Page 33 of Royally Knocked Up
They stepped into the shadows as the car pulled away, and she thought,now. Now is when he’ll kiss me.
But he didn’t.
He stood with his back to her for a long moment, and she almost worried that the spell had broken somehow — that just when she had finally decided to give in to this, he would come to his senses and realize that they were risking too much, that they shouldn’t be doing any of this —
But he turned back toward her and held out his hand.
Helplessly, she took it.
She had meant to play it cool. She had meant to come up with some sort of clever line in this moment.Your room or mine?
But words failed her, and she allowed herself to be led along after him. She allowed herself to forget entirely the strength that she so prided herself on, and when he opened the door to his room and guided her inside, it felt obvious to her that they had always been heading here. There would have been no point in having a conversation about it.
He followed her in. He shut the door behind him.
He did not turn on the light, and Hailey wondered whether his instinct had been the same as hers — whether he also felt that the darkness was giving them the permission they needed to do the things they had both been longing to do.
She didn’t have to wonder for long.
He turned to face her again, his eyes blazing with something so primal that she recognized it at once in spite of the fact that she had never seen it before.
And this time — at last, after all her waiting — he did kiss her.
It was exactly as she had dreamed it would be. The passion of it washed over her like a tide, driving all thoughts out of her mind. She knew that they shouldn’t be doing this, but that knowledge had all but disappeared.
He backed her into the wall. Her arms came up and wrapped around his neck as she returned his kiss with fervor. No kiss had ever felt like this in her life — it was as if they had spent the whole time they’d known one another in some sort of orbit, gravity pulling them closer and closer, their awareness of one another growing more and more powerful with each day that passed.
It was as if this collision had been inevitable.
He pulled away. She wanted to cling to him, to pull him back to her, but she knew better than to do that. Maybe he had finally come to his senses.
But no. He was smiling at her, looking giddy and youthful in a way she had never seen him. “I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time,” he confessed.
“You should have.”
“But how could I have? Every time I thought of it, every time you and I came close to one another, you pulled away from me. Truth be told, I thought you wanted nothing to do with me.”
She shook her head. “You didn’t think that,” she corrected, blushing when she realized that she was short of breath. “I know you didn’t think that. You knew how close I came to giving in to this. How many times I barely stopped myself in time. I know you, Enzo. I see the confidence you have, how sure of yourself you are. I think you knew that we would find ourselves here eventually.”
“I hoped we would,” he said softly.
He brought his hand up to touch her cheek, just as he had when they were out at the club. This time, Hailey did not stiffen under his touch. She leaned into him instead, letting her eyes close.
“We should take this to the bedroom,” he told her quietly, and she found that she couldn’t disagree with him.
Still, she was taken by surprise when he bent down and swept her off her feet into his arms. She gasped. “Enzo!”
“Do you know how many times I’ve imagined this moment?” he asked her huskily, his face so close to his that she could smellwhat she thought must be his aftershave. “Do you know how many times I’ve pictured exactly how I would want it to go?”
“What happens next?” she asked breathlessly.
He grinned. “I take you to bed.”
He walked down the hall to the bedroom. Hailey had been in here many times, but she had never seen his bedroom before, and even stepping through the door felt like crossing a line, moving to a new level they hadn’t touched before now.
His bed was the same as hers, a fact that took her by surprise. She had imagined that it would be much more luxurious.
But it was perfect. It was exactly what she would have chosen — just a bed, with nothing fancy to distract her from the warmth of his body or the pure indulgence of the fact that, finally, it was just the two of them giving in to one another.
