And then, he kisses me.
My eyes are already closed by the time his lips press against mine, and that furious addiction in my veins boils until I’m kissing him back, until I’m breathing him in. I fist my hands in the slack of his T-shirt, and he spins us around and begins walking me backward.
He’s sober. The way he looked at me, the way he’s touching me—strong, deliberate, steady.
The kitchen counter gets in my way, and then Shawn’s hands are gripping my ass and lifting me onto it. The stubble on his jaw prickles my palms, my cheek, my neck, my chin—until every part of me, seen and unseen, is marked as his.
I want him, but not just for a moment. I want him, but not just this once.
I break my lips away and hold his shoulders at a distance when he tries to reclaim them. The smoldering look in his eyes is shaking my resolve when I warn, “You can’t regret this, Shawn.”
Whether he’s sober or not, I can’t lose another piece of myself. I can’t just throw it away.
He pulls me to the edge of the counter so that my thighs are snug around his hips and the firm press of him is hard between my legs. His eyes are full of promises when he says, “I won’t.”
His lips crush mine again, and the squeeze of my knees draws him even closer. Shawn’s hands slide down to my ass, and when he rocks me against him, my moan mingles with his, a low, quiet, breathy sound that makes my insides coil tight.
I’m ready to give him whatever he wants when his lips suddenly part from mine, brushing across my skin until they’re pressing hard against my temple. His words are at my ear and his shoulders are trembling under my hands when he says, “You can’t regret this either.”
“I won’t.”
“Mean it.” His voice is uneven, his hands unsteady—like it’s taking everything he has to keep them from taking me.
“I promise,” I say, and he pulls away to see the truth in my eyes a moment before he kisses me.
He kisses me like he plays the guitar—a mix of passion and technique that makes me feel like a sundae he’s determined to savor, like my tongue is the ripened cherry on top. And I kiss him back until I’m melting under his lips, his tongue, his touch. My skin ignites when his lips drop lower, and lower. They explore my neck and the exposed parts of my chest, finding my hot spots and exploiting them until I’m biting my lip between my teeth to keep from waking the entire bus. My tiny whimpers only encourage him as he pushes a hand under my shirt and palms the swell of my breast, greedy and massaging and . . . fuck, I’m throbbing between my legs, and the way he’s moving against me isn’t helping—not with my pajama shorts as silky as they are, and my panties getting as wet as they are.
With his hips between my thighs and his hand under my shirt, my fingers detach themselves from the shoulders of his T-shirt in a rush, diving to the button of his jeans instead. I’m fumbling with the denim, desperate to feel him inside me, when Joel groans from his bunk behind the curtain, “Shaaawn, make me a coffee.”
Shawn and I freeze—me with my hands ready to tear apart his jeans, and him with one hand on my breast and the other under my ass. He slowly straightens back up, my fingers not moving from his button and his eyes not straying from my mouth. We wait and wait and nothing. In the silence, he nips softly at my lips, and in the silence, I kiss him back.
“Do you think he went back to sleep?” I ask in a whisper.
“No.” Shawn’s searing lips catch mine again in a soft yet dominant caress, but then something heavy drops to the ground, and in a second, his hands are out of my shirt, mine are off his jeans, and he’s taking a hasty step back.
Joel bursts through the curtain a second later, a hungover mess as he walks right past Shawn to get to the coffeemaker. He loads a filter into the machine, oblivious to the way my heart is pounding out of control, the way my lips are a bright kiss-swollen red, and the way Shawn is staring at me like he’s seriously contemplating finishing what he started regardless of who is or isn’t watching.
“Why the hell didn’t anyone make coffee?” Joel complains, and I bite my bottom lip between my teeth.
Shawn takes a little step toward me, and I subtly shake my head. He hesitates, then nods toward the curtain, silently asking me to leave the bus with him. For once, he’s asking, and for once, I can think.
A satisfied smile touches my lips, and I shake my head again.
I’ve always made things too easy for him. Too quick. Too forgettable.