Melt for You

by J. T. Geissinger

  “Really.”

  I narrow my eyes at him. “You’re just trying to make me feel better.”

  “Am I?” He takes another bite of ice cream, smiling around the spoon.

  I flop backward onto the cushions and pull the blanket up over my face.

  I hear a chuckle, low and pleased. “I’m tellin’ the truth, lass. You’re a champion kisser. Very fine. And not fine the way you Yanks use it—fine as in excellent.”

  I flip the edge of the blanket down and peer at him.

  “I don’t mean to make it sound like I don’t have anything else I could teach you,” he says casually, licking the spoon. He glances sideways at me. “For Michael, of course.”

  I chew the inside of my lip. “Like what?”

  “You want a list?”

  Now I’m indignant. “A list? There’s that much to improve on? I thought you said it was fine as in excellent!”

  He lifts a shoulder, nonchalant as can be. I’d like to smash my pillow into his face, but that would probably send the bowl of ice cream flying. His stupid face isn’t worth a wasted bowl of ice cream.

  I sigh and sit up, pulling my legs off his lap. “Okay. Hit me. And don’t leave anything out. I want to hear the whole ugly truth.”

  He looks at the ceiling, lightly tapping the spoon against the side of the bowl. “It’s not really one of those things you can talk someone through.”

  Getting more and more worried, I furrow my brow. “So how am I supposed to improve?”

  He turns his gaze to me. His expression is solemn and regretful, like a doctor about to inform me of the inoperable tumor in my brain. “Practice.”

  Without waiting for a response, he scoops me more ice cream and holds it to my lips. Then he watches with his wolfish eyes as I suck the spoon into my mouth and swallow.

  After I work up the nerve, I venture, “So you’re saying . . . you want to kiss me again.”

  “I wanna help you get your heart’s desire, lass,” he counters briskly. “Which is Michael, right?”

  Those wolfish eyes again. I’m getting confused. “Um. Yes. It’s . . . Michael.”

  His eyes flash, but he nods, apparently satisfied he’s made his point. “Right. Think of it as trainin’. Like if you were gonna run a marathon, you wouldn’t just run twenty-odd miles in one go. You’d work up to it a bit at a time. Day after day, week after week, a wee bit at a time, until you’re in prime shape for the big event.”

  When I sit in silence for too long, just looking at him, Cam shakes his head.

  “You’re right. It’s a bad idea. You’ll get all attached, and it’ll be funny between us. You’ll be heartsick. I’ll be uncomfortable. You don’t know this, but it’s not easy for me to break a lass’s heart. I can only stand so much beggin’—”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake, McGregor!”

  He looks taken aback at hearing me curse. “I’m just tryin’ to spare you a broken heart, lassie. I’m agreein’ with you, it’s a terrible idea.”

  “I’m not going to fall in love with you, McGregor. Not from kissing you or from anything else.”

  Unmoved by my outburst, he casually consumes more ice cream while looking at me from the corner of his eye. “Oh, aye, now I remember. You said I’m not your type.”

  “Exactly.” I say it emphatically, unsure if it’s him I’m trying to convince or myself.

  Cam nods. “Exactly. So then there’s no problem.”

  I sigh, remove my glasses, and scrub my hands over my face. I go into the kitchen, run the tap, splash water on my face, dry it with a dish towel. Then I put my glasses back on, turn, and look at McGregor on my sofa with his feet up on my coffee table, eating ice cream like he’s on friggin’ vacation at a seaside resort, and sigh again.

  “Fine. But this is purely . . . educational. And I don’t want to talk about it after tonight. Deal?”

  Cam doesn’t even turn around when he shrugs. “Whatever you say, lass. I’m just here to help.”

  It’s the nonchalance in his aspect and voice, the total indifference, that finally convinces me. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

  “Sure.” He doesn’t budge from the sofa.

  “Are you coming in here or what?”

  “I’m comfortable right where I am.”

  “Oh. Um. Okay.” I return to the living room and perch on the edge of the sofa with my hands folded between my thighs. I never know what to do with my hands when kissing a man, so it’s safer to have them trapped.

  Cam says, “Well, hop on, then.”

  “What?”

  He gestures to his lap with the spoon.

