Page 96 of One Night

"You were right. Kissing could lead to other things. Things you don't want to do." He's trying not to smile because he knows his refusal to kiss me will drive me crazy. Now that he said no, I really want a kiss, even more than before. Damn him!

"I'm sure we can control ourselves," I say.

"I'm pretty sure we can't. Isn't that why you made the rule? Because you thought we couldn't stop once we started?"

"Yes, but..." I don't know how to explain my reasoning. Right now, I don't even care why I made those rules. I just want him to kiss me.

"This movie's kind of slow. You want to watch something else?"

"Sure." I sound frustrated because I am. Sexually frustrated, and it's all because I insist on these stupid rules. I'm about ready to ditch old-fashioned romance. If those people were doing it, why can't I?

Because I didn't want this to be about sex, that's why. I want us to be about more than that. If this relationship is going to have a chance, we can't base it on what we did last May.

But it's hard to resist temptation. And right now, I'm really tempted to relive that night. The heat. The passion. It's all I can think about.

Chapter Twenty

Dylan

She made the rules and I'm following them. But then she asked for a kiss. That wasn't in public. I said no, which was nearly impossible to do, but I wanted to see how she'd react. How strong her willpower is. I know it's not great because she didn't resist me that day in the hospital cleaning closet. Or later than week when I kissed her in the conference room while everyone was at lunch. Or when I led her behind a concrete pillar in the parking garage, backed her up against it, and kissed her until we heard a car driving up the ramp.

She always says we shouldn't do that stuff at work and yet she gets all turned on when we do. She's like the girls in her old-fashioned movies, who seem all prim and proper but then let their wild side out when nobody's looking.

I think I'm torturing her right now by not kissing her. She keeps smoothing the pillow she's holding on her lap, then tugging on the tassels, then smoothing, tugging, smoothing, tugging, to the point that if she keeps it up, that pillow's going to be destroyed by the end of the night.

"Why don't you give that pillow a break?" I ask after two of hours of her attacking it.

"What are you talking about?"

"That pillow." I point to it. "You've been beating on it for two hours straight. If you keep going, there's not going to be anything left of it."

She crinkles her nose in confusion. "I'm just holding it. Not beating on it."

"Why don't you just set it down?" I smile as I take it from her. "I'm just going to put it over here, where it's safe."

She swats at me. "You're being crazy."

"You know, some experts would say your obsessive handling of the pillow is a sign of sexual frustration."

She rolls her eyes. "I was not doing anything to the pillow. And I am not sexually frustrated."

"That's good. Because if you were, it'd be very difficult to sit next to me right now." I slide closer to her. "And it'd be very hard to say no if I did this." I cup the side of her face and lean in until I'm an inch from her mouth.

She lets out a soft breath, her eyes falling shut.

I kiss her, my lips barely touching hers. I've held out long enough. I couldn't take it anymore. I had to kiss her. That sexual frustration I was talking about? We're both suffering from it and it needs to be dealt with.

"More," she breathes.

I kiss her again and her lips part for me, and moments later, what was only going to be a kiss becomes more as I lie her down on the couch, my hand sliding up to her breast. And then it's like the floodgates break open. We kiss harder and faster, our hands yanking at each others clothes, trying to get them off. Soon my shirt is tossed aside and so is hers and I'm tugging the zipper down on her skirt.

"Dylan," she whispers, her eyes closed. "We said we wouldn't do this."

"You want to stop?" I ask, but in my head I'm begging her not to end this. I know we said we'd wait, but why? This doesn't feel wrong. Or too soon. It feels perfect. Right. Just like that night back in May.

"Keep going," she whispers.

I pick her up off the couch and go to her room, setting her on the bed. We're both breathing hard as we race to shed the rest of our clothes. She grabs a condom from her dresser and rips open the package and slides it on me while we kiss. And then I'm on her, inside her, and nothing has ever felt more right.

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