So good.”
She felt his face near hers before she opened her eyes, and her stomach tightened as she imagined his gaze on her. Gus had a way of looking at her that was respectful and also made it 100 percent clear that he was thinking something seriously naughty.
She opened her eyes to look right into his dark brown ones. Yeah, he was thinking something naughty, perhaps even nasty if she was lucky, and his body was tensed as if he was ready to act on it.
“Is there a reason you chose the chocolate tart first?” she asked
His gaze darted down to her mouth and then back up. “You know the answer to that.”
She shivered at the twin caresses of his voice in her ears and his breath across her mouth. “Tell me.”
“I wanted to see how it tasted on your lips.” His voice had gone deeper again, to that level that made her whole body like a sound receptor vibrating from his every word.
“Then what are you waiting for?”
Even though she’d as good as told him to kiss her, she wasn’t prepared for the force of his mouth meeting hers. It wasn’t painful, because Gus was too skilled for that, but there was something different this time, and his desire for her hit her like an emotional hadouken. She’d taken all his words over the course of the night and the week in stride because he said them so calmly that it was hard to get worked up about them, but Gus really liked her. That was evident the almost desperate swipe of his tongue over her lips, in the desire in his groan when she grabbed hold of his forearms and returned his fervor.
He pulled back and looked at her, breathing hard. “And then?”
She squinted at him, wondering if his kiss had caused her to lose consciousness for a minute and miss part of the conversation because she had no idea what he was referring to. “What?”
“Earlier you said we would talk about ‘and then’ after dessert.” He stretched his hand out and closed the box containing the rest of the tarts.
She took a deep breath. “And then . . . we go to my bedroom, if you want.”
He stared at her.
“For sex,” she clarified. Her heart was pounding in her ears. “If you want.”
“Reggie, have you somehow misinterpreted me kissing you for five nights in a row? Yeah, I want. You. I want you.”
She’d grown somewhat accustomed to the deep, smooth baritone of his voice, but hearing those three words cranked her he-could-get-it meter up to 11.
He made to move toward her and then stood and walked to the door that led inside instead, sliding it open. “Milady?”
Reggie unlocked her brakes and pushed herself through the door with unsteady arms as he gestured her through. Her body was ready, that was for damn sure. Her heart? She’d worry about that later.
Chapter Eight
After each had made a quick bathroom pit stop, Gus followed Reggie into her bedroom, one of the rooms he hadn’t seen before. While the rest of the house was clean and tidy, this room was more chaotic, with clothes heaped on a laundry hamper and small piles of books and comics scattered around, though the floor was mostly clear.
“I feel weird asking the cleaners to take care of my bedroom, so a bit of a different vibe in here,” she explained sheepishly.
Gus didn’t care about the state of her bedroom. The walls were teal, her bedspread was yellow and had Aurora and Phil on it. The wooden posts of her bed were white with gauzy peach fabric strung between them, like something a princess would sleep in. He took that in with one blink, but his focus was on the face that had quickly become his favorite color combination: honey-brown eyes, golden-brown skin tanned from sitting on her deck, and the spray of russet freckles that spread over her nose and cheekbones.
He reached out and ran his thumb over each delicate eyebrow, down the bridge of her nose, over her soft, full lips. Desire tumbled down his spine and he exhaled hard.
“Can I touch you? More?”
She nodded jerkily. She was looking up at him, but he couldn’t tell what her expression was conveying—she seemed hesitant now that they were here. There was a little divot between her brows now, and her shoulders were tense.
“Are you sure?” he asked, gently removing his hand. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
“I’m sure.” She closed