Taking Him Down. Meg Maguire
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about something? Lindsey thought she was reasonably driven, but she wouldn’t say wedding planning and matchmaking were her callings. Careers, perhaps, and satisfying ones, but not passions. Maybe she just wasn’t passionate. Not the way Rich was.
“I do love it,” he said. “It’s all I know, really. Gotta milk it for all it’s worth while I’m still in good shape. Maybe in ten years I’ll have to think about earning something flashier than a GED and find a respectable gig.”
“You could coach.”
He shook his head. “I’d rather see guys as opponents than students. I’ll leave all that nurturing bull to Mercer.”
“Well, your immediate future looks awfully bright. Let’s hope they’ll be able to understand your accent, wherever you wind up.”
“Tease all you want—you’ll miss me when I’m gone.” He said it through a self-satisfied sigh.
“I’m sure I’ll get more work done without you sticking your princely nose around the office door every ten minutes.”
“How come you never say yes when I ask if you wanna grab lunch?”
Lindsey’s face heated in the darkness. “I’m always busy when you ask.” In truth she’d said no because often she and Brett were on-again, or because Rich flat-out intimidated her. It wasn’t as though she floated through her workday on a champagne cloud of boldness. On a good day Lindsey suspected she was cute, but Rich was stunning. Men like that didn’t simply stroll around with passably cute girls. She’d spent enough time feeling invisible. The next time she got into a romance with somebody, she wanted a man she could shine beside, and Rich was too bright to do anything but cast others in his shadow.
“Maybe now that I’m leaving,” he said, “you’ll deign to say yes, just once. Take pity on a man.”
“We’ll see.”
“I don’t like the sound of that. What about after work? Jenna must let you go home at some point. Long enough to get a drink down the street?”
Her blush burned hotter than ever. “Are you asking me on a date?”
“Say yes and find out.”
She glanced out the window, champagne courage abandoning her. Dammit, why did she have to clam up at moments like this? But for once, her mouth sided with her body. “Okay.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. Okay.”
Rich shook his fist in triumph. “Nice. Frigging finally.”
She laughed. “I hesitate to fuel your already turbocharged ego. But yes, fine. I’ll go out for a drink with you some evening after work.”
For a long moment they didn’t speak. Rich’s darting eyes seemed to watch her with some sly persuasion of fondness, as though she amused and baffled him equally. Must be a rarity for him—a woman who didn’t visibly melt into a puddle in his presence. Thank goodness he didn’t know how wobbly he made her knees, simply passing by her office.
Her gaze snagged on his mouth, on the sexiest set of lips she’d ever seen. Always ready with a smirk or a curse-riddled diatribe. She wondered what else they might offer.
She was staring. They were both staring, though the pointedness of it didn’t seem to unnerve Rich a jot. Then again, he routinely peered into the eyes of men hell-bent on knocking him unconscious.
“What?” she asked, unable to bear the suspense.
“I dunno. were we about to kiss?”
Her heart pounded. “Oh. I didn’t think we were. I was just staring because you were staring.”
“I was waiting for some little female signal. But your poker face is stone-cold.”
Kiss me, she wanted to say. Tackle me. Rich was too much for her to get hung up on, but for a fling? For some fun in the back of a cab? Not her type, but so exciting. So unlike any man she’d ever experienced. Not that there’d been many.
Without her willing them to, Lindsey’s lips parted. And it was all the invitation he needed.
His hand was at her neck, strong and warm, and as he ran his thumb along her jaw, she felt sparks prickling. He lowered his face to hers, noses touching first, then mouths.
It was as though she’d never done this before. He felt so new, so different after all those years with the same man. Heat pooled in her cheeks, her chest, between her legs.
They twisted in their spots, hands seeking faces, seat belts binding laps. Rich tilted his head, parted lips asking to take this kiss deeper.
His mouth grew hungrier, tongue seeking hers. She found his collar clutched in her hand, no clue how it had happened. His kisses made Lindsey’s head swim, made her most scandalous exploits seem a chaste hand-holding. What on earth would sex with this man be like?
Ooh, terrible thought. Terrible, brilliant thought.
He broke them apart to murmur, “I’ve been wondering for weeks what you taste like.” He freed the buckle of his seat belt and slid beside her.
Lust folded in on itself, desire making her entire body tight and hot and angry. His hand was warm and broad, thumb on her cheek, fingers fanned possessively over her jaw.
She stroked his chest through his shirt, touched his face, fascinated by his soft skin, rough stubble, the texture of his bandage and the edge of the cut it hid. Maleness personified, an entirely new species.
His mouth was perfect—pushy, masterful, sinful. His hands felt so good on her neck and shoulder…how amazing would they feel elsewhere?
Just as her mind began to wander, she felt a funny sensation at her hip, a tingling that wasn’t in any way erotic. She wrested her lips from his.
“Is that your phone?”
“Just a text. Like I care.”
His mouth was on hers again, hungry and impolite. How long since she’d been kissed this way? Ages and ages and ages. Maybe never. She grasped his shirt, crisp cotton in her fist, hard muscle under her knuckles. He had to hunch to keep their mouths on par, seeming so big and looming and wrong and awesome she wanted to claw him.
Another intrusion from his phone—a nagging ping.
“Maybe it’s a manager,” she teased, lips still pressed to his. “They want you so badly, they’re texting at 3:00 a.m.”
“Probably some drunk friend. They’ll call if it’s important.” He took her mouth.
No one’s kissing had ever done this to her before, made her so hot she could feel herself getting wet. Just from kissing.
But again, a ping had her pulling away.
Rich sighed. “Hang on. This is going to drive me up a frigging wall.” He checked the screen, face lit white. “It’s Mercer.” He hit a button, eyes darting, brows pulling together in a frown. After a few seconds he turned his phone off.
“Everything okay?”
Rich blinked, gaze focused past her, out the window. “Yeah, yeah. Everything’s fine.”
Whatever the urgent bro-message had been, it killed their make-out session dead. Rich shifted back to his side and buckled his seat belt with a cold snap.
Her heart sank.
At least this fixed her worries about seeming rude by not inviting him up. Though it would’ve been nice for the kiss to end under duress, at her curb, all fraught with both of them wishing it could continue in somebody’s bed. She’d have ended it, been the one to seemingly muster self-control, since there was no way she’d have told him it was because her ex was upstairs. She could have—should have—left this unflappable man all flustered and won this round of their little sexual-tension