Chapter Twelve
Susan whirled and laughed, and an unfamiliar pang echoed in Andrew. He couldn’t pull his gaze from her. She stopped, facing him, grin wide and eyes sparkling. “That was so much fun. I can’t believe… Anyway. Thank you.”
“For what?”
“The idea. Bringing me along. I don’t know. Tonight.” She threw her arms around his neck in a big hug and pressed her warm body to his, chasing away the chill and drawing heat to the surface.
Her tits against his chest. Her breath on his neck. The scent of vanilla and sugar that drilled into his senses.
The hammer of her heart against his ribs—how could he feel that?
Her laughter faded, and she pulled back to meet his gaze. Jesus, she had gorgeous eyes.
He felt her skin against his palm before he realized he was cupping her cheek. When he dipped his head toward hers, her eyes grew wide, and then the lids fluttered closed. He kissed her, and a jolt sped through him, singeing his skin, burning his veins, and making him crave more.
He needed to break away, but she parted her lips in a silent gasp, and he took the invitation, diving his tongue into her mouth to dance and explore.
The way she molded to him chased away sensibility. He drew his hand to the back of her head, to grasp the short hair and hold her captive. She tasted like he expected—innocence and trouble, wrapped together. He didn’t want to fuck her; he wanted to strip her down a piece of clothing at a time, and take hours exploring her body and finding out what made her moan, scream, and whimper.
Time to stop. He fumbled to find scant threads of reason and put more than a foot between him and her. He gave Susan a too-bright smile. “Oops.”
Her cheerful expression faded into disappointment, before returning half-force. “Don’t worry. I won’t hold it against you.” Her voice was flat.
“Appreciate it, Suzie-Q.” It took restraint to grin and act as if he didn’t care. It took more, to not tug her back and continue kissing her. What the fuck was wrong with him? He was acting like a horny teenager. It was a kiss. Tempting. Delicious. Soft—
“So… Yeah.” She fiddled with the button on her coat sleeve. “It never happened.”
“We should go.”
She stood in his path, unmoving. “Do you have someplace you need to be?”
He did. He needed to get back to his hotel, jerk off until he was raw, and put this moment behind him. “No. My night is open.”
“Can we stay here a little longer? No-expectations-I-promise. I don’t want to go home yet. Or you can drop me at Mercy’s if that’s better for you. I have a key.”
The name and plea helped him hang on to reason. When he and Mercy were bumming around the world, she both loathed the idea of going home again, and missed it so much that it kept her up at night, sobbing with homesickness. He nodded toward the sidewalk. “Do you want to walk?”
“Walking sounds good.” Susan fell into step beside him, hands jammed in her pockets and gaze cast at her feet.
He mimicked her posture, not trusting his hands to be anywhere else. “What you did inside? Falling into the role and playing that part? That’s all you need to do on stage.” There. He brought the topic back to the only reason they were spending so much time together. Good job, me.
“It’s not that easy.”
“Why not?”
She jerked her head back toward the restaurant. “Those people don’t know me.”
“Neither do the people watching you on stage.”
“Not all of them, but some do. Family will come to watch. If I’m good at it, eventually people will show up to see me dance.”
“You’re not hearing me.” As someone walked past them from the opposite direction, Andrew drifted closer to her. He didn’t move away again when the sidewalk was clear. “They know your name. They don’t know you. They can’t say why you use the R&T photography room for practice. They don’t know how you take your coffee.”
Her arm brushed his, and she stayed close. “That’s semantics.”
“But it’s not.” This was the conversation he should have had with her on Sunday, instead of tucking his tail between his legs and running because he couldn’t get his libido under control. “Why didn’t you want to dance at The Gateway? I’m not judging. No accusation. I want to know.”
“Because it was embarrassing.” She tucked in her shoulders and moved farther from him.