Page 74 of Trying Sophie

I closed my eyes and fisted my hands on my lap, feeling my desire as a palpable ache. When his next breath fluttered against my neck, a low moan slipped out.

“You want me too.” His hand slid beneath the fabric of my shirt to touch bare skin. “You don’t need to fight it.”

“I do,” I croaked.

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting each other,” he breathed against me.

I tried in vain to fight the pull.

“There is.”

“No, Sophie, there isn’t.”

I was lost to him, desire overpowering good sense. When he turned my face toward his, I didn’t fight it. I succumbed to the feel of his warm, soft mouth pressing lightly against my own. When I sighed, he smiled against my lips and took the kiss deeper. Shifting, he cupped my face and I leaned into him, desperate for more of his touch. He captured my bottom lip between his teeth and tugged, a gesture that pulled at other parts of me. The tip of his tongue slid along the seam of my lips and I opened for him, our tongues tangling. I heard his answering moan just before he pulled me flush against him and I went willingly, boneless as we kissed wildly, with abandon.

The tinkling laughter of a nearby child pulled me from my lust-filled stupor. “Look mommy, they’re kissing!” the high pitched voice shrieked before running off with a cackle.

I pulled away from Declan, my eyes open wide in surprise, his half-lidded with desire. Rolling my lip between my teeth, I swore I could still taste him. His gaze dropped to my mouth, hungrily, and a spark of longing passed over his features. With my right hand resting against his chest, I felt the erratic beat of his heart against my fingertips. With the other, I caressed the pads of my fingers over kiss-swollen lips.

A moment, a week, a year. I couldn’t say how much time passed in silence as I considered what had just happened.

“I win,” he chuckled, breaking the spell.

“What?” I croaked.

“You said no touching, no kissing. You touched me, you kissed me. I win.” He smirked with satisfaction.

Technically speaking, he’d touched and kissed me. And not only had I let him, I’d practically begged for more.

“Is this a game to you?” I accused, jumping from the bench.

He shrugged noncommittally. “If it is, I’m playing for keeps.”

He leveled his gaze on me and I felt the weight of that stare down to my bones. His legs crossed at the ankle and arms stretched along the back of the bench, he was the perfect picture of control. And yet that control is what told me this wasn’t a joke to him. Declan was ultra-competitive and never played a game he couldn’t win. He knew what he did to me, how he affected me. In a flash I understood: I was his prize.

I stared mutely while the idea took shape and settled over me. My body trembled and my mind raced. I’d been so afraid he would lay me to waste if I let him in, and now I knew my fears had been justified. One kiss and all my walls had come tumbling down.

“This can’t happen again,” I whispered, trying to regain a little control for myself.

“Of course it can,” he answered, resting his forearms on thick, muscular thighs. “It should happen again.”

“Why couldn’t you just follow the rules?”

“I didn’t want to.”

“But you promised!” I accused and he shrugged.

“I lied,” he smirked, rising from the bench.

“Don’t!” I panicked and tossed my hand up to stop his approach. “You stay right there.”

He chuckled but stopped moving. “Fine. I’ll stand here, you’ll stand there, and we’ll have this conversation from across the park. Or,” he said, casually strolling three steps forward, bringing him within arm’s length, “we can have this discussion face to face. Where I can touch you—” he slid his hand up my arm “—and kiss you,” he added, tugging me forward and crashing his lips to mine.

I kissed him back, desperate for him, but completely unprepared to deal with the bevy of emotions running through my mind and heart. Nothing in my past had prepared me for this. For him. My entire being was aware of him on a whole other level and it scared me to even consider what that might mean.

Slowing the kiss, Declan tugged on my lower lip and pulled away. His arms wrapped around my waist and his forehead resting against mine, he whispered, “Oscar Wilde once said, ‘A kiss may ruin a human life.’ I think I get it now. You’ve ruined me, Soph.”

I’d never given much credence to love at first sight, but I knew lust at first sight existed because it’d been with me since the moment I’d laid eyes on Declan. And that first, powerful bolt of attraction had morphed and mutated into whatever this deadly feeling was between us now.

“If you’re ruined,” I told him, “then I’m destroyed.”

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