She cuts me off. “No, I was going to say you have a sesame seed right here.” She taps her chin lightly to demonstrate.
“Oh.” I swipe once to wipe it off.
“You missed,” she says softly, and now we’re done with lines. It’s just us. “Davis,” she adds, and it’s halfway to an invitation because she’s talking to me now, not Paolo, and she’s still got that seductive tone in her voice. I want to hear her say Davis in other ways. I want her to say my name because she can’t not. Because she’s reaching for me, and pulling me deeper, and because I’m doing things to her that drive her so wild she says my name in a breathless, fevered way.
I want her to say my name to ask for it, to plead for it, to beg for it.
She sweeps her thumb across my chin gently. I hitch in a breath as she touches me. “I got it,” she whispers, flicking the errant sesame seed quickly to the floor. I don’t know if she’s Jill or Ava anymore, but I don’t care because now she’s running her thumb across my jawline, and the barest touch from her makes me hard.
“Did you find any more?” I ask, in a low, hoarse voice.
She shakes her head, her hair moving with the slightest swoosh, enough that I catch a faint scent of her pineapple shampoo that already is her scent to me. The one that will always make me think of her. Now she’s running her index finger across my lower lip, and that’s it. That’s all I can take.
“Jill,” I warn.
“What?”
“If you keep doing that…” I let my voice trail off.
She keeps doing it, tracing my lips with her finger, obliterating all my willpower. I place my coffee and bagel on the stairs then grab her wrists, walk her two steps backward. She’s up against the concrete wall. Her lips are parted and her eyes are full of lust. I hold tight to her wrists as I capture her mouth with mine.
She lets out the tiniest little whimper at the first touch of my lips. I want to kiss her hard and hungry, because she makes me feel that way. But I want her to know I’m in control, that I’m leading now, not her. Without breaking my hold on her wrists, I trace her lips with the tip of my tongue, slowly, torturously. She tries to deepen the kiss, grappling at me with her sinfully delicious mouth but I take my time, tormenting her with my tongue, leaving her no room to think of anything else but how she’d feel if I were doing this to her in other places.
I move to her jawline, kissing her there, then teasing my way to her earlobe, flicking my tongue against her skin. “Is that what you wanted me to do?” I whisper.
“Yes,” she pants.
“Is that why you touched me?”
“Yes.”
“Have you been thinking about me since that day in my office?”
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
She inhales sharply, then whispers in a ragged voice. “Yes.”
I let go of her wrists, and they fall to her sides. I untie the belt of her jacket looped at her waist, then undo each button on her coat, letting the fabric fall open. “I hate winter,” I say. “Too many layers.” Then I pull back to look at her. She’s wearing a V-neck sweater that makes her br**sts look fantastic. Her ni**les harden under my gaze. I finger the bottom of her sweater, careful not to take this too far, but dying to know what her skin feels like. I lift the fabric, and run my fingers across the soft skin of her stomach.
She shivers, practically vibrating with sexuality. It’s as if her body is on a low hum, waiting for the right person to turn her all the way up, all the way on. So I give her what she wants, slanting my mouth against hers and kissing her hard and rough, so she’ll still be able feel me later when she’s all alone. She responds instantly, grabbing my hair, pulling me closer, tangling her tongue with mine. It’s a hungry kiss, as I explore her mouth, tasting her lipstick until I nearly lose my mind with the need to know more of her body.
Every inch of her.
Her hands drop to my waist and she tugs harder, as if she’s trying to erase any distance between us. I follow her cues, giving her what she wants, rolling my h*ps against her. Her hands are on my ass in a second, grappling and yanking me against her. She pushes back, thrusting her body against mine, and it takes all my self-control not to hike up her skirt, to touch her under those tights, to learn exactly how much more she wants.
Instead we kiss like that, frenzied and fast, bodies smashed together, but never quite going too far. At some point we pull apart for air. She’s breathing heavily but she’s smiling too, and everything about her is starting to lower my defenses, from the sweet curve of her lips, to the glow in her blue eyes, to her talent and the way she was meant to play this role. It’s eating me alive not to ask her to have dinner with me. To start something with her. To take her out, and romance her, the way I want to. I let that sweetness she has work its way through me, and I tell her something I shouldn’t be saying.
“I wanted to cast you as Ava. I wanted you over Alexis.”
Her eyes widen. “You did?”
“Yes,” I say and more words pour out because I want her to know what I see in her. I want her to know that she’s my discovery. I found her, I called her in, I chose her. “You were my first choice, Jill. The producers insisted on Alexis because of her credits,” I add, taking a chance that she won’t think me weak for not having the final say. But I risk it. “But I wanted you and only you as Ava.” I leave a quick kiss on her neck that makes her shudder before I speak again. “You can play her, and you will play her. Hell, you are her. I can feel her pain in you. Her secrets. Her sadness. How wounded she is. Most of all, I can feel her hope.”