Page 72 of Special Delivery
‘Ha!’ said Poppy. ‘I think you’ll find the layman’s term for that is lust.’
‘There’s definitely that,’ he said, leaning in to kiss her neck. ‘But I think it’s something more chemical, something neuro-endocrinological.’ He shifted his body to prop himself above her and Poppy felt herself slacken underneath him. His kisses moved down from her throat to her breasts, light as butterflies.
‘If you’re trying to impress me with some BS medical term’—she wanted to roll her eyes again, but they were locked behind her eyelids, letting her body fulfil the sensory obligations on their behalf—‘you’re seriously misunderstanding what impresses me.’
It was ridiculous that she was trying to string sentences together when she could hardly keep herself from shivering in pleasure. She didn’t need words; she needed his hands, his lips, all over her, everywhere, now. Again.
James stopped kissing her and looked her square in the eyes. ‘That’s what I’m trying to say. I’mnottrying to impress you. It’s like you make my brain short-circuit. With you, I hear the words coming out, and think,Why did I say that?I just can’t help myself. It’s like the moment I see you, I shed this skin I didn’t realise I’d been wearing and I’m just my real, idiotic self.’ He smiled and moved his lips back to her stomach. ‘So I say the dumbest things to you and you say the dumbest things to me and yet here we are,’ he murmured, trailing his lips over the curve of her waist.
Poppy’s ribs were vibrating now as his chin moved over her hip bones. ‘I don’t say dumb things,’ she whispered.
‘Yes you do.’
His kisses were circling her inner thighs now, the pressure and want in her building to an almost painful crescendo. ‘You’re going to pay for that,’ she murmured.
‘I intend to,’ he replied.
CHAPTER 32
The laundry shelf was still no closer to being fixed, but who the hell cared?
James had just finished showering in the ensuite and was drying his hair, beads of water still shining on his muscled back as he searched the room for his clothes. She was tempted to take a photo for posterity’s sake. The man was gorgeous.
‘I don’t want you to think I’m kicking you out,’ Poppy began.
‘But you are?’
‘Reluctantly.’
James found his t-shirt at the back of her dresser.
‘I need to pick up Maeve at four.’
He smiled. ‘I get it,’ he said.
There was a buzz in her solar plexus like a post-workout endorphin rush. She watched him pull his t-shirt over his head, the collar flattening his hair into a solid wet fringe. Reflexively, he shook his head and his hair fell back into place. It was the hottest thing she’d ever seen.
Okay, okay, okay, so he’d proved he wasn’t completely perfect. She still couldn’t believe he’d confessed his feelings for his ex so openly (wasn’t it like some cardinal rule that if you were naked in someone’s bed you should at leastpretendto be properly into them?), but she was finding it easy to overlook that when she had a front-row view of his biceps.
There was no need to label anything yet. She may as well enjoy the dopamine rush while it lasted. She could deal with the adulting later. Or she’d workshop it with Dani. Oh yes, Dani.
‘I can’t hang out with you at the races,’ Poppy announced. She wondered whether this was a completely redundant thing to say. Did he even want to hang out, or was he a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am kind of guy? ‘I mean, not presuming that you even wanted to hang out, but if you did, I can’t, so …’
James’s head was stuck behind her bedside table looking for more clothes. His muscly back looked excellent from this angle.
‘My best friend, Dani, is coming from Sydney so I’ll be hanging with her all day. And, obviously, if you weren’t planning on hanging out with me on Saturday, just pretend this conversation never happened and I’ll just, you know, die of embarrassment.’
James straightened, having retrieved his jumper. ‘Can I say hello?’
Poppy felt a rush of happiness. He hadn’t seemed like a ghoster but you could never be sure.
‘A hello would be nice.’
James closed the space between them and kissed her on the lips. ‘You’re nice.’
Poppy smiled. ‘So are you.’
She wished there wasn’t so much goodness in him. With the afternoon light streaming through her window and the memory of his hands on her skin, she couldn’t remember how she’d managed to hate him so much. All the same, a pit of dread was deepening in her stomach. It was very unlikely this would end well.
