Page 90 of Baby, Be Mine

“People talk.” She moved to the side with the best lake view and rested her arms on the windowsill. “I get it, sleeping with people you work with is messy. How Adriana came to be. Even messier when you sleep with your professor.”

I stood next to her. “Pardon?”

“Yep.” She brushed her hair back. “I was actually engaged to him. Pierre Lambert. I don’t know what I was thinking. He was so pretentious and full of hot air. But he seemed exciting while he was extolling the genius of Shakespeare. Then again, if you go with actual history, Shakespeare was probably the Queen and her consorts. Pierre would get a pinched butthole when I mentioned that part though.”

I laughed. It wasn’t the first time she’d mentioned her drama background, but it sure as hell was the first time for the professor. I just assumed she’d had a falling out with a boyfriend.

Not sure what that said about me.

“So, I get why you want to ignore this thing between us.”

I blew out a breath. “I had my own break-up. I was the manager of a resort restaurant, and she was the owner’s daughter.”

Emma hissed in a breath. “Ouch.”

“She was young and used to getting what she wanted.” I shrugged and mirrored her stance at the window. “She wanted me until she didn’t.”

Lauren had been nothing like Emma, but there was a part of me that saw the writing on the wall. I might be exciting for a little while, but Emma would get bored with a guy who spent sixty hours of his week looking after a restaurant and now a barge.

It was better not to crack the door open.

“I can’t imagine someone getting tired of you, Mason.”

I glanced down at her. “Oh, really? What’s so enticing about an overworked restaurant owner?”

She lifted a hand to cup my jaw. “The fact that you can’t see it is exactly why.”

I lifted my hand to cover hers. I meant to pull it away. I meant to push her away. Then she went on her toes and brushed her lips right beside my mouth.

I closed my eyes and whatever strength I had about stopping her slipped away on the summer breeze coming off the water.

It started as a nibble. Just a brush of her lips over mine. I turned my head to meet hers fully. Nearly chaste in the softness of it. Her nose bumped mine lightly as she smiled against my mouth and a sigh drifted between us.

“We should stop,” I said against her lips.

“Definitely should.” Then her fingers slipped up to tangle with my hair as she turned me fully toward her.

I crushed her to me, my arm banding around her lower back, my fingers twisting in the slippery material of her dress. The kiss went from searching to demanding from one breath to the next.

She hooked her arm around my shoulders and clutched me just as tightly, her tongue twining around mine to draw me deeper. She was all softness and smelled like a Sunday afternoon.

And just like a Sunday afternoon, I wanted to spread her out and leisurely take my time finding every place on her that made her sigh. Then another few hours making her moan my name.

It had been so long since I’d wanted to take the time.

Wishedfor time.

Distantly, I heard people downstairs. The shouted orders of Henry, and impatient sharpness of Gillian.

I tried to draw away, but instead, I went back for another taste. Her lips swollen from my kisses, slightly pink from my scruff. Her blue eyes blurry with pleasure and sleepy happiness.

“People are coming,” I said against her lips as I tried to push her away.

“Let them see your master class in kissing, Mr. Brooks.”

I groaned and pulled her against my hardening cock. “I’ve wanted to do that since your smart mouth put Carol in her place during your interview.”

She touched my lower lip with the tip of her nail. “Even though I was nine months pregnant?” She groaned and kissed me again, this time nipping my lower lip. “Sweaty and in labor.”

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