Well Suited (Red Lipstick Coalition #4)(46)

She smiled back, but something else was behind her eyes, words waiting at the corner of her mouth.

I kissed her to loosen them up.

I hadn’t intended the kiss to deepen, but that was the nature of Katherine and me—we were in far less control than either of us would acknowledge. Her arms threaded around my neck, her lips open wide, tongue delving past mine, searching the depths. When I realized her ass was in my hand and my cock was rock hard, I broke the kiss.

“All right. I’m going to get ready for bed, and I’ll meet you there.”

“Okay,” she said, smiling and flushed and breathless.

I kissed her again, this time slow and sweet. I couldn’t understand how she fit so neatly against me, why her face seemed to fill my hand exactly, why her lips fitted to mine with the fit of a tailored suit. Strange. Beautiful. Utterly perfect.

We parted ways, hurrying in opposite directions so we could come back together.

As I changed and brushed my teeth, my mind zipped and zinged with possibility. Every step, every box checked, every marker passed had brought us closer to something bigger, something more. It’d brought us closer to us, to the place where we could be together fully.

And, if I played my cards right, maybe forever.

There was no logic behind the thought, only instinct I felt in my marrow. I understood her in ways I wasn’t sure she understood herself. I understood what she needed and how to provide it, knew when to let her breathe and be and exist without constraint.

I could be her everything. She was already becoming mine.

Things were going exactly as planned.

I padded through the apartment, shutting off lights as I went, a little nervous and a little giddy at the prospect of spending the night with Katherine, something I’d waited for so long, it was almost as enticing as the prospect of sex.

Almost.

When the apartment was dark for the night, I stepped through the threshold of her room.

She had turned down the bed, the only light that of the small lamps on the nightstands. Her hair was long and loose, her nightgown delicate white cotton. The shadow of her body through the thin fabric was sensual without intention, curves I’d come to know quite well.

It was so strange to see a woman in a nightgown like that, almost formal or maybe old-fashioned. When she tucked her hair behind her ear and looked up, she froze but for her eyes, which dragged the length of my naked torso, not stopping until she’d noted every ridge and valley, skimming her eyes down my pajama pants and to my bare feet.

With a series of rapid blinks, she found herself. “I sleep on this side of the bed,” she said matter-of-factly.

I walked around to the other side. “I sleep on this side, so it works for me.”

She smiled down at her hands as she arranged the pillows. “We are a good match, Theodore.”

“We are, Kate,” I said as I slipped between the sheets.

She did the same, but before she could lie down or turn out the lights, I kissed her.

My hand cupped the back of her head as I laid her down, tasted the minty sweetness of her lips, felt the soft curves of her body through the thin barrier of her nightgown. Cupped the swell of her stomach that I loved so deeply. And her arms hung around my neck, holding me to her until the kiss slowed, then stopped.

“I should warn you,” she started, her voice husky and hot, “I’ve never spent the whole night with a man in my bed—or a woman either. So please don’t be offended if I accidentally push, kick, or hit you in the middle of the night. I don’t typically like to be touched, and I can’t speak to my reaction.”

“You sound sure it will be violent.”

“Like I said, I don’t typically like to be touched. Except for when it’s you. It’s strange really,” she mused. “I don’t understand it.”

“You don’t have to understand it.”

“But I’d like to.”

I thumbed her jaw, looking over her face. “Maybe some things can’t be explained.”

“I don’t believe in magic, Theo.”

“I know you don’t. But would you agree there’s mystery and intrigue in things you don’t understand?”

She frowned. “Everything can be explained in some way or another. Action and reaction. Science. Magic isn’t real.”

“You’re uncomfortable leaving a stone unturned. You don’t want to believe in magic.”

“Because I take comfort in what’s real.”

“Because that doesn’t require faith,” I noted.

“I have faith. Faith in facts.”

A smile brushed my lips. “Faith is believing despite the fact. And I’d argue that not all facts are black and white. You have faith in your friends, but there aren’t a set of rules that you apply to your relationship with them.”

“Our friendship is founded on respect and trust.”

“Which were built with time, attachment, and evidence. But don’t you think there’s something beyond your experiences or chemicals that connects you to someone else? Something that motivates you to feel that’s not strictly based in fact?”

Every corner of her face was touched with confusion.

“Okay, let me ask you this: is there something you can’t explain that draws you to one of your friends?”