  “Dude! No way! I’m not straddling you!”

  He smirks. “Afraid you’ll get too hot and bothered and rip my shirt off, lass?”

  “This is ridiculous.”

  “Oh, so you’re worried I’ll get aroused.”

  Visions of his monster manhood swim into my brain. I sputter, “W-what? No! Geez!”

  “Good, because I won’t. Stop stallin’. I’ve gotta get to bed soon. I’m meetin’ someone for a run early in the mornin’.”

  I’m irrationally hurt, both by the implication I’m not boner worthy and that he’s made plans to work out with someone other than me. “Who?”

  Cam inspects my expression with one corner of his mouth quirked, a strange look of satisfaction in his gaze. “You.”

  “Oh. Right. I mean . . . I know.”

  The other corner of his mouth lifts, and now he’s smiling at me. “You’re adorable when you’re jealous.”

  I gasp, loudly and with vigor. “I am not jealous!”

  Cam leans forward, sets the bowl of ice cream on the coffee table, grasps my upper arms, and drags me onto his lap, where I gasp again, because how could I not?

  It isn’t every day a girl gets to straddle Godzilla.

  Cam says gruffly, “Good. It’s sorted. You’re not jealous, I’m not your type, and you don’t have eyes for anyone but pretty boy Michael. Now quit yammerin’, woman, because I’ve got other plans for that mouth.”

  And oh God, does he.

  He takes my mouth almost angrily, one hand around the back of my neck and the other curled around my upper arm, his lips hot and demanding. When his tongue breaches my lips and touches mine, a shudder of electricity runs through me, like I’ve stepped on a live wire.

  My hands flattened over his broad chest, I shove him away. “Wait!”

  He stares at me with a hard jaw, breathing erratically. “What?”

  I remove my glasses and set them on the cushion beside us.

  This time he comes at me slower. More deliberately, more controlled. He slides his hands into my hair and bends me to him, hesitating with a hair’s breadth of space between our mouths.

  “Remember to breathe,” he whispers.

  “Just kiss me already,” I whisper back, surprised by how much it sounds like a plea.

  “Your eyes are still open.”

  I immediately shut them.

  His soft laugh sends a thrill up my spine. “If only you were that obedient all the time, lass.” He lightly nips my lower lip, a dark, delicious little promise.

  My hands. What do I do with my hands? They’re flattened against his chest again, but that seems lame, so I slide them up around his neck . . . and discover his hair. Good Lord. Thick, glossy strands of hair slide like silk between my fingers. His hair is longer than any of the men’s at the office, much longer than Michael’s, past the collar of his shirt, dark and waving, exquisitely soft.

  As his tongue slowly begins to probe my mouth, I tug on all that gorgeous hair, forgetting I’m not supposed to be enjoying this.

  I arch against him, softening, expanding, breathing deeply through my nose as the kiss deepens and begins to burn. I wasn’t kidding when I said he was experienced. He knows exactly what to do, how to get my blood sizzling and my heart hammering and all the pornographic images of him nude and splayed out like the best Christmas gift I’ve ever received pulsing like neon sign
s inside my head.

  My nipples tighten. There’s a new heaviness between my legs, but it’s not him, it’s me, flushed and aching, every pull of his lips sending a spike of heat to that hollow space inside me that I’m becoming acutely aware of, with its muted little howls of need.

  I break away to check in before I lose myself completely and choke him with my prehensile tongue. “How’m I doing?” I mumble, flushed and out of breath.

  His eyes drift open. Hot and dark, they pin me in place. “Jury’s still out,” he says, his voice thick. “Need more evidence.”

  His mouth. I will drown in the pleasure of his mouth. I’ll die on this sofa, and Mrs. Dinwiddle will find my body, fingers and toes chewed on by the poor starving cat.

  The kiss grows decadent. Sinful. I moan, a desperate sound rising from the back of my throat. It has an interesting effect on Cam.

  His entire body goes stiff.

  He takes my head in both hands, breaks the kiss, and turns his face away. He breathes raggedly for a few moments, his nostrils flared and his jaw like granite. With his fingers pressed into my scalp, he says roughly, “You can’t make noises like that.”

