12. Kiss, Marry, Kill

12

Kiss, Marry, Kill

NICOLE LAMB

Kingston Moore kissed Nicole’s hand.

It was a chaste kiss, a soft brush of his lips and a whisper of breath, but it was as courtly as the swords in her office and his valiant if dumb attempt to save her from imprisonment.

No one had ever kissed Nicole’s hand before. She hadn’t even realized it was on her bucket list.

When Kingston looked up at her over her knuckles, his fiery blue eyes and steady gaze were a challenge.

Accepted.

She leaped to her feet. The stupid wire chair tumbled over behind her. She scrambled across the table, climbing on it with her hands and knees, toward him.

The table tipped under her knees. As she reached for Kingston’s shoulder, he wrapped his arm around her waist and dragged her the rest of the way, pulling her up to her knees and her mouth to his.

The first seal of his lips to hers was a sear that broiled through her mind, shivered down her arms, and reverberated through every cell in her body like a blast wave. His arm around her waist crushed her against his chest, and he stroked up her throat and splayed his hand over her face, then cradled the back of her skull.

Nicole wrapped her arms over his shoulders and hung on while he kissed her, slanted his lips over hers and devoured her, his tongue tasting, teasing, then wrapping hers as she opened and pushed back, trying to feel all of him.

She was short-circuiting, his lips on hers and his hand in her hair and the steel band of his arm around her waist, a pandemonium of sensation.

And then it was lessening, lightening, and he was pulling away.

Either an earthquake was rattling the hell out of the building, or Nicole’s legs were jelly as she gasped.

The fluorescent lights were too bright, haloing his dark hair, and she held onto his neck as she panted.

Wow, she’d been half-ready to flop backwards on the table and grind against him until their pants came off, just from a kiss.

Like, wow.

Kingston’s breath was harsh in her ear and warm on her neck, and his temple pressed hers. “The HR department is not going to like this.”

A few neurons connected in her head and sparked, but only a few. “Then let’s not tell them.”

He huffed a chuckle. “Those barracudas will find out eventually.”

“Why is that a problem? You’re not my boss. You’re in an entirely different department, so there’s no chain of authority problem. Considering you’re the new sales guy, low man on the org chart, there’s every possibility that they’d consider me to be your boss.”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, his voice rough.

As he straightened a little, she swung her legs around to sit on the edge of the table. “You worry about HR a lot. Have you had problems with them in the past?”

Was she snogging a notorious company ‘ho? Is that why he’d left his previous job?

Kingston braced his arms on either side of her, leaning over. “Never. I’ve always been careful not to have problems with them. It’s like stopping for red lights. It’s a good rule, keeps everybody safe, and prevents getting T-boned.”

Nicole couldn’t help herself. “Heh. You said boned.”

His chuckle escalated. “Oh, you are dangerous, little miss engineer. I think you won the arm wrestling contest. To the victor goes the Snickers bar.”

He picked it up, peeled the wrapper, and broke off a piece, which he held out for her.

And again, his blue-fire stare above his hand was an offer and a challenge.

She could reach over, pluck it from between his fingers, and toss it in her mouth.

Instead, Nicole leaned forward and took the bite between her teeth from his fingertips, locked in eye contact with him.

The dark circles of his pupils expanded in his blue eyes.

Without changing his intent focus on her or looking at the candy bar, he broke off another bite and held it out.

With that bite, she grazed his thumb with her lower lip.

His gaze bored into hers solid like a fist, and he stepped toward her and held out another piece just below her mouth, a chunk of chocolate and peanuts at the bottom of her peripheral vision.

A tiny part of her brain was an indignant old auntie, standing with her hip out and arms crossed, asking what Nicole was doing by leading this guy on or accelerating the problem because they were trapped in the building together.

But a much larger part of her mind wanted to see what Kingston would do.

She was playing with fire, not to tame it, but to see how much she could burn down.

Thirteen long hours stretched before them until the front doors unlocked.

“Last bite,” he said, holding out a chocolate cube.

Nicole sucked it from his fingers with just a kiss on his thumb, not too slutty, not discouraging in the slightest.

Kingston dropped the wrapper in the trash. “What do you want to eat now?”

Just how much did she want to escalate this?

Thirteen hours was a long time. They literally had all night.

Nicole picked up a bag of sunflower seeds and tore it open.

Kingston backed up a step, a half-grin curving his mouth, and snagged a bag of trail mix. As he ripped it open, he sat in the chair beside her legs and poured some into his mouth.

She grinned back at him and tossed more crumbly seeds into her mouth.

“I’ve got to admit, I did not see that coming,” he said.

“What, that?” Admitting to it seemed too much.

“Yeah, in the game of Kiss, Marry, or Kill, I would’ve put my money on you running me through with a sword.”

“The night is still young.”

He laughed. “I suppose it is. I never got to play with those high-tech golf simulators you have up on the third floor. You just pointed to them, and we moved on. After we eat all this junk food, do you want to show them to me?”

“Sure. What the heck? We’ve got all night.”

His slow smile was more sultry than she’d expected. “Indeed, we do.”

The casualness of his smile made her think that maybe forgetting about the time and the security system hadn’t been an accident.

“Did you do this on purpose?” she blurted.

He bounced a palmful of granola like he was funneling it before tossing it in his mouth. “Do what?”

“Get us locked in here together?”

His sideways head tilt and rueful grimace looked embarrassed. “No, and I had dinner reservations for us for eight o’clock at the restaurant in my hotel. I should probably cancel those.”

The timeline clicked in her head. “But you didn’t ask me out to dinner until after the sales meeting that ended at three.”

He shrugged.

She raised an eyebrow at him and plucked a package of peanut M&Ms from the pile of crap food. “So you just assumed I would go back to your hotel with you?”

He looked at her and tilted his head. “I only said dinner. It sounds like you had more in mind.”

“I can’t say what I had in mind.”

His smile rose on one side. “Well, I wouldn’t have said no.”

She hadn’t meant—she’d only meant that she—”What hotel are you staying at?”

“Any reason you’re asking?”

Oh, the snark. “The sales guys usually stay at the La Quinta down the block, so we don’t have to rent them a car while they’re here.”

He laughed a sarcastic hah. “I’m not staying at the La Quinta.”

“Then where are we putting you up?”

His sharp, blue-eyed gaze turned back to her. “You’ll have to go to dinner with me to find out.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Transparent.”

“I’ve already told you I’m not playing hard-to-get.”

“But what about HR? Aren’t you worried about Human Relations anymore?”

He shrugged, still grinning. “Like you said, you’re probably my boss. It’s rather alluring, having your boss crawl across a table and kiss you.”

Horror struck her like walking through a spiderweb. “Oh my God. You aren’t going to tell anyone, are you?”

Kingston blinked and grimaced. “I’m not one to kiss and tell. Are you?”

“God, no. None of their business. And how excruciating.”

His naughty smile returned. “Excellent.”