Page 79 of One Wrong Move

“So I ask again…” I say in a low voice. “Why is that?”

“We haven’t tested the acoustics,” she says. Her eyes are piercing on mine, her voice just shy of shaky. “I don’t want to hear the two of you all night. It would keep me up.”

“Do you think I want to hear you and Willard?”

“Right. We haven’t thought this through,” she says, as if that’s perfectly sensible. Her hand tightens around my wrist. “We need to run sound experiments first.”

“Sound experiments,” I mutter.

She’s looking down at my wrist trapped between our bodies. Still locked in her grip. Sound experiments. I use my free hand to lift her chin, forcing her eyes to meet mine.

There’s irritation in her gaze, twin to the emotion roiling in me. “You came here to tell me not to sleep with Lucy,” I say. “Are you jealous, Harp?”

Her eyes flare. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Am I being ridiculous? You’re the one who introduced her to me, who pushed this whole idea in the first place. And now, you’re concerned over potentially hearing us fuck?”

She stiffens, swallowing hard. I’d used the term deliberately, and it hit its mark. “Excuse me for valuing my sleep,” she nearly growls.

“Are you sure it’s not that you’re upset about me spending the entire evening talking to Lucy?”

There’s anger in her eyes. “If I have to admit it, then you have to admit to not liking Willard. You stared at us all night.”

“Fine.” I lean in closer. My fingers are still holding her chin, her hand still gripping my wrist. “I hate him.”

“You’re jealous,” she breathes.

“Of course, I’m fucking jealous. If you decide to take him up those stairs and into your bedroom…”

“What?” she asks. Her breath is warm against my lips. “What would you do?”

My hand moves from her chin to the back of her neck, fingers sliding into the silky curls. The air between us is hot, and it grows electric when I draw closer.

Too close.

All of my pent-up frustrations tonight unleash at that moment. In that fragile, tense moment when my lips hover just a hairsbreadth from hers. A tiny static spark ignites a supernova. I don’t know if it’s my anger, jealousy, or the incessant need for her, but something pushes me over the edge.

I kiss her.

Her lips are soft and pliant against mine, and a small sound escapes her. A faint sigh of surprise. Then, she’s kissing me back. Her mouth slants against mine, lips parts, and it’s everything.

Everything.

She tastes like warm champagne. I brush my tongue against her lower lip. Sweep it into the warmth of her mouth. Glide against her sensuous tongue.

For a split second, her grip on my wrist disappears, only to reappear on the lapels of my shirt. She sways into me, tugging me closer, and my freed arm wraps around her waist.

I feel high.

Having Harper in my arms, melting under my lips, hearing the soft sounds that she makes, tasting her kisses… It’s better than any drug I’d tried in my twenties. Better than the elation of winning a multimillion-dollar contract at work. Better than all of my previous sexual experiences combined.

Her hand slides up from my lapel to my nape. Fingers thread through the strands of my hair. And then, she runs her nails over my scalp, and red-hot fire races down my spine.

Blood rushes with it. I harden in an instant. Fuck. This is everything I ever imagined and more. She is everything.

Harper presses herself to my chest, and I pull her tight, crushing her curves against me. Somewhere in the fractured, kaleidoscopic mess of my mind, where only she exists, I realize I’m kissing her too hard.

I try to ease up. To slow down. To use more finesse.

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