Hayes Whitley is kissing me. Again.
Finally.
His fingers are possessive—on the underside of my jaw and the small of my back—and the soft groan he emits communicates everything his lips are expressing and more.
His taste consumes me. The chocolate on his tongue. The spark of desire. The lick of lust. The sense of calm riled up by an overload of emotion.
My hands slide up the plane of his back over skin heated by the sun and slick with frosting. His muscles bunch beneath my palms as he shifts the angle of the kiss.
His tongue tantalizes and torments. Begs me to want more with its tender caresses and then switches gear and demands me to keep pace. To allow him to possess and claim.
I feel in droves. Want. Need. Lust. More. Too much. Not enough. Don’t ever stop. What am I doing?
And as much as I should be panicked, as much as I should be thinking about what all this means and how I already know I’m going to get hurt somehow, I don’t. Instead I lose myself in the kiss. Surrender myself to him. The guests and the staff I heard moments ago no longer exist.
It’s just me.
And Hayes.
And the singular sensation of rightness he is making me feel. A sensation I don’t think I had ever realized was missing since he’d left, but now know I’ll never be able to live without.
Jesus Fucking Christ.
Soft lips. Skilled tongue. That little moan.
Did I really walk away from this? From her? Why?
Goddamn it, Saylor.
I kissed her because I saw them looking.
I kissed her because I wanted there to be no doubt who she was with, and the status of our nonexistent relationship.
I kissed her because it’s been too damn tempting not to, and so why not when it was the perfect opportunity?
And fuck, now I don’t want to come up for air. I just want to stand right here with this woman who owns every sensation within me. The one coated in frosting who left the pain behind and is currently pressed against me. The one whose laughter I can hear still in that sweet goddamn moan she made and whose taste I don’t think I ever forgot.
How could I?
Her fingers press into my back. Little scrapes of her nails to let me know this is real. Not some movie set. Not ten years ago in the tree house with my letterman jacket on the floor beneath her. But here in paradise with the smell of suntan lotion on her skin and the tickle of the breeze blowing her hair onto my cheeks.
I’m in two minds. Two sets of thoughts struggling to be heard through the roar of want that’s firing in my blood. One begs me to drag her off to the villa and see what else is the same and different about her all this time later. Dip between her thighs and have a taste. Feel her pussy grip around my cock and hear my name pant on her lips when she comes.
I deepen the kiss. Grip her jaw tighter and take what I want from her because, fuck if taking her right now on the putting green isn’t a possibility.
My sensibility fights back. Tells me this can’t happen. Saylor is Saylor with her little cupcake shop and her own dreams, and I’m just the asshole who lives in Hollywood with a life so different than hers that it would never work. I’d only hurt her again in the end. And she’s had enough hurt lately.
I want to tell my mind to shut the fuck down. To let my dick do the talking. The one that’s currently pressed against the warmth of her bare belly.
I have to end the kiss for my own fucking sanity. And because I’m pretty sure there are laws against having sex in public. I fight the urge to dive back in and deepen the kiss. To give in to my need and take what I want.
But I don’t. Can’t. This isn’t about me.
This is about Ships and making things right.
So I take one last draw on her lips. One last nip of the forbidden fucking fruit I want more than I thought I would but now realize I shouldn’t have. And end the kiss.
But I don’t let her go just yet. I know how hard quitting Saylor cold turkey can be. Recall the burn in my gut that lasted for almost a year. Gut? More like heart. And then I realize that it probably took even longer since every one of those feelings just came back with a vengeance after a single damn kiss.
So I hold onto her and steal one more moment. Take one more draw of the same breath. Let my mind stumble through memories of the past we shared and be thankful our paths have crossed again.
“Now I know why I’ve always compared every woman I’ve ever kissed to you.” The words are out before I can stop them. A confession I never should have made but now can’t seem to purge from my mind.
Her breath hitches. Fingers flex against my skin. And then the murmurs of those around us provide the reason I need to take a step back. Break the hold she has on me. Play the part I came here to play.
And when I do break our connection, she still holds me captive. I take in her full lips, the frosting smudged on her cheeks, and read the confusion in her eyes. The perfect goddamn combination of sexy, sweet and uniquely Saylor standing before me slaps me in the face and begs to know how I could have been so stupid to walk away from her.