Page 94 of The Mating Game
He’s so close that I can see every little movement of his Adam’s apple when he swallows.
“Maybe…you’re rubbing off on me,” he answers, his voice much rougher than it was a second ago.
He’s looking at me like that again. It’s the same look from the bar, the same one he gave me after I told him the good news about Nate—the one that looks like he’s holding himself back when I don’twanthim to. A look like that is enough to make a girl brave.
“I still believe you want to kiss me,” I whisper.
He laughs, I think, but it’s more of a rasp, really. Like it’s choked.
“Only a very,verystupid man wouldn’t want to kiss you, Tess.”
My throat feels like sandpaper, but somehow my tongue is very wet. Heavy, even. Maybe it’s swollen. Maybe that’s why Hunter’s eyes look so transfixed on it when it slips past my teeth to wet my bottom lip. I try swallowing, but it feels useless. Maybe it’s because I’m breathing so hard.
“But you won’t.”
“For a few reasons,” he murmurs.
I wonder if it’s difficult for him to keep himself suspended like he is. He’s soclose, and yet somehow there’s still that tiny fraction of space between us, just enough so that he isn’t touching me. I mean, surely his arms must be hurting, right?
If I only slightly move my hand, my fingers can graze the cotton of his T-shirt. “A few?”
“I told you about Chloe.” He makes a strained sound in his throat when the tip of my finger finds the space between the cotton and his bare skin. “That’s a big part of it.”
“But not all of it,” I press, curling my finger around a bit of his T-shirt.
“You also barely know me,” he breathes. “I don’t want you to do anything you might regret. You’ve already had a ton of things out of your control lately.”
“I wouldn’t,” I assure him, an urgency building as I notice he isn’t even looking me in the eye now but at my mouth. Only my mouth. “Regret it.”
“I can smell you, Tess,” he rasps. “Your scent…You smell like…”
His knee is between my legs. I can feel the heat of it against both my thighs. I think his thumb just touched my hair.
I nod dazedly, feeling my head start to swim but not so much that I don’t know that I want whatever he’s willing to give me right now, regardless of what’s happening to my body. Realizing that I want it forme, not simply for the demands of my newfound designation.
“Also,” he says distractedly, as if he’s having a hard time figuring out his thoughts too. “You’d been drinking.”
That one throws me off a little. “So?”
And maybe he’s figured out how to make thoughts before I have—in fact, I highly suspect he has—because he isn’t looking at my mouth anymore. Maybe it’s because it’s too hard to look, since his face is so close to mine now. The deep brown of his eyes seems dark and bright all at once, so much so that I can’t look away as they bore into mine.
“If I ever kissed you…I’d want you to damn well remember it tomorrow.”
All the air just…leaves my lungs. That can’t be normal, right? Regardless, I might not be breathing. Speaking still seems to be possible, but only barely.
“I haven’t…had anything to drink today.”
“Tess,” he growls. “Is it happening again?”
“Maybe,” I admit, feeling that familiar surge of heat pooling in my belly that is somehowworsethan before. “It feels different.”
“You smell different,” he tells me. “You smell like…like…”
“What do I smell like?”
“Like you need me,” he says, echoing the same shiver-inducing sentiment from weeks ago. “Do you?”
“No,” I say, mustering my courage even as the heat builds and builds inside me. “Iwantyou, Hunter.”
