All the more reason she wanted him to kiss her. She didn’t want her very first kiss to be watched by other people. She wanted it to be private and special and how could it be more special than with Drake? Someone she knew and trusted would not do the wrong thing by her. ‘But I need to practise for when we are being observed.’ She moistened her lips again and added, ‘I’ve never actually been kissed before so what if I get it wrong?’
He released a puff of air through his wide nostrils, a heavy frown pulling at his forehead. ‘Seriously? You’ve never been kissed?’ The shock in his tone made her feel even more of a pariah than she already did.
Aerin pulled her hand out of his, and, checking the seat-belt light was off first, unclipped her seat belt and rose from the seat to put some distance between them. ‘Go on, laugh at me. Mock me for being such a...a misfit.’
He unclipped his own belt and came over to her and took her hand again and stroked his thumb along the back of it. ‘Hey, look at me.’
She met his concerned gaze and bit her lower lip. ‘I know to someone like you who changes partners every week or two, I must seem like I’ve been dropped in from another century.’
Drake glanced at her mouth again and his other thumb began a slow stroke of her chin. His touch was gentle and yet electrifying, sending tingling sensations through her body. ‘I’m a little gobsmacked you haven’t been kissed before now, because I’m sure every man you’ve ever met has wanted to.’
‘Including you?’
His mouth slanted in a smile. ‘Are you flirting with me, Goldilocks?’
‘I think I might be.’ Aerin couldn’t stop staring at his mouth. The sensual contours of it fascinated her. It was easily the most beautiful male mouth she had ever seen. She had seen his mouth so many times in the past, but it had never held the fascination it held for her now...or maybe it had but she had pretended not to notice. But now it was as if a switch had been turned on inside her brain and she couldn’t turn it off.
Shewantedto be kissed by him.
Desire had flicked into life inside her body as if a match had been struck against the dry tinder of her unmet needs. There was a flame building, spreading, heat lashing out in hungry tongues of fire, burning, burning, burning, wanting, wanting, wanting. Sending incendiary heat to every part of her body.
Drake lifted his hand to her hair and threaded his fingers through it, sending shivers skittering across her scalp and down her spine. His eyes were so dark she couldn’t make out his pupils, his warm breath mingling intimately with hers. She got the sense he was at war with himself. One part of him tempted to kiss her, the other part holding back. And wasn’t that true of her too? She had waited for so many years to experience the perfect kiss. Would it be a mistake to kiss Drake knowing he was nowhere near her Mr Perfect? But how could she resist him? He was the first man she had ever wanted to kiss.
He lowered his hand from her hair and captured one of hers. Aerin was conscious of every point of contact of his hand against hers, the slow stroke of his thumb on the back of her hand, his long fingers cupped around hers. She could smell the citrus notes of his aftershave with the understory of bergamot and wood, an intoxicating fragrance that stirred her senses into overdrive. Her gaze drifted to his mouth and her breath caught in her throat. Her eyes came back to his and something in the atmosphere changed. A tensing of the air, a crackling of electricity like the sudden surge of a high-voltage current.
Drake’s eyes locked on hers. ‘Once I kiss you, I can’t un-kiss you. It will change our relationship, charade or no charade.’
Aerin swallowed again, heady anticipation building in every cell of her body. ‘How will it change our relationship? It’s just a kiss between...friends, isn’t it?’
‘Friends pretending to be lovers.’
Was he a friend? It wasn’t easy to describe their relationship. She had never thought of him as a friend even though he had been in her life for so many years. Friends were people you loved and spent time with if and when you could, they were people you had things in common with and you were there for them and vice versa. Drake Cawthorn didn’t quite fit that description and yet...and yet, he had come to her rescue this weekend.
‘I’ve never really thought of you as a friend,’ Aerin confessed. ‘You’re my brother’s friend who I refer clients to for legal representation.’
His look was sardonic. ‘Then why did you ask me to step in this weekend?’
She rolled her lips together. Why had she? ‘I’m not sure... When Harper first suggested asking you, I was totally against the idea. In fact, I was horrified. But then I found myself near your office building the other day and I started to think about it a bit more. It made more and more sense to ask you rather than to ask a stranger. And...’ she gave him a sheepish glance ‘...I was running out of time.’
Drake took one of her hands and brought it to within a couple of millimetres of his lips. ‘Desperation makes all of us do things we later regret.’ He moved his lips in a barely touching caress against her fingertips, sending a host of shivers cascading down her spine.
Aerin could feel her heart pounding as if it were going to crash through her chest wall. She was standing so close to him she could feel his body heat. She could feel the magnetic pull of him drawing her closer and closer and closer. She was mesmerised by his unwavering gaze, that bottomless brown gaze than saw so much but revealed so little. He lowered her hand from his lips and tugged her ever so gently towards him. She came in contact with the hard wall of his chest and the cradle of his hips, and a shock wave of lust rocked through her.
His mouth came down, down, down until it was almost touching hers. ‘Are you sure about this?’ he asked in a deep rough-around-the-edges voice.
‘I’m sure.’ And she was, totally sure that it was his mouth she wanted to be the first to kiss her. It didn’t make sense in some ways and yet in others it did. He wasn’t soulmate material, he didn’t tick any of the boxes on her checklist but, at that moment, all she wanted was the firm press of his lips on hers. She wanted it like a forbidden drug—a drug that might not be good for her in the long run but, oh, how much did she crave it right now.
Drake’s mouth came down and pressed against hers in a light-as-air kiss. It was a soft, momentary touchdown and yet it sent a tremor of greedy want through her body. He pressed his lips back down on hers, moving them against her mouth in a gentle massaging movement that set her pulse racing. She murmured her approval against his lips, instinctively leaning into him in an effort to get closer.
His arms came around her, drawing her against his body, one hand at the small of her back, the other cradling the side of her face. He stroked his tongue along the seam of her mouth and she opened to him, welcoming him in with another breathless sigh of pleasure. He tasted clean and fresh and exotic at the same time, his tongue commanding as it called hers into sensual play. She touched her tongue against his and a lightning-fast bolt of heat went straight to her core. He deepened the kiss, angling his head to gain better access, his hand on the small of her back pressing her even closer to the hardened ridge of his stirring male flesh. A thrill went through her to think she had turned him on, that it wasn’t just her attracted to him but a mutual thing that flared between them.
Aerin slid her hands up his chest and then around his neck, her fingers playing with his hair where it brushed his collar. He made a guttural sound and kissed her harder, more urgently, his tongue duelling with hers in an erotic battle that stirred her senses into a madcap frenzy. His breathing rate escalated along with hers, the explosive heat of his kiss making her dizzy with need.
Drake finally lifted his mouth off hers and looked down at her with a slightly dazed look in his eyes. But then he rapid-blinked and adopted his customary sardonic smile. ‘How did I measure up?’
She looked at him blankly. ‘Measure up?’
‘You’ve waited a long time to be kissed. Did my performance meet your high expectations?’