“I really believe that,” he said quietly.
Pressure clamped down on my chest. Maybe he was right. Maybe tomorrow or next week or next month, all of this wouldn’t seem like such a death sentence. But right now, I felt like I was free-falling, my arms flailing and there wasn’t anything to grab onto to stop my fall.
“I don’t want to talk about this,” I said, voice hoarse as I squeezed my eyes shut.
“What do you want?”
“I . . . I don’t want to think about this. Maybe that makes me weak.”
“It doesn’t,” he said, and I felt him roll onto his side.
“And I don’t want to feel this right now—this emptiness and uncertainty and confusion.” The next breath I took was shaky. “I just don’t want to feel this.”
Maybe I should’ve gotten the prescription filled.
There was a moment, perhaps no more than a heartbeat, and then his hand wrapped around the curve of my elbow. My eyes snapped open when he tugged me onto my back. Air hitched in my throat as his lean body hovered over mine as he rose up on his elbow.
“I have an idea,” he said with a small grin. The teasing look didn’t reach his eyes. Something else burned there. A powerful intensity that caused the muscles in my stomach to quiver. “And I think this idea will definitely have you feeling something else.”
“You do?” My heart rate picked up.
“Uh-huh.” He placed the tips of his fingers on my cheek and very slowly dragged them over my parted lips and then down my throat. “I have a degree in art.”
My brows rose. “What?”
“You didn’t know?” His hand moved farther south, over the hem of my shirt and then he stopped, his palm resting against the swells of my breasts. “I have a degree in the art of distraction.”
I laughed. “That’s so lame.”
“But it’s working, right?” He grinned as he lowered his head. His lips brushed the curve of my cheek, exactly where his fingers had been. “You know what else?”
“What?” I shivered as his hand moved again, sliding between my breasts and resting just below my belly button.
“There’s something else I have a degree in.” His lips grazed the corner of mine, and a rush of tingles shot over my skin. “You’re going to say it’s lame, but I’ll know the truth. You’re secretly amazed by my skill.”
“God only knows what it is.” I moved my lower lip, to bite down on it, but Jase beat me to it. His teeth caught my lip in a gentle nip. I gasped at the unexpected sensation, and he took that as an invitation. Covering my lips with his, he slipped his tongue in, twirling it over mine and then flicking along the roof of my mouth.
Heat surged through my body, coiling low in my stomach. A sharp pulse shot to every limb as he explored my mouth with his, kissing as if time was truly a luxury we both had. When he lifted his head, my lips felt pleasantly swollen.
I placed a hand against his chest, delighted to find his heart was pounding as fast as mine, and he was the one doing the kissing. “You have a degree in kissing?”
“That . . .” The firm glide of his lips over mine deepened as his hand moved down. He deftly undid the button on my jeans. “And in taking girls’ clothes off.”
I laughed and he caught the sound, turning it into a soft moan I couldn’t hold back. He answered with a deep sound that vibrated against my chest. My mouth dried as a thrumming hum of desire buzzed through me. In the back of my mind, uncertainty lingered—not the same as earlier, but a concern for Jase and me—for us. There were no labels between us, or definitions of what we were to each other, and I desperately wanted to place a label there. I wanted that security of tomorrow with him, the promise of another kiss. And I wanted more than that.
But then his hand slipped under my panties and the feel of his fingers nearing the very center of me scattered all thoughts and concerns. He really did have a degree in distraction, because my whole being became focused on what he was up to with his hand.
His lips scorched a path down my neck, nuzzling the skin as one long finger skimmed through the wetness between my thighs. I jerked at the intimate touch. He hadn’t touched me with his hands last time, so the whisper of his skin against mine was new and different and just as intoxicating.
Jase pressed a trail of hot, wet kisses up to the sensitive spot under my ear as he made another teasing pass with his finger. My entire body vibrated.
His hand stilled as he lifted his head. Our gazes locked. His eyes were a startling quicksilver. “I can’t forget the taste of you,” he said, and my entire body flushed. “And I’ve been dying to know how you feel.”