Page 26 of Foreplay on Words

“Oh, come on. I told you that I tried to look for you on the Internet before I’d even met you. If that isn’t freaking you out for being intrusive, what you did can’t be bad. You can tell me.” She turned those beguiling blues eyes up at me and pled in a quiet voice. “Please?”

Her eyelashes fluttered, but I had a hard time looking anywhere but her lips.

“Let’s say my Amazon account took a hit earlier in the week.” Her ability to get information out of me was dangerous. She was climbing past all my walls.

“Meaning?” The pleading look turned to suspicion.

“I invested in some reading materials.”

“Oh, God.” Her eyes widened. She stepped back and turned away from me. “Please say you didn’t?”

Before I could even process the motion, I grabbed her elbow and tugged her back in my direction. The move surprised both of us; I was typically not assertive.

“I don’t even want to know what you...”

“All of them,” I blurted out, interrupting her. “I read all of them. Even the holiday novellas you self-published.”

She was looking up at me, searching my eyes for something.

“In two days. I read all of them in two days.” My pulse pounded as I waited for her reaction. It could go either way. “I barely slept, and it might have been the first time I made Ramen for dinner since college.”

“Wow.” Her eyes were wide and vulnerable.

My hand tightened on her elbow, pulling her closer until our chests were barely apart. At this point, I was moving on instinct.

“They were captivating. Your words...you…you’re...” I hesitated.

“I’m?” Moisture glistened on her lower lip as her tongue peeked out, my eyes drawn to the motion.

“You’re captivating.”

Chase’s eyes widened as she looked at me, her lips parting on a sigh. “Evan…”

“I’m going to kiss you,” I breathed, giving her a chance to back out. After a moment of hesitation, a barely perceptible nod was my answer.

Her expressive blue eyes fluttered closed seconds before I cupped the back of her neck and captured her lips with mine, finally giving in to the feelings she had awoken in me.

Chase

Connecticut

There had been quite a few first kisses in my life, but never one that felt like this one did. Drunken kisses, awkward kisses, slobbery kisses, dry-lipped kisses, some passionate kisses, but this kiss…this kiss…

It was by far the most unexpected, yet simultaneously most right kiss I’d ever felt. There was something about Evan that drew me in, and he had since I saw that picture in Isobel’s office. Maybe it was because he wasn’t trying to charm me. Perhaps it was because he was so goddamn adorable with the staring and the awkwardness.

Whatever it was, when he told me he’d read all my books and looked at me with those slightly uncertain deep blue eyes... I was lost.

My hands clutched the sides of his denim shirt as his hand slipped along the side of my face and cradled my jaw as he deepened the kiss. His lips were soft, and I gasped into his mouth when he nipped at my bottom lip.

Evan’s hand tightened on my neck as he tilted my head and eased his tongue past my lips. I was almost drowning in sensation as I pressed myself against his chest.

“Fuck, you’re so sexy,” he panted in a raspy voice as his lips trailed across my cheek and down the column of my neck.

“Oh God, Evan,” I moaned as he sucked on a particularly sensitive patch of skin near my shoulder blade.

“Which one is it? God or Evan?” His deep, rumbling laugh vibrated into my neck as he held me there, his face buried into my hair, and I arched against him.

“Maybe both?” My chest shook with unrestrained laughter. He thought he was awkward, but he was smoother than he gave himself credit for.

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