[18+] Mark just wants a quiet life. With plenty of action at work, he has no interest in bringing the drama home with him. But he does need a flatmate, and when blonde bombshell Zoe crashes onto the scene, she's more than he bargained for.
Zoe is a...
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March 2007
ZOE
It's unusually playful of him, and I suspect it's a distraction tactic. That only makes me more curious, but if I push, there's a chance he'll renege on the kiss offer, and I'm not willing to take that risk.
I scramble to my feet, a little too eagerly to play off as cool, then pause.
"Uh... Should we get dressed first?" I ask.
He shrugs. "I'm not bothered. It's not leading to sex, right? Just kissing."
"Right." I perch next to him on the sofa, then twist sideways so we're face to face.
It irks me that he's so chilled about this. I'm literally sat here in my underwear, about to kiss him, and he looks like he's relaxing at a spa. Then again, he supposedly hates kissing. Maybe he's genuinely unaffected by the prospect of us making out.
He props his elbow on the back cushion and rests his head against his fist, gaze lazily tracing my body with zero emotion behind it.
"You look bored," I blurt.
His eyes spring up to mine, widening. "I'm not. I'm waiting for you to make the first move. This was your idea."
Crap. I'm supposed to be in the driving seat, and I already feel like I'm on the back foot. He hates kissing, and I bet he's still better than me at it. What if he thinks I'm awful? What if he still hates it afterwards? My ego couldn't take the rejection.
"What are you thinking?" His soft murmur, all velvety and sensual, doesn't match his hard, emotionless exterior.
"Just forming a strategy," I lie. "I've got one shot to change your mind on kissing. Need to make it count."
He tips his head towards the clock. "You can have ten minutes to convert me."
Okay. Wow. Ten minutes. That's quite long. I can work with that. A few minutes to get into the swing of things, suss him out, then the rest of the time to blow his mind.
Easy.
It'll be even easier when I don't have to look at his stupidly handsome face and his insanely hot body.
I shuffle a few inches closer, until my bare knee presses into the firm warmth of his outer thigh. The skin-on-skin contact sends a jolt of excitement down my spine. I rise to kneel and steady one hand against his shoulder, the muscle solid and tense beneath my palm.
"You okay with me touching you?" I ask.
A curt nod is all I get in response. I guess it's a stupid question. We're about to spend ten minutes with our tongues in each other's mouths; a bit of touching isn't crazy.
With my free hand, I cup his jaw and angle his face towards me. He's pliant, yielding to my touch, meeting me halfway as I bring our mouths together.
The instant our lips brush, my nerves disappear and instinct takes over. Our mouths meld together like two pieces of a jigsaw. It's cautious at first. So different to how I imagined Mark to kiss. And I've imagined it more than a few times.
