He switched the tempo, gently sucking at my bottom lip before tilting his head and kissing me deeper until I became nothing but need. Heat rushed through my veins, bringing me to life, a euphoric variation of the tingles in my limbs after they’d fallen asleep and were brought back to feeling.
“God, Ella,” he groaned, his fingers tight in my hair.
“Yes,” I urged, loving everything about this. He curved his body over mine, then lifted me by my ass and spun, setting me on the counter. Then he used both hands to hold my head and kissed me until I couldn’t remember my own name—only that I belonged to him.
My fingers ran along his neck, until I had ahold of his tie from underneath, curling my fingers through the space where he’d loosened the knot.
“I could kiss you forever,” he said against my mouth.
“I’m okay with that.”
He smiled, and I couldn’t help but mirror it. Everything about this felt so incredibly right. He brushed back a strand of my hair from my face with a tenderness that made my heart lurch, like it was reaching for him. I love this man. That thought alone sent my need up a notch, until I was aching and restless.
My sex drive the last seven years had been a broken circuit, and suddenly the lights were coming back on, as Beckett flipped switch after switch.
Kissing me again, he slid his arms around me, and when he pulled me to the edge of the counter, I parted my thighs, bringing us together from lips, to chest, to hips. There was an edge to the kiss now, a rough desperation that could only be the result of the desire we’d both kept tightly leashed the last few months.
I cursed the layers of fabric between us, wishing I’d chosen a shorter, less fluffy skirt. He broke our kiss, and I gasped, sucking in some much-needed air when he put his mouth to my neck. Holy shit.
“Beckett,” I whimpered, letting my head roll back and giving him unfettered access to whatever parts of me he wanted. They were all his.
He supported my arched back with one hand and flicked open the lone button of my shrug with the other, never pausing in his assault on my neck. He rained long, openmouthed kisses down my neck, over my collarbone, and down to my neckline.
My heels hit the hardwood floor as I kicked them off, locking my ankles around his waist to bring him harder against me.
That earned me another groan from his lips. Leaning back, I braced my hands on the cool granite, so at odds with the heat of my skin. He ran his hands over the sides of my breasts, to my waist, down over my dress-covered thighs, until he reached the bare skin of my knees.
I’d never been so glad I refused panty hose in my entire life.
Strong hands slid beneath my dress, running up the sides of my legs. His skin was rough and calloused, yet his touch gentle but for the press of his fingers when he squeezed at the top of my thighs. I had the insane urge to ask him to tighten his grip, to leave some kind of mark that would tell me tomorrow that this had really happened—it wasn’t all a dream.
He kissed me, taking my mouth in a rhythm that made my hips arch into him, wishing his hands would move. I’d never been kissed with such expertise or care, never felt my blood rise to a fever pitch like this. It was utter, complete, delicious madness.
His thumbs stroked down the line of my inner thighs, brushing the edge of my panties, and I felt the sensation everywhere. In my core, my belly, the tips of my breasts. That simple motion caressed my heartbeat and sent it skyrocketing.
“More,” I begged, squeezing my thighs around him, needing the pressure to ease the ache, even if just a little.
Like I’d bitten him, he released my thighs and stepped back, my shock loosening my grip enough that he broke the lock on my ankles.
“Okay, that’s the opposite of more,” I said, my words as choppy as my breath.
He leaned back against the other counter, his chest rising and falling just as rapidly as mine. At least I wasn’t the only one affected by that kiss. He looked flat-out tortured and a little angry as he ripped his tie loose.
Damn, that was sexy.
He closed his eyes as his hands tugged at his hair. He was the very picture of an intensely aroused man who couldn’t get a grip on his control, and maybe I was mean, but I loved knowing I’d put him there.
“Beckett.”
“No.” He shook his head as he opened his eyes. The way his gaze raked over me, my dress barely covering my still-spread thighs, was intense enough to send another wave of pure lust through my system. “Not like this.”
A quick cut of fear slid down my sternum. Had the kiss not been the same gravity-bending event for him that it had been for me?
“You’d prefer to wait another four months to make out? Because this is us, Beckett. I’m always going to be Ryan’s sister. I’m always going to want you, and if the way you just kissed me is any indication, you want me just as badly.”
“I always knew it would be like this between us. From the moment I set eyes on you, I knew the minute my hands…” He caught the side of his bottom lip between his teeth for a second, then gripped the counter.
“Your hands what?” I taunted, sitting up straight and giving my arms a rest.
“I knew the minute I got my hands on you, it would take a miracle for me to stop long enough to get a rational thought in my head. Touching you… God, Ella, if you had any idea how badly I want you, you would not still be sitting on my counter looking at me like that.”
“Maybe I do know.” I ran my tongue over my lower lip. “Maybe I feel the same exact way. And rational thoughts are overrated.”
“Think this through.”
“Why? Maybe I want to be reckless for once. Maybe I like the way you take every rational thought out of my head. Maybe that’s exactly why I need this—need you.” The ache centered between my thighs had me shifting my hips. Sex had never been something I sought out, or a big fireworks show, but I never remembered it starting with this torturous, clawing need, either.
“I’m really trying here.”
Trying my patience.
The sting of rejection was sharp. I brought my knees together and buttoned my shrug with trembling hands. “I don’t get you. I tell you I want you to kiss me, and you jump across the couch. I shave my legs and put on a dress, and you hug me good night. I throw myself at you, and you kiss me like I’m the only woman in the world, and now you’re over there. Beckett, I can’t make my wants any clearer, and I can’t be the one who always has to chase you. If you want me physically, but don’t want me, then say it. Because I’m done listening to you tell me no like there’s something wrong with me.”
He had the nerve to look wounded, like his constant arm’s-length approach to our physical nearness was more painful to him than it was to me. Like I wasn’t the one constantly trying to push our relationship out of the friend zone.
“Do you see me as a sister? Is that it?”
“Hell no!” He sighed. “And now I’ve sworn at you twice.”
“I really don’t mind. You could throw in an F-bomb if it meant you were interested in using it as a verb.” I put my hands on the counter and prepared to jump down, find my shoes and my dignity, and take my sexually frustrated butt home.
“Look at me.” His voice had taken on that gravelly tone that I loved.
I brought my eyes to his, wishing I could understand what the hell the man was thinking about. What kept him from taking what I knew—or at least really hoped—he wanted. “What are you thinking?” I broke down and asked.
“I’m counting how many glasses of wine you had. Two at dinner. One after the concert, and it’s been what? Five hours?” His eyes narrowed in thought.
“I’m not drunk, if that’s what you’re implying! Like I need alcohol as an excuse—”
“Oh no,” he cut me off, dropping his voice even lower. “I’m not asking for you. I’m asking for me, so that I know when I ask this next question, you’re not too drunk to answer it.”
My tongue wet my suddenly dry lips. “Okay.”
“Do you want me, Ella?”
“I think I’ve been pretty clear that I do.”
He shook his head. “No. I didn’t say ‘do you want to make out with me?’ Do you want me? Because I’m standing here, trying to keep my hands on the counter so I don’t send them up your dress to the insides of your thighs.”