Page 80 of Chasing the Dream

“What is?”

“This. Us.”

“I know.”

“Having sex was supposed to get each other out of our systems, but…”

“It’s having the opposite effect?” she said, sounding hopeful.

“Yes.”

“Good.” She smiled, and then they were kissing again.

Holding her, kissing her, touching her—it was enough to make him forget all his rules. Hell, he couldn’t stop now even if he’d wanted to.

He moved his hands from her waist to the hem of her dress and tugged up on it. She moaned against his mouth as his fingers grazed the back of her thighs. Once the dress was bunched up around her middle, he moved his right hand around to the front and skimmed over her damp folds.

“Gabe…”

“Look out the window while I’m touching you,” he whispered. It wasn’t identical to either of their fantasies, but it was close enough.

He buried his head into the crook of her neck and nibbled on her soft skin while he inserted a finger deep inside her.

She clutched his shoulders hard through his dress shirt. Holding her in place with his left hand, he continued stroking her with his right, and her hips began circling in earnest.

He reveled in her soft heat, her sighs, and the way she completely gave herself over to him. He trailed kisses from her neck to her throat and then into the vee of her dress. He would have loved to strip her naked, but he wasn’t sure the windows were the kind she’d described, and he didn’t want anyone seeing her naked besides him.

When he alighted on her sweet spot, she clenched around him, tipped her head back, and surrendered, her lips clamped together in an effort to keep quiet.

She was never more beautiful than when she was consumed with passion, and he marveled that it was all for him. This vision was one of many that he was certain would stick in his brain forever.

She leaned her head on his shoulder as she came back to herself, and then he gently tugged her dress back down.

She glanced up at him, her blue eyes sparkling and her cheeks flushed. “I hope you’re not mad at me.”

“Why would I be mad?”

“I was going to wait until later, after everyone left, like we talked about.”

He chuckled. “I’m glad you didn’t wait, but we can’t make a habit of this.” He cupped her cheek and leaned in to place a brief kiss on her lips.

She looked down at the front of his pants and started to reach for him. He ached for her touch, but having glanced at the clock on his office wall, he didn’t think there was enough time. Instead, he took her hand in his and kissed the back of it. “It pains me to say this, but I’ll have to take a rain check. I want to review the contract one more time before Bryan gets here.”

She nodded and took a step back. Her dress looked a bit rumpled from being bunched up, but other than that, every hair was in place. If anything, she looked even prettier with her bright eyes and satisfied smile.

“I owe you one,” she teased, her voice laced with promise.

After she’d left, he sat down and drank some more coffee even though it had gone cold.

What in the world is happening to me? I’ve never let a woman interfere with my work before, ever. He felt like a man obsessed, and it was discomfiting, to say the least. He’d dated his share of women since moving to Arizona, but nothing compared to this. It didn’t make sense. He wasn’t supposed to have these feelings, which went beyond the physical.

Maybe it was just nostalgia. He’d known her for a long time, and there was a certain comfort in that, although what was happening between them wasn’t exactly comfortable.

Maybe he was trying to recapture his youth. Seeing her again called up his younger years, when the world had been his oyster and the possibilities had seemed endless.

Maybe it was his ego, stroked by the idea that she’d wanted him when, before, she hadn’t paid him much attention. At least it had seemed that way.

Maybe it had nothing to do with the past. Maybe they’d reconnected as mature adults who knew exactly what they did and didn’t want, and they fit the bill for each other. They were in the same place at the same time, and it was convenient. Yet that sounded too simplistic, too clinical, to borrow her word.