“A special sort of greeting,” Jaxson confirmed, his thumb brushing across my lower lip in a touch so light I might have imagined it if not for the jolt of electricity it sent through me. “Between people who share a home. Who care for each other.”
The honey-sweet scent intensified in the air between us, wrapping around us like an invisible cocoon. I could barely breathe, caught in his gaze like a rabbit hypnotized by a particularly beautiful predator.
“Oh?” I managed, voice barely above a whisper. “What kind of greeting?”
The corner of his mouth quirked up. “I think you know, Lan.”
And I did. God help me, I did.
My gaze dropped to his lips—those perfect lips that had taught me how kissing should feel just one week ago, that had claimed my own with devastating skill. The memory alone made heat flood my body, the golden warmth in my chest pulsing with increased urgency.
“So,” Jaxson murmured, leaning closer until his breath mingled with mine, “shall we observe tradition?”
This was crossing a line. Again. Venturing further into territory we shouldn’t explore, deeper into this beautiful sin we’d begun that night one week ago. The responsible part of me—the part that understood family dynamics and social boundaries—knew we should stop, step back, pretend none of this had happened.
But then Jaxson’s thumb traced my lower lip again, and responsibility packed its bags and left town without so much as a goodbye note.
Fuck it.
I surged forward before my brain could catch up with my body’s terrible decision-making skills, pressing my lips against Jaxson’s with all the finesse of someone who’d learned kissing from watching fish gasp for air. For one horrifying moment, he went completely still, and I had a split-second vision of myself packing my bags and moving to a remote island where no one would ever find me or the smoldering remains of my dignity.
Then his hand shot up, fingers tangling in my hair with surprising force, gripping tight enough to make my scalp tingle as he tilted my head at precisely the angle he wanted.
“Open for me,” he growled against my mouth, the vibration traveling straight from my lips to parts of my anatomy that had absolutely no business participating in kitchen activities.
Twenty-Four
LAN
My lips parted on a gasp—partly from surprise, partly from the sharp tug on my hair—and Jaxson took immediate advantage like the opportunistic predator he apparently was beneath all that responsible big brother camouflage. His tongue swept inside my mouth, hot and insistent, not asking permission but claiming territory that I was embarrassingly eager to surrender.
The first slick slide of his tongue against mine sent an electric current down my spine that nearly short-circuited my central nervous system. My knees actually buckled, which would have been mortifying if I’d had any brain cells left to process embarrassment. Jaxson’s arm locked around my waist, hauling me up against him with an ease that reminded me of our size difference in the most inconvenient way possible.
That strange honey-sweet scent that always seemed to intensify when we touched exploded in the air around us, like someone had detonated a floral bomb in our kitchen. The golden warmth in my chest flared hotter, brighter, spreading through my veins until I half expected to look down and find myself glowing like some bizarre human nightlight.
Jaxson broke the kiss, pulling back just enough to stare at me with an expression I couldn’t quite decipher. His eyes had darkened to the point where only a thin ring of amber-gold remained around pupils blown wide with what looked suspiciously like hunger.
“Do you smell that?” he murmured, his nostrils flaring slightly as he drew in a deep breath. “Like honey and cherry blossoms.”
Before I could formulate a response that wasn’t just incoherent babbling, his mouth was on mine again, more demanding this time. His teeth caught my lower lip, biting down just hard enough to send a jolt of something between pain and pleasure racing through me, then immediately soothing the sting with a slow sweep of his tongue.
Bite, then soothe. Pain, then pleasure. Had he been reading Bree’s romance collection or did this come standard with the Jaxson Sinclair Kissing Experience?
His hand moved from my hair to the nape of my neck, his thumb pressing against the spot where my pulse hammered wildly like a trapped bird. His other hand splayed across my lower back, each finger a point of burning contact through the thin fabric of his dress shirt. He held me like I might try to escape, which was laughable considering my legs had all the structural integrity of overcooked ramen noodles.
I made a sound—something embarrassingly needy that I would deny making until my dying day—as his tongue licked deeper into my mouth, sweeping against my own in a rhythm that my hormone-soaked brain immediately translated into other, much less vertical activities. He tasted like coffee and mint and something darker, richer, that was uniquely Jaxson. If they could bottle this taste, they’d make billions and probably cause traffic accidents as people became too distracted to drive.
When he changed the angle of the kiss, tilting my head farther back until I was practically bending like a yoga instructor showing off, I felt a new wave of that golden warmth surge between us. It pulsed from my chest into his, connecting us with invisible threads of sensation that seemed to vibrate with recognition. Like my body knew his, had always known his, which was completely insane and definitely the sort of thing I’d mock mercilessly if someone else said it out loud.
His hand moved from my neck to cup my jaw, his thumb stroking my cheekbone with a gentleness that contrasted sharply with the way his mouth was practically devouring mine. The juxtaposition—tender touch, devouring kiss—made my head spin like I’d chugged Wei’s expensive whiskey on an empty stomach.
When Jaxson finally broke the kiss again, I was embarrassingly close to whimpering at the loss. His lips trailed along my jaw to that sensitive spot just below my ear, and when his teeth scraped against my earlobe, my whole body jerked against his like I’d been electrocuted.
Great, now he knows another button to push. At this rate he’ll have a complete user manual for “How to Reduce Lan to a Quivering Mess” by dinnertime.
“Look at you,” he breathed against my skin, his voice rougher than I’d ever heard it, like gravel wrapped in velvet. “So responsive. So perfect.”
His teeth scraped down the column of my throat, the edge of pain drawing a gasp from me as my hand flew up to grip his biceps. I could feel the hard muscle beneath the expensive fabric of his suit, the strength he was holding in check as he systematically dismantled every defense I’d ever built.