I enveloped her in my arms, one wrapped around her shoulders, the other cradling her firm ass. I dipped her, making sure to point us in the direction of the camera, and lowered my mouth to hers. I saw the rapid beat of her pulse in her neck and felt the erratic rhythm of her breath against my skin. And when my lips brushed lightly across hers, I heard the lowest, softest whimper…but couldn’t be sure if it was actually real or just a noise in my head. My hands itched to move lower, to move between her legs, but I kept them in check, tightening my grip on her ass.
I brushed her hair away from her face, fastening the flyaway strands behind her ear, allowing my finger to linger down the side of her face.
/> I wanted to be gentle with her.
I wanted to manhandle her.
It was shocking how my attraction to this woman covered the full spectrum of wants, from kinky to vanilla, from gentle to rough. I wanted to try it all with her. Give it all to her.
When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I took what I’d denied myself for the last six long months.
Our lips finally touched and it was like being caught in a lightning storm. Electrical charges coursed through my body, bringing to life every nerve ending, muscle, and tendon. She lit me up from the inside out. And I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
As my lips moved over hers, she relaxed in my arms, letting me control the pace, the action. Until she snaked her hands up my chest to my shoulders and pulled me harder against her, pressing her soft breasts into my chest.
Our lips clashed and tangled and suddenly it wasn’t enough. I pulled her up, pressing my hand to the back of her head, urging her closer, urging her to take me, all of me. Everything she wanted.
“Guys?” A voice sounded in the distance, but I kept kissing her because she was kissing me right back.
“Ben?”
A throat cleared and I froze, suddenly realizing that the two of us were supposed to be acting. I broke the kiss despite my every molecule telling me to keep going, to keep kissing her until our clothes were on the floor and I was inside her once again.
But I didn’t listen to that little devil sitting on my shoulder.
I stepped back, uncurling my arms from her body. Grace’s eyes were still closed when I took another backward step. Her mouth was swollen, her lipstick was smeared, and her lips were parted in slight disbelief. She was just as rocked by that kiss as I was.
With a grin, I turned and walked out of the shot.
Cory yelled, “Cut!”
“I hope you got what you needed because that’s not happening again.” I could tell by the tone in her voice that she’d armed herself again, locking the steel door that she always had protecting her like a fortress. She refused to look in my direction, but it was just as well. If I had any hope of following through with my promise of no distraction, I had to let this go. I had to keep my cock flaccid inside my pants despite its incessant request to stand at attention.
Besides, even if I did have intentions of trying to make her mine, there was no way I could survive the battle to win her heart. She had too many booby traps, too much hellfire and brimstone keeping out anyone who might want to know the real Grace Nolan.
“I’ll just go and get us set up,” Grace said, her fingers pressing against her lips.
I wasn’t sure why, but that action filled my chest with pride.
“Give me ten minutes, and then we can start.”
I turned my attention to Cory, going over the scene. Answering his questions and praising him, despite being so checked out in the moment that I’d forgotten that he existed.
We cleaned up the equipment and put away the blow-up dolls, then just as he left for the evening, he said, “Hasta la vista, baby.”
I laughed to myself as I checked my phone to ensure I didn’t have any porn emergencies waiting for me.
When I turned around, Grace was standing in the doorway watching. “What was that about?” She jerked her thumb in the direction Cory had just left.
“His real education. Arnold Schwarzenegger one-liners.”
Now that Cory was gone, we no longer had a buffer. Silence fell between us as we settled into the boardroom, removing the items from their original boxes and setting ourselves up with an assembly line. Everly had really gone all out, securing gift cards, travel-sized toiletries, a passport cover with a maple leaf embossed in the leather, and other accessories.
“He seems nice.” Grace filled the silence with a very generic and safe topic. Cory.
“Yes, and really smart. I…” I didn’t finish my sentence. I didn’t want to say out loud how I was feeling.
“You don’t think he’s smarter than you, do you?”