  Oh God. I sound like a warthog. A donkey. A trained pig, snuffling through the underbrush in search of truffles. “Okay.”

  The humiliation in my voice makes his eyes slash to mine. “It’s not bad. It’s just . . . distracting.”

  Distracting?

  He slightly shifts his weight, and things are clarified.

  I bite my lip so hard I might have drawn blood. My heart is a hummingbird beating frantically against a cage. I whisper, “You said you wouldn’t get aroused.”

  He looks at my mouth like a warlord looking over a kingdom he’s just seized. “I lied.”

  A kiss again, dangerous, like standing at the edge of a cliff and looking over, shifting dirt and rocks tumbling beneath your feet. My fingers twist in his hair. His hands move my head, left or right, however he wants it, a throbbing pulse like drumbeats in my ears. I’m so turned on I feel frantic, unstable, like I might break out of my own skin.

  Caterpillar becoming butterfly. Chrysalis shed, wings outstretched, wind beneath my belly. Caught on an updraft. Beating, beating, flying free.

  He breaks the kiss, suddenly, shatteringly, the separation like breaking glass. Dizzy, I whimper at the loss of his mouth.

  “Fuck. Joellen. Fuck.”

  He’s panting, his voice a desperate rasp. He radiates heat like a furnace. Even his hands on my head are hot, burning right through my skull.

  With his scent in my nose and his heat wrapped around me and his heart pounding against mine, I’m somewhere else. I’m someone else. A gypsy, casting spells. A sloe-eyed singer in a smoky jazz club. A femme fatale in a film noir, all knowing smiles and long legs and a throaty voice with an edge like a purr.

  “Don’t stop,” I say in my new voice. “You taste so good.”

  He stares right at me, his eyes intensely aglow. Tiger eyes. Wolf eyes. The eyes of a predator about to pounce on his meal.

  He growls, “You like the way I taste?”

  There’s a challenge in the question. Other than his ragged breathing, he’s so still, every muscle tensed.

  What’s happening?

  I come back to myself abruptly, all at once aware of how far this little experiment has gone, how dangerously close it is to the point of no return, and the cat up on the kitchen table eating the remains of Cam’s dinner from his plate.

  Oh shit. My face floods with heat.

  I’m not a gypsy. I’m not a femme fatale. I’m an awkward, lonely woman sitting on the lap of the most famous athlete on the planet, making an utter fool of myself.

  “Sorry,” I say faintly, my voice raw. I clear my throat. “I think I got a little carried away.”

  I grab my glasses and fly off his lap as if I’ve been launched. I flee into the kitchen, where I busy myself with cleaning the dinner dishes and attempting to stave off a major heart attack. For a long time, I hear nothing from the living room. When I chance a glance over my shoulder, Cam has his elbows propped on his knees and his head in his hands, looking at the floor.

  “So I’ll see you in the morning?” I try to make my voice normal.

  He huffs out a breath, like a husky laugh only harder. He slowly rises to his feet. “Yup. See you in the mornin’.”

  He leaves, never looking at me, an awkward hitch in his gait.

  I try to convince myself that my weight must’ve cut off the circulation in his legs, but it’s a tough sell considering all the evidence. Ultimately I’m forced to face the truth.

  Cameron McGregor was as turned on by that kiss as I was.

  I can’t decide if that’s the best development or the worst.

  TWENTY

  In the morning, we act as if nothing ever happened.

  We jog along the snowy streets, chatting about rugby, Scotland, the best places to eat in Manhattan, everything light and safe. I ache to talk to him about the kiss, but I know it’s better left alone. Besides, what would I say? “Hey, that was some great kissing last night, eh? Wow, I sure was grinding on that king cobra in your pants! Had to go to bed and rub one out—how ’bout you?”

  So not gonna happen.

  At work I’m confronted with a corpse. The roses Cam sent me last Monday committed suicide over the weekend and are stinking up my cubicle something fierce. There are withered petals and crispy leaves all over the place. I consider dumping them into the kitchen trash, but the can is only slightly bigger than the one under my desk, unable to accommodate the remains of one hundred roses. Also I’d probably trip and fall on my way, thereby spilling disgusting flower-rot water all over the company carpet and eliciting the ire of Portia, who has already made several ominous passes by my desk like a shark toying with the seal it’s planning to eat for dinner.

