Page 28 of Every Time We Touch

Chapter 14

Clancy

“You do?” A drop of water slides down Jen’s cheek and it takes all my willpower to stop myself from catching it.

“So very much.” I swallow hard.

“I don’t know what to do.” Clearly, she can look me in the eye. Jen’s intense gaze is intoxicating.

“Neither do I.” God, how I want to kiss her. The drop of water tumbles from her jaw onto her tank top.

“What, um—” Her lips draw into a smile, but it doesn’t last very long. “What is it that you feel?” Jen asks. Her hand moves as if she wants to reach out to me, but then she changes her mind.

“Like… instead of teaching you how to dance the tango, I’d much rather—” I can’t say what I’m about to say. “Kiss you.” I say it, anyway.

Jen releases a shuddering breath. “You understand why I have to walk away.” Her voice sounds as shaky as that breath she just expelled.

I nod while trying to swallow the dryness out of my throat.

“There’s no way I can kiss you.” She just keeps on standing there—quite the opposite of walking away.

“I know.” I shuffle a little closer.

Her hand rises fully this time, grabbing onto the bottom of my tank top. A sigh breaks out of her as if she can’t hold it in to save her life. I don’t wait for her to pull me closer. I bridge the distance between us, until I can feel her shuddering breath on my face.

“I understand,” I whisper as I tilt my head and lean in. For a second we just hover. Too close but also too late to stop.

Jen’s fist tightens around my top. The back of her fingers brush my belly as she pulls me to her.

“Oh, fuck.” She gives the smallest shake of the head. The movement is so tiny, I wouldn’t be able to see it if I weren’t standing so close to her. But I can’t be any closer—or I’d already be kissing her.

My hand slides to her waist. The contact is electric. Her mouth is right there—with those infuriatingly sexy crooked lips—and I can’t stop staring at it. I’m barely breathing, like even the smallest puff of air is too much for this moment. The time for words is well and truly over. And I know I can’t be kissing Jennifer St James, but it’s exactly what I’m about to do.

I brush my lips against hers. It’s barely a touch but it hits me like a bolt of lightning, and my whole body snaps to attention. I wait for her to respond. She can still walk away. She can still end this, which is not something I can say for myself. Her hand relaxes and her fingers stretch against my belly. Then, at last, she presses her lips into mine. It knocks the air right out of me. The pressure of her mouth turns that spark inside me into something I can’t even fathom right now—I can feel it, though—as if something wholly unstoppable is taking over all control of me. My hand tightens at her waist, pulling her in as our kiss deepens, like I need more of her right now or I might lose my mind.

Jen opens her lips to me and her tongue slides against mine. It’s warm and gentle, and for a second all I can do is marvel at how soft she is, how perfectly her lips fit on mine. She tastes like the water she just splashed on her face, clean and cool, and it does nothing to calm me down.

I tilt my head a fraction, press in a little deeper, and she follows immediately. Our kiss is slow, but hardly tentative. Every movement feels purposeful, despite our circumstances. But there’s no thinking anymore. Just the softness of her lips, the way our breath gets caught up together—and this intoxicating pull that makes it impossible to stop.

My skin pops goose bumps and everything that came before—the dancing, the flirting—might as well have been foreplay because as our kiss continues, I feel it everywhere. I want more of her, but I’m already doing something that I shouldn’t. I’m already kissing her. I should stop, but I don’t know how. So I kiss her more. I curve my arm around her waist, pull her closer until I feel the swell of her breasts against mine.

Jen groans low into my mouth as her hand rides up my belly. We keep on kissing, our lips touching over and over again, because once we stop… it’s all over. No explanation required for that. I can’t get enough of Jen’s tongue on mine. But a kiss can’t just stay a kiss forever. There’s heat that multiplies and desire that grows—oh, that pulse between my legs—and there’s only so much pretending I can do. Pretending I can just walk away from this. Because this is not the kind of kiss you walk away from.

Jen’s hand goes stiff against my stomach. Then she pulls back just enough to break the delicious contact between our lips. We both freeze, knowing that as soon as either one of us moves, the spell we’ve been under will be broken.

“What are we doing?” Jen asks. Because of how our heads are angled, I can’t see much of her face, just how her lips move as she asks the question.

I don’t have an answer, except for the obvious. We’re kissing because we can’t help ourselves. If we could, we wouldn’t be doing it.

Jen straightens her neck and our foreheads lose touch. She looks me in the eye and all I see is the same hunger that’s raging inside of me.

“Fuck.” Jen sounds furious as she says it, but instead of walking away, she moves in front of me and pushes me against the wall. She brings her hand to my shoulder—to the spot her fingers dug in so fiercely earlier—then slides it up my neck, until her palm cups my cheek.

I know I have to put a stop to this but the word “stop” has disappeared from my vocabulary. Because I don’t want to stop. It’s hardly rocket science, nor is it a fully conscious decision. Our bodies are reacting to each other. Jen’s thumb swipes along my cheek. She runs it across my bottom lip.

She tilts herself toward me and her lips find my ear. “I can’t fucking resist you,” she whispers, as her thumb slips between my lips. I suck it as far into my mouth as I can while sliding my hands all the way under her top. Her sigh of despair in my ear only spurs me on.

She drags her wet thumb down my chin and I kiss her again. She pushes herself hard against me and this kiss is a lot more intense than the previous one. There’s more pressure and heat. My hands ride up. My fingertips reach her bra. I cup her breasts over the fabric and swipe my thumbs along her hard nipples.