Free Stripped Down by Emma Hart Page B

pants.”
    “Fine.” He searched my eyes. “But I don’t need it out to do this.”
    He lowered his face to mine before I could reply, and the next thing I knew, his lips were against mine, floury yet soft and oddly warm. The rich taste of coffee lingered on his tongue as he sucked my lower lip into his mouth and grazed his teeth across it. He wrapped his hand around the back of neck as he pushed my back against the wall and leaned into me.
    I didn’t want to do this.
    I didn’t want a sober memory of his lips over mine.
    But I couldn’t stop it.
    From the hardness of his body to the twitch of his fingers at my neck to the flick of his tongue against mine, I couldn’t stop myself from kissing him back and my hands from winding in his shirt. It was an irresistible urge. My whole body was consumed with the reality of his mouth of mine and his hands on me and his body against mine.
    It was dangerous.
    “Stop.” I breathed the word, forcing my arms between us. I flattened my hands against his chest and pushed him away from me, my cheeks flushing.
    My lips tingled in the aftermath, and as I touched my fingertips to my mouth, they felt tender and swollen, yet they ached as if they wanted me to close the distance between us and kiss him again.
    I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. This was wrong on every level.
    “You need to leave,” I said in a low voice, not meeting his eyes. “And that can’t happen again. Ever.”
    He didn’t say a word, but I felt the hotness of his gaze as he stared at me. His scrutiny was unnerving, and goose bumps formed on my upper arms, prickling across my skin.
    “Tomorr—” My voice cracked halfway through, so I cleared my throat and used the strong sound to garner enough courage to meet his eyes. “Tomorrow. I want to sign the papers when I come into work. I want to file them so this”—I motioned between us—“can be over. Over, Beckett. That means this”—another motion—“definitely does not happen again.”
    He still didn’t speak.
    Not even as he took two steps back toward me before he paused.
    Not even as his hand twitched as his side.
    Not even as he turned and walked right out the door. Taking all the air with him.
    I sank back against the wall at the gentle close of the door and slowly slid down it until I was sitting back on my heels. I dropped my head forward and buried my hands in my hair as I sucked in a desperate deep breath, allowing my heart to calm its rapid pace.
    I’d never met anyone like him.
    And I hoped I never would again.
     

 
    E ver since CiCi was born, I’d had a distinct lack of one thing in my life: friends.
    As cute as they are, babies apparently aren’t good accessories. Because, you know, it’s super inconvenient to have this person to take care of when you should be partying.
    Insert sarcasm here.
    I didn’t mind most of the time, but sometimes, it was lonely. Like now. I would have given anything to have a friend I could talk to about the situation I was in.
    I didn’t even need guidance—I just needed a place to vent, somewhere I could let everything out.
    I needed someone to tell me it would be okay, even if it wouldn’t be.
    Usually, that would have been my mom, but this was too big to put on her shoulders. Way too big.
    Mostly, right now, I wanted someone to vent at because the sexy son of a bitch who was legally my husband had told me to be in his office before my first dance to sign the papers, and he wasn’t there. He’d fucking left me to do it alone, and his signature wasn’t even on them.
    He could kiss my ass. I wasn’t signing them unless I knew he was. We signed them together or not at all.
    I scanned the top of the desk for a notepad or a piece of paper. There was nothing there, so I turned and slowly looked around the room until my eyes landed on a printer full of blank, white paper.
    Bingo.
    I grabbed a sheet and brought it back to the desk to tell him exactly what I thought of him. Leave me alone to make me sign them