  So I call for help.

  Denny arrives with one of those industrial-size garbage cans on a round dolly with wheels. “Yikes!” he says, grinning. “Is that stench the roses, or did you have chili and beans for dinner last night?”

  Even when he’s not making fart jokes, he’s still making fart jokes.

  “Do you want me to help you?”

  “No, kiddo, I got it. Thanks. You want to keep the vase?”

  I demur. He makes quick work of the roses, placing the entire arrangement into the trash can and sweeping up the trail of leaves littered over the floor with a hand broom and dustpan.

  Then from behind the wall that separates us, I hear Shasta’s voice. “Oh my God. What the . . . Joellen? Is this you?”

  I pop my head over the wall and find her at her desk, staring at her computer screen. Her eyes are wide with disbelief, and her expression sends a twinge of panic through my stomach.

  “Is this me where?”

  “On TMZ.” She looks up at me, blinking. “You’re on TMZ.”

  “Me?” I laugh in relief. “I don’t think so.”

  She looks at her computer screen, then back up at me, then back at her screen. “Then you’ve got a twin you don’t know about, because this looks exactly like you.”

  Frowning, I make my way over to her cubicle, then lean over her shoulder to see what she’s looking at. There on the screen is a close-up shot of me and Cam, nose to nose in the ladies’ dresses department of Saks, gazing at each other.

  Neither of us is smiling. His big hand is curled possessively around my upper arm. The dresses on hangers are crushed between us. It’s an intimate and intense moment and looks like we’re either in the middle of a fight . . . or about to make out.

  The headline screams, CAMERON MCGREGOR AND MYSTERY WOMAN SIGHTED SHOPPING!

  Son of a bitch. The man with the camera sold the picture of Cam and me to TMZ.

  Cold with horror, I whisper the first thing that comes to mind. “Does my hair really look like that?”

  Shasta squeals. “It is you!”

  “Shh!” I peek up over the cubicle wall, but no one else seems to have
heard. Crouching back down, I go into full-blown panic mode, complete with sweating palms and heart palpitations. “Oh God. What should I do?”

  “Girl!” thunders Shasta, making me wince. “What you should do is tell me what the hell is going on with you and Cameron McGregor!” As I cringe and beg her to keep her voice down, she peppers me with questions, each more invasive than the last.

  “How did you meet him? How could you keep it a secret? Are you two a thing? Is he amazing in bed? Oh, cripes, I bet he’s crazy in bed. Is he hung? You have to spill—oh! How long can he last? Is he freaky? I bet he’s super freaky, right?” She wiggles her eyebrows salaciously, and is about to continue her tirade, until a familiar voice interrupts and we both freeze.

  “Ladies. Hard at work, are we?”

  Shasta and I gulp and make guppy eyes at each other. Slowly, I straighten and turn to face the music, edging over a few inches in an attempt to block Shasta’s computer screen.

  “Um. Good morning, Mr. Maddox.”

  He glances at Shasta, hiding behind me, then at the screen, which I’m sure is still at least partly visible, then looks back at me. “Good morning.”

  He answers smoothly, not a ripple of emotion in his voice, but his eyes are pinwheeling like a crazy person’s, which is how I know I’m totally busted. He already knows about the story.

  Shasta offers a weak, “Hi,” then goes back to hiding behind my big butt.

  “Joellen. I had a question about your application.” He looks at Shasta meaningfully, and I understand. “Walk with me.”

  He turns and leaves without waiting for an answer, because of course he doesn’t have to wait. He’s the beautiful CEO, and I’m the lowly scullery maid who’d be happy to scrub his floors for all eternity for crumbs of his time and attention.

  I lurch after him, sweating profusely.

  His legs are long, and he’s set a strenuous pace, so it’s hard to keep up. It feels like we’re running from someone. I’m consumed with guilt for no other reason than it seems like I should be as we stride down the corridor at a breakneck clip.

  “So you’re in the news.”

  His voice is terse, his jaw is set, and his eyes are roving back and forth like he’s watching for incoming missiles. It makes me feel a little better that he’s uncomfortable, too.