the gentle, almost loving way she smoothed her hands over that corgi wrapping paper. He’d wanted her even more when he realized she was the girl in the red dress, fleeing like Cinderella at the ball.
But now the anticipatory buildup is a crescendo in his chest, the pulse of the city all around them, and Taft knows that this kiss has nothing to do with their cover and everything to do with her.
“Taft?” Her whisper is a little unsure. “I . . . I think the photographer’s moved on.”
“I told you once that when I kiss you, it wouldn’t be for anyone else.”
She nods uncertainly.
Hovering over her lips, Taft murmurs, “Whether or not we’re being chased, I want you to know that I want this.”
And then he closes what little distance remains between them, capturing her sweetness with a hunger he can’t remember ever feeling before. That first taste is like summer lightning on a hot, humid Texan night. Those sultry temperatures have nothing on the heat that’s radiating from both of them in this alley, and when Freya squeezes him even closer, like she can’t get enough of him, he can’t remember why he wasn’t kissing her all along.
Her lips are soft and firm, and she knows how to use her tongue, exactly as he remembers from the photo shoot. She coaxes entry into his mouth using the perfect amount of pressure, and when the kiss deepens, she scratches her nails into his scalp, making him hiss with pleasure.
She’s nestled into his body so fully that there’s no way she doesn’t feel his growing erection against her thigh, but she stays where she is.
Like there’s nowhere else she’d rather be but here in his arms.
When they part for breath, Taft comes to with slow, languid blinks like he’s coming out of a dream.
His thoughts feel fuzzy, but he knows he has to stop before they go any further. Freya deserves better than an alley behind a bar, and even though need rages through him, he wants her in his bed, with sheets and a door and no risk of bystanders. He wants to savor her, give her slow, exquisite pleasure, not the rushed desire of a quickie.
“Let’s go back home,” says Taft. The smokers in the alleyway have left, and he glances toward the street. “The coast is clear.”
Freya doesn’t let go as her eyes search his. “You don’t regret what just happened, do you?” Her shoulders curl in on herself, bracing for bad news. “Like, we aren’t going to go home and you’re going to overthink this? Because if you ice me out again, I don’t think I can—”
“I’m never going to do that again, Freya,” he says before she can finish the sentence. “God, I don’t know how I made it through the first time. It killed me to hold myself apart from you.”
Taft can tell that these are the words of reassurance she needs to hear when the tension leaves her body and she gives him a shimmering smile he’s never seen before.
Freya slips her fingers between his, squeezing their interlocked fingers. “Then let’s go home.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The drive home is a blur. All Freya remembers is that they were there and now they’re here, shoving their way into the bedroom, fingers wandering with abandon, both of them breathing erratically as they steal kisses back and forth.
“Bed,” Taft groans into her ear.
Her breasts feel heavy and tight, nipples hardening at the tickle of his breath. “You’ll need to unzip me,” she says, placing his hand on the small of her back.
“Soon.” His eyes are dark with promise. “Sit on the edge of the bed first.”
She watches him take off his black jacket and drape it over the footboard. A few loose curls flop onto his forehead and with an impatient sound, he rakes them back. He looks sinfully good in his black pants and white dress shirt, no longer crisp, especially when he rolls back the sleeves.
Taft kneels at her feet and places one hand on each of her knees, parting them slow enough that she could stop him if she wanted. “Can I?” he asks, voice losing all trace of authoritativeness and abruptly replaced with a vulnerability that makes her unable to deny him anything.
She can’t say she’s not nervous, but she nods.