Irresistibly Yours - Lauren Layne Page 0,43
wanted conquests.
Penelope folded her arms across her chest and forced herself to meet his eyes. “Go call Meredith back if you want to get frisky on a desk,” she snapped. “I’m not interested.”
“Aren’t you?” he said, his eyes on her mouth.
“I just said I wasn’t.”
“So you don’t want my lips on yours? You’re sure?”
Penelope hesitated. It was just for a second, but she saw from the flare of triumph in his eyes that he’d noticed the pause.
“Leave me alone, Cole.”
His palms were so close that with just the slightest movement of his thumbs, he would have brushed the outside of her hips.
Hips that were tiny and boyish instead of lush and curvy. If she leaned forward, her chest would brush his, but it was a chest that was flat and barely filled out a bra.
And still, she wanted…She desperately wanted.
“Penelope.”
His voice was gentle now. More concerned than seductive.
“What?” she said, her own voice low. Defeated. Maybe a little sad.
“You really don’t want me to kiss you? I’m not going to force myself on a woman, so if you tell me to go, I’ll go. You want me to release you, I’ll release you. But I’ve gotta tell you, babe, the way you’re looking at me…”
She felt a spike of anger. “You were just kissing another woman.”
“Actually, she was kissing me.”
“And I’m sure you were just standing there, not enjoying it.”
“I hadn’t decided whether I wanted to get into it or not,” he said.
She made a disgusted noise, shoved at his shoulders. “You’re disgusting.”
He held fast, refusing to move. “The thing is, Tiny…When it comes to you, I don’t have to decide. I don’t have to stop and think about if I want to kiss you. I know. I know every damn day when I see you put on mascara in the reflection of your computer monitor because you forgot to do it at home. I know when we go get coffee together and you can recite every single thing that happened on ESPN the night before. I know when I share my French fries with you at lunch and you eat all of them. I know—”
Penelope placed her lips against his.
She didn’t mean to. Really she didn’t. She didn’t remember making the decision to move.
But she had, and she was kissing Cole.
His response was immediate, his lips fighting with hers to get control of the kiss, and yet his hands never moved. He used nothing but lips and body heat to seduce her.
But Penelope used her hands. His tongue slipped into her mouth and she made a little sighing noise as her hands lifted to tug at his collar and hold his lips to hers.
He tilted his head, deepened the kiss, and if Penelope thought the kiss in the snow had been out of this world, this kiss was in an entirely different universe. A universe where gorgeous men wanted to kiss tomboys.
Objectively, she knew that he only wanted her because she’d rejected him. A man like Cole liked a challenge. After this kiss—this wonderfully wanton kiss that she’d initiated—his ardor would cool and he’d be off to chase some other woman.
But that was okay. He wasn’t Evan. She wasn’t in love with him.
If he never kissed her again, it wouldn’t break her heart.
She wouldn’t let it.
Cole pulled away slowly, straightening until his hands slid off the desk to his sides, and they stared at each other.
“So?” he asked finally, when the silence had stretched long enough to get awkward.
She licked her lips. “So, what?”
“Which did you like better? Head-holding? Or what we just did?”
She rolled her eyes and went to the other side of her desk, feeling a bit safer with the distance between them. “Lincoln’s already turned in that stupid article. The time for research has long passed.”
“Oh, I’m not doing research for Lincoln’s article. And I have no interest in being an expert in all things kissing, although honestly, I suspect I’m pretty damn close to getting my black belt—”
She held up a hand. “Then what are you after?”
He grinned and pulled the folder with their story proofs off her desk as he strolled toward the door. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m out to be an expert on Penelope Pope. Because, despite your efforts to prove otherwise, I don’t believe for one second that you don’t want me.”
“You’re wrong,” she called after him, even though he was out the door.
He backed up two steps, just enough to poke his head back into her office.
The look he gave her