At her twentieth birthday party he’d swept some frosting up off her cake with his forefinger and had gone to brush it on her face, and she’d...
It was embarrassing now.
But she’d caught his finger in her mouth instead and licked it, sucked his finger into her mouth. It had seemed like a funny idea in the split second between when she’d decided to do it and when she’d actually done it.
Then her tongue had touched his skin, fire had risen up in his eyes and something had gone so tight in her stomach she could barely breathe. And it hadn’t seemed funny at all.
No one in her family had noticed that she and Damien had been caught up in an explosion.
So she’d thought maybe...maybe.
And it had taken her more than a full year after that to try and kiss him.
But he’d rejected her.
Hey, kiddo. Come on now. You don’t want to do that.
He’d practically laughed.
Little girl, this is above your pay grade, believe me. You want romance, and that’s not what you’d ever get from me.
“Believe me. After the last time we saw each other, I hadn’t given you another thought. And I don’t need to give you another thought now.”
She moved up the stairs, and he caught her arm. And she... She felt like she was in danger of catching fire again. He was so close, and of course it was Damien. She felt like an idiot now. She’d been relieved, thinking that maybe... Maybe she wasn’t hopeless for him. Maybe she wasn’t a lost cause. But it was worse than that. She had walked into a room full of people wearing masks, and had zeroed in on her humiliating childhood crush, and he had been the only one she’d wanted. The only one she’d seen.
He smelled familiar. And she didn’t know if that was from last night, or from all the years. She wanted to bury her face in his neck, breathe him in. She wanted to touch him again.
But she pulled away instead.
“I’m staying for Christmas.” He released his hold on her.
“What?”
“Yeah. I’m down here looking at a piece of property, and Levi invited me.”
“Oh, shit,” she said.
“You’re a pretty girl with a dirty mouth. Anybody ever tell you that?”
Her lips twitched. “You’re a dirty boy with a pretty mouth. Did anybody tell you that?”
But that felt far too charged of a thing to say, and she regretted it the minute the words left her mouth.
Anyway.Prettywas the wrong word for any part of him. He was far too masculine for such a word. She was just grasping at straws. At the fences.
“Watch it.”
“So what? It doesn’t matter? You don’t want me. It’s not going to be any challenge for you to make it through Christmas without jumping me again.”
Something in his eyes went flat. “Just so we’re clear. I can’t offer you anything.”
“I didn’t ask you for anything.”
“You should’ve told me you were a virgin.”
“I didn’t even tell you my name. Why would I tell you that?”
“Because I didn’t go slow enough, or make sure I didn’t hurt you. It would have been fine if you were more experienced, but you aren’t. I wish I would have known.”