I’m stuck.
I can’t tell him the truth. I just can’t. And technically, we’re not exclusive. He’s sending me mixed signals and if this were a real date, that would be fine. He has no claim on me. We’re not—
“Is he your boyfriend?” Andrew asks, eyes narrowing as he stares at Chris.
“What? Him? No. First date.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you dating?”
“Because I can?”
“No, you can’t.”
“Excuse me? I most certainly can.”
“Do you want to?”
“Want to what?”
“Date other men.”
I open my mouth to answer and stop mid-movement, eyes blinking. The cool night air dries out my mouth quickly, and with my hammering heart and beer-soaked blood, I realize that everything in me is screaming:
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because you haven’t given me a reason not to.”
Okay, technically, that’s not true, either. But knowing how competitive Andrew is, and being stuck in this absolutely, utterly impossible horror of a situation with three brain cells left for making decisions, it’s the best I can come up with on the fly.
Suddenly, his mouth is on me, slanted against mine, tongue ravaging and claiming. This is no welcome kiss, no soft hi there after a week apart. The rough push of his lips, scruffy with a day’s growth of beard, will leave my mouth raw with the demand of this man who is making it quite clear that this is the only reason I need to stop dating anyone else.
This kiss.
This man.
His hands fill with my ass, fingers digging in to the flesh, his hardness against my belly, my arms hanging loose by my sides as my mouth knows what it’s doing but the rest of me needs a few seconds to catch up. The zing! that fills every square inch of my skin screams out his name in ecstasy, as if all the vibrations in the world came into one single frequency that pumps through my veins like thunder.
And then my body remembers what to do, hands clutching his waist, sliding up over those rolling shoulders that are attached to fingers that won’t stop giving me reason after reason after reason not to date anyone else.
And promise to give me multiple, mind-shattering reasons right now, if I just go with him.
“Ahem.”
Someone is clearing their throat, but my throat is currently occupied by Andrew’s delicious tongue, so I—
“This is not how my dates typically end,” declares Chris.
I reach between me and Andrew, brushing against his erection as my palms slide up his hard wall of abs and chest, then make a space between us. Our mouths separate with near violence, and I turn to look through blurred vision at—
Oh. Yeah.
My date.
“Normally I’m the one kissing my date,” Chris adds.
“Go away,” Andrew growls.
And Chris does.
I’m not torn. I should be, but I’m not. As I watch Chris the Fake Dog Dater roam off into the night, my staring is interrupted by a strong hand on my cheek, fingers raking through my hair, my head tipped up for another kiss that leaves me breathless and knowing even less than I knew a moment ago.
Until:
“You won’t date anyone else.”
“I won’t?”
The savagery in his tone and the bluntness of the words makes my feminist heart rise up and shake its outraged fist.
“No.”
“Says who?”
“Says your boyfriend.”
“He sounds like a troglodyte.”
“He prefers the term Neanderthal. Someone applied it to him once.”
“Boyfriend? That makes me your girlfriend?”
I’m thrilled and horrified at the same time, because I have eleven dates to go for DoggieDate. And I can’t say a word about this, because the owner of DoggieDate is a rival of Anterdec’s. I would not only be violating the basic tenets of mystery shopping, but also a slew of non-disclosure agreements. I’d lose my job in a heartbeat.
“Yes.” His voice softens.
“Is that what you want?”
“I just said so.” He kisses me again.
“You know what I want?” I stand on tiptoes, my lips against his ear.
“Mmmm?”
“A breve latte for breakfast.”
He leers at me. “How about that latte for second breakfast. First breakfast in bed can be...you know...”
I leer back.
He grabs my hand and pulls me to the limo, whispering, “Okay, girlfriend. Done.”
I fall into his lap in a tumble of giggles and gasps—then groans.
His groans. I’ve missed the sound of his sigh in my ear, how his breath lifts the hair from my neck, how his throaty laugh rumbles along my skin.
Andrew reaches behind me and grasps the door handle, shutting the limo closed with a thump. We begin to move, but I don’t really notice much, as Andrew’s kissing me like we haven’t touched in years.
How can a week of distance feel so much longer?
“I missed you,” he whispers, dragging the tip of his nose along my neck, from earlobe to collarbone, his lips hard and soft at the same time, arms circling me like I’m meant only to be here.
“I missed you, too.” A thin wisp of guilt floats through the air as I inhale. I must tense, because he stops moving his hands, his arms tightening.
“Is this okay?”
“Of course,” I reply, my laughter muted. “I just feel bad about ditching my, uh...” The word date feels dangerous right now. Inappropriate.
Incendiary.
“Your date?”