She tilted her head to the side. “Why?”
“Why not?”
I took the phone from her and pressed my thumb against the scanner. Her eyes went huge. “You’re my passcode?”
“Just so I could give it to you. You can delete my fingerprints once you add yours.” Not that it would take much to break into her phone if I really wanted to. But if the public knew just how easy it was to hack their phones, they’d lose their minds.
She looked down at it and pressed the green contacts button. “Added yourself, did you?”
“Absolutely. You just need to log in with your password, and everything will come over.”
“Is that right?”
I knew she was withdrawing. I truly didn’t know how to stop it. I slipped my arm around her back, under her cardigan, and traced my thumb over the low-cut back of her dress. Her silky skin was warm and lured me closer. “Georgia, I don’t want you to shelve me into a customer slot anymore.”
“But you are.”
“When I’m with you, I’m not.”
She curled her fingers around the phone and rested her hand against my chest. “How are we supposed to make that distinction?”
Something stilled inside of me. The idea was ghostly and nebulous, but it was there. When I was in her bloodstream, she forgot to think, forgot to say no.
I needed that part of her to be mine.
The part that couldn’t turn me down.
I looked down at her phone. My lips moved before my brain could catch up. “When I email you.”
She frowned. “What does that mean?”
I licked my lips. Yes. This I could work with. My cell burned against my thigh. I plucked her phone out of her hands and opened the email program. I had a dummy website that wasn’t attached to any of my work or home programs.
Something that I could use only for us.
I logged in with my voice and created an email for her and for me. A mirrored account that would be our secret. That no one could access except for me. I set it up to push to her phone with a vibration that pulsed three times.
“Just wait for an email.” I handed her back the phone. “No one has to know about us if you don’t want them to.”
I cupped her face and drew her up onto her toes. Instead of the kiss she was expecting, I brushed my nose along hers and breathed her in. I didn’t touch her lips, didn’t touch the rest of her.
I watched her mouth, saw the unconscious want in how she dragged her teeth over her lower lip. I stepped back. One huge step so that I didn’t move back in and offer up anything to keep her.
She had to want this as much as I did.
“Miss Barrows.”
She cleared her throat and inclined her head. “Mr. Chapel.”
I waited for her get into her car, for it to turn on before I spun on my heel and stalked across the parking garage, back out to the sidewalk and to my building. I didn’t look back.
Even if I wanted to with every breath.
I took out my phone instead. This field I understood. I’d give her exactly what she wanted.
Thu 27, July 2017