“No,” Keaton said after a minute. “Not from memory. He let me sketch him that day. It was one of the first sketches I ever made, but it took me years to finish painting it in. I couldn’t bear to get it wrong.”
I looked over at him.
He’d come closer as we were looking at the pictures, and I could feel the heat of him burning through my thin uniform sweater and shirt. I could see his giant shadow engulfing mine.
“Tell me about him,” I whispered. It must be his father—or maybe an uncle? An older brother seemed unlikely, and the man in the picture was broad and hale and blond—so not a grandfather.
“No,” he said flatly.
“Is he your father?” I pressed. “Has he seen what you made for him?”
“I’m not talking about this with you,” he said, narrowing his eyes.
“You brought these pictures here for me to look at, Keaton, surely you expected me to—”
“I brought them here for the project,” he said. “That’s it.”
“Keaton—”
I was abruptly lifted off my feet and set on the table, my feet dangling and Keaton leaning in close to my face.
“Stop asking, Iris,” he said in a dangerous voice. “It’s none of your business.”
My entire body thrilled at having him so close. My knees kept him at a respectable distance, but his hands were braced on the edge of the table on either side of my hips, and he was close enough to kiss me.
No. Wait.
I did not want to kiss him.
I didn’t need another visit from Clara.
And he was a dick the last time we kissed.
And he looked at my work without my permission.
And now he was being a super dick. The manhandling of me, the plucking me off my feet and setting me where he liked, as if I were nothing more than a doll for him to play with.
I tried to ignore how hot that idea was.
I tipped my chin up defiantly. “And what will you do if I don’t stop asking, hmm? Tackle me like I’m on your rugby field?”
His eyes dropped back down to my braid, and he reached up to wind the soft end of it around his finger. “Tackling might be in order, Big Red.”
“You wish, asshole.” I made to push him away, but the moment my hands touched his hard body, my brain cut the signal short. I couldn’t think about anything other than how sexy his warm muscles felt through his shirt. About how good it felt to slide my hands up from his ridged torso to his wide chest.
He gave a dark laugh. “Change your mind about something, sweetheart?”
I glared at him. “Screw you.”
But I didn’t pull my hands away. Instead I ran them all the way up his shoulders to his neck, to the place where his dark hair curled ever so slightly behind his ears.
His hair was almost unbelievably soft for a boy’s, and thick enough to make a shampoo model jealous.
I raked my fingernails over his scalp. His eyes closed as a shiver moved through him.
I almost couldn’t help what happened next; I couldn’t help parting my knees. Just a little. But enough for him to notice, even with his eyes closed.
He opened his eyes and stared at the braid still clutched in his hand, and then he stared at my mouth.
“Let me kiss you,” he said urgently.
Bad idea, bad idea.
“No,” I said. “I’m not in the mood for your games right now.”
“I’ll make it worth your while,” he tempted, running a finger over the top of my knee. He didn’t go any farther up, just stayed there at the hem of my skirt, flirting with the edge of the fabric. I could feel every centimeter he traced as if he was branding me with his touch. Etching it, tattooing it.
“Wh-what does that mean?” I asked, my voice trembling a little. He placed his entire hand above my knee now, his thumb curling over my inner thigh, but he didn’t move it. He didn’t try to reach under my skirt.
“It means I’ll make you come,” he said in a low voice, letting go of my braid to put his free hand on my other knee. “Has anyone ever given you an orgasm, Iris? Ever made that pretty pussy happy?”
The word pussy from his lips was like a punch to the chest. I couldn’t breathe. I felt like everything below my navel was on fire. All the reasons why this was a bad idea fled right the hell out of my mind.
“You don’t even know if it’s pretty,” I said nonsensically.
“Oh, it would be. And it would taste even prettier.”
“Taste?” I repeated faintly. I still couldn’t breathe.
His firm lips were tipped up to one side in a smirk, but his eyes were deadly serious. “I know you’d taste amazing, Iris. Let me kiss your mouth, and then I’ll kiss between your legs too.”
The image came unbidden—Keaton’s massive shoulders tucked between my thighs while his sensual mouth explored me. While that lock of hair brushed over his forehead and he used his tongue to stroke—
“We can’t,” I said breathlessly. “We’re in the lab, anyone could see us if they were walking by—”
I was up in his arms before I even finished talking, and then we were moving back towards the darkroom door. Within seconds, we were inside, surrounded by shelves and tables and trays and sinks. Finished photographs hung from lines all around the room like paper ghosts. Some of them were mine. Most of them were mine.
We were bathed in red light. Keaton’s normally blue eyes were a deep, royal purple. I couldn’t stop staring into them.
“Iris,” he rasped. His hands cradled my ass, and my thighs were wrapped around his waist and I was burning up, I was on fire. Every part of me ached for every part of him. “Let me kiss you now. Please.”
My common sense was gone, my reason had fled.
There was only one answer.
“Yes,” I murmured, already leaning forward. “Yes.”
7
Iris
There was a moment—a long, electric moment—when our lips touched, but we didn’t move.
We stayed frozen, him holding me, my arms wrapped around his neck, his firm mouth just barely pressed against mine. It was like neither of us could believe what we were doing, like we were both paralyzed by the sudden, shocking realness of it. This was no longer a fantasy I played in my mind during a restless night, this was no longer a dirty reverie for extra-long showers. This was really happening, this was real life, this was Keaton Constantine gripping my body as he breathed against my lips.
And then the moment deepened, and the kiss became urgent. His lips slotted against mine, moving against them, all as his fingers plumped and squeezed my bottom, all as I panted and squirmed in his arms.
And then his tongue flickered at my lips, inviting me to open—and once I opened for him, it was all over. There was nothing but the hot stroke of his tongue against mine, nothing but our hands everywhere, everywhere, nothing but gasps and pants and groans.
He set me on a table, his mouth moving over my ear and down to my neck while his hands slid under my uniform sweater and started pulling the shirt underneath free of my waistband. Once he succeeded, he slid his hands up my bare back and then back down my spine, over and over again, like touching my skin was the only thing he wanted to do for the rest of his life.