Well Suited (Red Lipstick Coalition #4)(3)

“You smell so nice,” she murmured. “I don’t recall ever noticing how a man smells. Not a pleasant smell at least.”

I wasn’t sure what to say, staring into the face of this amusing creature, so brash and strange and lovely.

She spoke first, “Our brains are incredible machines. They know when to open and close gates for pheromones, how to detect chemosignals from another human and make decisions based on them. Adrenaline. Oxytocin. Dopamine. Before we know anything about each other, there’s a level of compatibility that can be determined simply by smell.”

“Well then, I’m even more flattered.”

She didn’t acknowledge what I’d said, just continued as I swayed with her under the golden light of the Edison bulbs. “Everything we feel can be equated to a chemical reaction. Lust, for instance, is driven by a desire for sexual gratification.”

“Kate,” I said with a sideways smile and a thumping pulse, “are you coming on to me?”

“Katherine, and maybe. Something about the way you smell, the way you move, makes me salivate. Do you think I smell good, too?”

I would have called the question timid had it not been so unaffected by emotion. “Hmm. Let’s see.” My hand shifted from her waist and gathered her hair to expose her neck. And I lowered my nose to the column, brushed the silky skin, dragged the tip up to the space behind her jaw, around the curve of muscle to the hollow behind her ear.

She smelled like rain and fresh-cut flowers, like desire and unspoken promises. She smelled like my last meal, like a color I’d never seen before. Like a sense I hadn’t known I had was awakened simply by the proximity of my lips to her skin.

Her breath consisted of shallow sips of air. Her fist around my lapel clutched tighter and pulled like she wanted me to wrap myself around her.

I caught her earlobe in my teeth. A shudder trembled through her.

“Good enough to eat,” I whispered into the curve of her ear.

“Did you know that lips are the most exposed erogenous zone we possess?” The question was rough and shaky.

I couldn’t seem to stop myself from nuzzling her neck, breathing her in. “I might have been able to guess.”

Her neck bent, cradling my face to keep it where it was. “Lip contact engages five of twelve total cranial nerves. Every sense is engaged. Electricity is sent between our brains, skin, tongues, lips, back and forth, carrying the signals to relay every feeling.”

My lips closed over the tender skin behind her ear, trying to understand how her clinical explanation of kissing was so hot. “Do you want me to kiss you, Kate?”

“Katherine,” she breathed. “And yes, I think I do.”

I dislodged myself from her, fueled only by the knowledge that if I did, I could kiss her.

But not yet. Not here.

Instead, I cupped her jaw and looked into her eyes. “What do you say we get out of here?”

And with a smile, she answered, “I’d say, lead the way.”

We spent the following few minutes saying goodbye to everyone under the guise of me getting her home safely. Without a sideways glance, they sent us on. I found myself surprised. No one had noticed our exchange or whatever zinged between us. Maybe I appeared unassuming, or maybe they doubted Katherine’s desire to go home with anyone.

Either way, they were wrong.

We hurried out of the club, slipping silently into a taxi. The second he had his destination—her place, which was slated to be empty all night—I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her across the bench, tucking her into my side with another neat, nearly audible click. She felt it too, leaned into it. Into me.

Anticipation, thick and heady, clung to every molecule between us.

Her face turned to mine, a request for a kiss.

One that I denied.

Instead, I engaged every other avenue of connection. Hooked her knees to sling her legs across my lap. My fingertips tasted the skin of her thigh, slid under the hem of her dress, only high enough to tease. My lips I kept directed to the front window, a testament to my will as her hands cupped my neck, my jaw, tested the consistency of my hair with thirsty fingertips. Her lips—I could feel them across the slim space, her breath humid and sweet—hovered over the tender, tingling skin of my neck, just above my thrumming pulse.

It was a game, a teasing game of control, a momentary denial of the thing we wanted desperately as we reveled in the sweet suspense of restraint.

I touched her in places never considered indecent—the hollow under the ball of her ankle, the tendon behind her knee, the soft space inside her elbow, the dip above her collarbone. Every second that kiss was denied heightened the simmering desire, the strange, unexpected tingling of my lips painful in intensity. She squirmed in my lap, setting another painfully intense sensation beneath her legs with the rise of my cock. It was unmistakable, and for a moment, I feared she’d shift away. But instead, the smallest moan slipped from her, and her thighs—thighs I’d have around my waist or so help me—shifted against my aching length.

And still, I didn’t kiss her.

But the desire to consumed every thought.

When the cab stopped, I shoved a wad of cash at the driver before throwing the door open. Her hand was in mine. We trotted up the steps. She unlocked the door with trembling hands. And then we were inside the dark house, the door closing with a snick, shutting out the city and the night outside.