Well Suited (Red Lipstick Coalition #4)(37)

“Mmm,” he hummed. “I’d like to know how they fit. By the way, it’s been nearly a week,” he said as if I hadn’t been counting. His eyes were on my lips, the anticipation firing nerves across mine, setting them tingling.

“It has.”

His tongue swept his bottom lip, drawing it into his mouth. “It’s been a long week.”

“It has,” I breathed. Kiss me. Kiss me. KISS ME, DAMMIT.

But instead, he took a step back, the look on his face smug and teasing, though under it, I saw his restraint. “Good thing we have rules, Kate. Otherwise, I’d lock that door and fuck you right here on the counter.”

He turned, reaching for another box from the floor, probably so I wouldn’t do it myself. And I stood there, hanging on to the countertop with white knuckles, trying to put my face back together as a burst of imagery of him banging me right here, right now, grabbed my brain’s steering wheel and drove it away like a getaway car.

Theo ripped the box open with his bare hands, the pop and snap of packing tape shockingly masculine. It made me think of him ripping other things. Like panties.

The research I’d done indicated my libido might be heightened because of hormones, which I’d found to be undeniably, frustratingly true. But when he did things like ripping boxes apart and hauling furniture and cooking and smelling like a goddamn man feast and such, it magnified all that sexual frustration by a thousand times.

I sighed, releasing the countertop and turning for the box he’d so unceremoniously ripped from my hands.

He reached into his box, unloading its contents neatly onto the counter, changing the subject to dinner. And I half listened, my eyes occasionally darting to his hands, which were massive and broad, remembering all the things those hands could do, reminiscing about how they felt on my body.

And he was oblivious, going on about the menu as I fantasized about him over cotton balls and Q-tips.

He wouldn’t kiss me because he was following the rules like the gentleman he was.

Bastard.

I realized belatedly that he was watching me as if he was waiting on an answer to an unheard question.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening,” I admitted. “What did you say?”

A smile, sideways and sly. “I said, I was surprised to find you listening to electronic music. I figured you for a Tchaikovsky type of girl.”

“I like electronic music. It sounds like math.”

A laugh. “What were you thinking about just now?”

“The very long week,” I answered.

“Well, you know how to put an end to it.”

“I do, but we still have two more days until it’s officially been a week. We’d be breaking the rules.”

“Some people say rules are meant to be broken.” He picked up the empty box, ripping the bottom tape to break it down.

“Those people are philistines and monsters. Rules are meant to keep people safe and bring order. Without order, it’s anarchy. Mayhem. Just think—if I broke the rules now, what would stop me from breaking them again?”

“That’s kinda what I’m hoping for, if I’m being honest.”

I found myself chuckling simply because I wanted to break the rules just as badly as he seemed to want me to. We’d had a total of four hook-ups, including the first. And each one had gotten progressively more difficult to ignore or forget. I’d hoped I would get the urge out of my system, but instead, I wanted to slither over to him and slide my hands into his pants so I could—

“Kate, did you hear me?”

I straightened up, busying myself with putting things away. “I was daydreaming again. What was that you said?”

“Just that I love that you love rules, that they give you what you want. And then I asked if you’ve always been this way.”

“Always,” I said without hesitation. “Stuffed animals were lined up biggest to smallest, left to right, back to front. For Christmas, I usually asked for things like drawer organizers and closet organizers and, well, really any kind or organizers.”

“Spice organizers?”

“Oh, yes. And Tupperware organizers. Those little racks that sort your pot and pan lids? The kind that hang over the back of the cabinet door?” I shuddered in pleasure.

He laughed. “We have those.”

“You would,” I said with a smile. “I love when things are tidy. When everything has a place. Chaos and I are not friends.”

“I’d imagine not. But you have the uncanny ability to bend almost anything to your will, Tupperware lids or otherwise. Chaos stands no chance against you.”

Another box was emptied, the rip of tape sending that other shudder down my back, the one he seemed to trigger so often. And now we’d be living together, without space or the distance of time to keep all my feelings at bay.

I should have been worried, but I wasn’t. Not beyond a fluttering of concern that was gone as soon as it appeared.

Maybe the rules weren’t gospel. Maybe we could redefine them. Two days seemed like an eternity to wait.

I wanted him to kiss me, and I wanted him to kiss me now.

I wanted him to do more than that.

And I knew how to make him.

All it would take was a little tube of red lipstick.



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