hips and rocked against her. “And you’re so female. So do I start looking for distractions?”
From under her lashes, she stared at him and then sighed. “Zach . . . you know how your mom is. If we go there on a date sort of thing, as you call it, she’s going to get her hopes all worked up. And when this thing ends . . .”
He stroked a hand up her side, along her collarbone, and up her neck until he could rest his fingertip on her lips. “Why are you in such a rush to talk about everything ending, Abby? We just got started.”
“Ah . . .” She had an answer for that.
Really.
But even as she tried to figure out what it was, his mouth replaced his finger and she couldn’t possibly think when Zach Barnes was kissing her.
His arms hooked over her shoulders, his body caging her in, the kiss should have been greedy and demanding . . . and she could have met that, could have handled that. Hell, a quickie in the kitchen sounded like it would go hand in hand with a torrid affair, right?
Although she should really move it out of there while she worked . . .
But it wasn’t a greedy, demanding kiss.
His lips, light as an angel’s touch, brushed over hers and even when she opened for him, he didn’t take it deeper. Instead, he skimmed his lips up along her cheekbone to brush along her temple, then he rubbed his cheek against hers. “You thinking to call it quits already, Abs?”
“Call . . .” She had to force the word out through a tight throat. It had just been a kiss. Just a simple kiss. “Call it . . .”
Her brain processed what he’d said and it was like somebody had sucked the air out of the room, the light out of the world. “Call it quits?”
Jerking her head back, she stared at up at him. Was he—
He skimmed a hand through her hair and said softly, “I was barely getting warmed up and it seems like you’re already planning my good-bye party.”
“No, I’m not.” Okay . . . he’d been talking about something else. She wasn’t exactly sure what, but there you go. That was Zach for you. “What in the hell are you talking about?”
“I ask you for a date and you’re over there talking about things ending and my mom being heartbroken.” He slid his hands down her arms and caught hers, twining their fingers together. “I’m kind of happy with how things are going, but it seems like you’re already looking at the finish line. Is that what you’re doing?”
The finish line . . .
Blowing out a sigh, she shifted her attention to a point past his shoulder. The silvery reflection of her refrigerator was nowhere as appealing to look at as he was, but when she looked at him, her brain had developed this annoying habit of just not functioning the right way. “Well . . . I’m not exactly looking at a finish line, but we never really did set out for this to be . . . be . . .” The word lodged in her throat. Shit. Shit, she couldn’t say that to Zach. They were having an affair. It was amazing, and wonderful, and she loved it, but that was all it was. That’s not all you want anymore, though . . .
“A relationship,” he finished.
Jerking her gaze back to his, she swallowed. Damn it, that knot was choking her now. Hesitantly, she nodded. “It was just supposed to be . . .”
The dark fan of his lashes swept down, shielding his eyes from her as he blew out a sigh. He dipped his head and pressed his brow to hers while one hand came around her waist, tangling in the gauzy material of the shirt she’d pulled on over a camisole-styled tank that morning. “You planned on a torrid affair, Abby. That doesn’t mean it can’t be something more.”
Her heart jumped into her throat and a hope she hadn’t even realized she’d been harboring started to rise inside her, growing so fast, so strong . . .
Zach’s lids lifted and she found herself caught in the intense blue of his eyes. “If you want more . . . if I want more, who says we can’t have more?”
“Is that what you want?”
Something flashed in his eyes. There, then gone.
That look, whatever it was, left her head reeling, spinning . .