“Yeah. And not just when I had my tongue in your mouth. The other stuff too.”
“The other stuff. You mean the talking part of the evening?”
He smirked. “Yeah. That’s unusual for me.”
“You don’t talk to women?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“You’re really selling yourself, here. I don’t even know what you’re here for.”
“You.”
“Me?”
“I want to take you out. For real. I want to pick you up, hold your hand, and buy you some food.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you want to take me out? You literally just told me I’m not your type. What gives?”
“I just told you.”
“You’re gonna have to tell me again,” I gritted out. “And explain it better this time.” My ego was more than a little bit bruised.
“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you,” he said.
His gaze was intense like liquid silver.
“It’s been a week. You could’ve contacted me long before now,” I said. “So why didn’t you?”
“I was talking myself out of it. Or trying to. It didn’t work.” He stepped closer and towered over me, but not in an authoritative way.
I tilted my head back to look at him. “Boxer, I don’t think—”
He covered my lips with his. He tasted like mint, and the scent of his cologne wrapped around me, heady and potent like a summer night with a touch of spice. Boxer spliced his fingers through the loose part of my braid at the nape of my neck, urging me closer, urging me to live in the feeling of his hot mouth on mine.
I set my hand on his shoulder to steady myself and then I sank into his touch, sank into the need I couldn’t deny now that I was faced with it.
“Say yes,” he said against my lips.
“To what?”
“To going on a date with me.”
His lips settled against mine again, and then his tongue was in my mouth. He wasn’t playing around, clearly. When he lifted his lips from mine, I was sure I was staring at him with a bemused expression splayed across my face.
Boxer was raw sexual appeal and excitement. He was everything I’d shied away from my entire life. And my body softened into him. I placed my palm against his chest and felt the steady pulse of his heart.
“When’s your next day off?” he asked.
“Tomorrow.”
“Unless you want a prospect to be our third wheel, you better clear me to drive. Officially, that is.”
“Are you blackmailing me?” I asked with a slight curve of my lips.