The First Taste (Slip of the Tongue #2) - Jessica Hawkins Page 0,11
beer too.”
“You’re insane,” she says. “I haven’t had beer since college. I only drink whisky.”
“Whisky?” My pants get tight with a single word. “Let me get this straight . . . you don’t get clingy, you’re a yoga goddess, and you exclusively drink whisky? You just keep getting hotter.”
“And I intend to stay that way.” She takes a step back, raising her palms. “Thanks but no thanks.”
She’s fun to mess with, but it hits me that she might really take her diet too seriously. “Amelia, come on. I ordered this for you, and I’d like you to eat it.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t like pizza.”
“I don’t believe that. It’s fucking cheese and bread. Nobody on this planet doesn’t like cheese and bread.”
“Then I must be from another planet.”
“I’m beginning to think you are.” I shove it toward her. “Just take a bite. I won’t tell anyone.”
“Listen . . .” She pauses with her mouth open. A flush creeps up her chest to her neck, and it takes me a moment to realize why.
“You don’t remember my name,” I say.
“I can’t remember something you never told me.”
“Sadie introduced us in your office.”
She waves a hand. “I’m positive she didn’t.”
This woman has pretty much agreed to sleep with me without even knowing my name. What the fuck. I should be annoyed, but now I’ve got some leverage. “I’ll tell you if you take a bite.”
“I’m okay not knowing. We’re only spending one night together.”
Now I’m annoyed. I may have committed to a lifetime of casual sex, but that doesn’t mean I think women are interchangeable or disposable. Is that what she thinks of me? I lower the pizza and step closer until we’re toe to toe. “I’m not okay with it,” I say slowly, “because I intend to spend the night doing everything I can to get you to scream my name. How’ll that work if you don’t even know it?”
She swallows, and I love that her cheeks are now as red as her neck. “I’m going to be naked in front of you,” she says. “Do you really want me to have pizza and beer before that?”
“Yes.” There’s no way she’d look anything other than svelte, and even if she did, I know myself—I wouldn’t care. Once the clothes come off, it’s game on. “You’re a beautiful woman, and I’m keeping my hands to myself because we’re in public.” A runner passes us, throwing a look over his shoulder at Amelia. I don’t blame him. “And yeah,” I go on, “I was staring at your tits earlier. But I’m finding you sexier by the minute, and it doesn’t have as much to do with your body as you might think.”
Amelia shakes her head but I’m doing something right, because she finally takes the plate. “Pizza? Really?”
I open a can, hold it out to her, and grin. “And beer. There’s literally no better match in the world.”
FOUR
Amelia moans a little with each bite. Eating pizza shouldn’t be sexy, especially considering she has tomato sauce on her cheek. But she’s enjoying it almost as much as I’m enjoying watching her, which is a lot.
“Thanks for forcing me to do this,” she says, licking the corner of her mouth as we wander through the city.
“You missed,” I say. “A little higher.”
She sticks her tongue to the side and tries unsuccessfully to get the glob.
Containing a laugh, I lean over and suck it off her cheek.
She stops walking. “What was that?”
“There was no other way.” I hold up my hands, which, like hers, are full of food and drink.
“Well, that was—”
“Sexy?” I ask right as she says, “Disappointing.”
My mouth falls open. “Disappointing? Why?”
“For a first kiss—”
“That wasn’t a kiss. It was . . . a taste.”
“I’m just saying, as far as first kisses go, that ranks pretty low.”
Though we’re in the middle of a crowded sidewalk on Broadway, I set my beer and pizza on the ground along with her bag o’ shit.
“What are you doing?”
“It wasn’t a kiss,” I say, taking her beer and pizza from her to place them next to mine, “and certainly not our first one.”
“Okay, I was just teasing,” she says. “You don’t need to—”
I wrap one arm around her waist and the other around her shoulders, dip her, and plant a hard kiss on her lips. She doesn’t respond. I don’t fault her that. I’ve never kissed a woman in public this theatrically, but there’s no way she isn’t melting in my arms right now. People ooh and