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Before I knew what he was doing, he leaned in and tugged my bottom lip between his teeth, nipping to the very edge of pain before releasing me.
I liked the results of teasing him, so I went on. “You could dress up as Kylo Ren, I’ll be Lydia. It’ll be a whole kinky thing.”
His forehead rolled against mine as he exhaled through his nose. “I expected you to be weirded out, not doing…whatever it is you’re doing.”
I circled my arms around his neck. “I’m taunting you. Maybe if I’m bad enough, I’ll get another one of those kisses.”
His groan was pained. “Jesus, Cupcake. You need to stop or I’m going to bend you over this counter and spank you until you can’t walk straight.”
He had me panting with one threat. “Out here, where anyone could see?”
“Mmmhmm.” Sucking in a breath, he raised his head and took half a step back. “Are you okay?”
I touched my lips, which were tingling now that he wasn’t ravaging them. “I’m fine. You?”
“Good.” Twisting to the side, he adjusted himself in his joggers. “I didn’t make it weird by kissing you?”
My eyes flared. “You think the kissing was the weird part?”
One second passed, then he was bent in half, laughing so hard, he barely made a sound. His laughter drew mine out. My body contracted, falling to the side as I giggled until my eyes were watering and my abs gave out. Then I slid off the counter. Miles caught me, hugging me against him until the last tremors of laughter disappeared, and we were left smiling at each other.
“We should go join the others,” I said.
“Yeah. We should do that.”
We stood there a minute or two longer, smiling at each other like two people who’d uncovered the very best secret. And we had. We now knew the taste and feel of one another, and that our wilds just might match. What we did with that knowledge was yet to be seen, but there was no going back to how things were before.
Chapter Twenty-two
Miles
I had a reckless streak a mile wide. That was a facet of my personality abstaining from alcohol made no dent in. It was brain chemistry. My ADHD and the general makeup of who I was urged me to test boundaries, to balance on narrow ledges and tease hungry lions.
Or, in this case, the woman who’d entrusted me with her business and herself in a lot of ways. Kissing Daisy had been the start of my recklessness, but it hadn’t ended there.
We were supposed to check out of the house this morning. The others had already packed up and were headed home. But I took one look at the hot tub I’d barely dunked my toes in, arched a brow at Daisy, and she’d nodded.
It was broad daylight, cleaners would be descending on the house any minute, but we were sitting in the hot tub like we had all the time and privacy in the world.
“You should put a hot tub on your deck,” she said.
“Probably.” I spread my arms out on the sides and let my head fall back. “But then it wouldn’t be special anymore. I like hot tubs because I only get to use them when I take trips.”
“That’s a good point. When we took road trips, we’d always stay at hotels with continental breakfast. I was obsessed with the cheese danishes inevitably on the buffet. One time, after we got home, I convinced my mom to buy me a package of them for breakfast.”
I groaned, knowing where this was going. “Ruined it for you?”
“Yeah. I was so sad. On vacation, I lived on those danishes, but at home, it was like eating cardboard with curdled cream in the center. They were never the same for me.”
I found her foot under the water and hooked it with mine, drawing it into my lap. “I like your stories, Daisy-daze. Hearing that kind of normalcy is like a balm.”
She pressed her toes into my abdomen. “You might not have had it when you were a kid, but there’s nothing stopping you from having it now.”
I caught her foot in both hands and dug my thumb into her arch. She immediately went lax, her head falling against the cushion, lips parting.
I wanted to kiss her again. Then I wondered if the churning in my gut and lightness in my chest was due to the magic of vacation. When we got back to the drudgery of real life, would kissing her lose its spark?
If it did, I didn’t want to know.
