Amber backed up against the metal lockers, its vents digging into her shoulders, as Eric threw his bag into the compartment above. Moving up against her like this was no coincidence, not when he'd been avoiding her five minutes ago. Tease. If he wanted to touch her, he should go ahead and do so.

His warm tone and that suggestive, lingering look said it all. The longing she'd been walling off since this morning, stopping herself to test Eric's reactions, came rushing back. "No, not ready," Amber fired off. Her heat wasn't just from delayed desire; anger too was mixed in, blending so thoroughly together she couldn't tell them apart. She stared intently at Eric as a challenge, as an invitation. "Did you know we haven't kissed once today?" That thing in the kitchen, fleeting and flinched aside in favor of a frying egg, didn't count. "I think it's time we corrected that." Instead of the fighting, the sulking fits, that's what they should've been doing. What she should've done. If she'd jumped him when they were in bed, they couldn't have fought about family, Eric couldn't have dismissed her.

No more holding back. Amber pounced him now, throwing her force against him and kissed him hard, hands on his shoulders. Yeah, like that, hard, a clash. Amber poured out her frustration and confusion through her lips, not thinking, just acting. It felt good, to let it all out, and to feel him; she'd missed this, the taste of his lips, the passion. Somewhere along the way she'd convinced herself it'd never happen again.