Page 24 of The Love Interest
This stoic golden boy-handsome guy just might be the most passionate man I’ve ever let myself kiss.
I pull back the tiniest bit so I can lick him, from his lightly stubbled chin to his mouth, and then nibble on his lower lip while staring into his eyes. It ignites something in him, and he cups the back of my head with one hand, combing his fingers through my hair with the other. I don’t even care what my bangs look like right now because Emmett Ford is kissing me the way I’ve always wanted to be kissed. Like it’s the only thing in the world he wants to do right now. Like he’s a drowning man and kissing me is what will save him. Like I’m a woman who deserves to be kissed like this and he’s the only man who deserves to do it.
Every single thing he hasn’t said to me since we met—everything I’ve seen in his eyes—he’s telling me with his lips and his tongue and his hands in my hair. I understand everything I need to know about him for now. He’s a fucking fantastic kisser, and he doesn’t kiss every woman like this. It’s been a long time since he’s kissed someone like this, and it’s been exactlyneversince anyone’s ever kissed me like this. I didn’t even realize it’s what I’ve been waiting for my whole life.
This is what New York has silently promised me ever since I arrived. I have no sense of where we are anymore or if anyone else is around. We’re just two relative strangers, alive and kissing on a park bench, enveloped by the panorama of a city that is slowly waking up as I’m ready to take someone to bed with me.
I hear a very content humming and finally realize where it’s coming from. Me. I’m humming. I’m so fucking happy to be kissing this man that I want to burst into song.
I shift around so I can straddle him. Not in a porny way—in a high school making-out-on-a-bench sort of way. I’m not grinding down on him or anything. Surely this doesn’t count as a lewd public act if we’re both fully clothed. Even though the bulge in his jeans feels so hard and good between my legs, surely no one else knows this besides us.
“How old are you?” Emmett asks, trying to control his breaths, his voice all husky and full of sexy manly sexiness.
“Twenty-five.”
He blinks. He seems surprised by my answer.
I kiss him all over his face because I want to. “Do I seem older or younger?”
“You just seem young. To me, anyway.”
I rub my cheek against his cheek because I want to. “How old are you?”
“How old do I seem?” He kisses me again, so deeply, so passionately, it takes my breath away.
When he finally pauses his delicious attack on my mouth, I grin and say, “Forty.”
He startles me with a quick smack on the ass, and the most surprising thing about it is how much my body seems to like it.
“Forty-five.”
He does it again, and I still like it. I like how his jaw is clenched, but I can tell he’s trying not to smile. I like how his hooded eyes are fiery, but he’s amused and daring me to taunt him some more.
“Fifty, and that’s my final offer.”
He grips my hips and squeezes, and that’s when I know. I know I will be battling nonstop nipple erections for months, just from thinking about him. I know how many orgasms I’m going to have because of this man, whether he’s with me or not. I know how many times I’ll be changing my panties in the days and nights ahead, just because of these hands on my hips. I know how little sleep I’ll be getting, whether it’s because he’s with me or because he isn’t.
I run my fingers through his hair and dip down to kiss him—maybe not with all my heart and soul but with absolutely everything else I’m prepared to give him right now.
It’s a lot.
And he takes it.
He takes it, and he gives back every hesitant broken piece of himself that he’s willing to let me take from him.
But he can control himself, and for some reason that turns me on even more.
He’s a man.
I’m kissing a real man, and I don’t even remember why I hadn’t before.
All of a sudden, I can hear Frank Sinatra singing “The Way You Look Tonight.” The song’s being carried across the water, from a car in the nearby parking lot perhaps.
With each word your tenderness grows.
“This song,” he mutters, pulling his lips away just long enough to say, “this song is going to remind me of you from now on.”
“Am I tearin’ your fear apart?” I tease.
