“Well I’m screwed then, because I was going to ask you to carry me. You might have to carry me. Feels like my knees just dissolved and ran right down my legs.”
“I want to mock you for being a romantic cliché, but I can’t because the butterflies in my stomach are trying to eat me alive and my heart is about five seconds away from exploding. Seriously, I might need a paramedic. You should call 911. Tell them I’m dying of feelings for someone.”
“Oh, say that again. Say it again only slower, way slower, super, super slow.”
He leaned as he said this, but that only made it harder to do.
Impossible, in fact. All she could do was blush and give excuses.
“I can’t. I’m embarrassed now.”
“That just makes it better. That means you mean it, right? You mean that you have feelings for me.”
“I can neither confirm nor deny that that is the case. You’ll have to speak to my attorney.”
“Should I tell him or her that I have feelings for you, or will that come out later in court?”
“I guess…I guess it depends how guilty you are.”
“Oh, very guilty. Really, massively, stupidly, endlessly guilty,” he said, and she knew he was moving in as he did. She charted his syrup-slow progress between each word, that mouth getting closer and closer to hers until it was undeniable. He was obviously about to kiss her again.
Yet somehow it still took the wind out of her when he did it. In part, she thought, because it was still such a new thing. But more probably it was the way he went about it. There was nothing chaste about his mouth on hers this time. His lips were parted, and they urged hers to do the same. To open beneath his rolling, pulling kiss; to let him feel the flicker of his teasing tongue.
And to taste.
He definitely wanted her to taste him, and after a second of this feverish dance she understood why. That was the tart sweet hint of her, behind the fresh hit of double mint. There was the evidence of what they’d done in the library, unmistakable and awful and awesome all at the same time. It made her want to hide her face or turn away, but the urge to pull him closer was just as strong.
Her hands fisting his T-shirt were testament to that.
As was her response when he suggested she open the door. She had never moved so fast in her life. The key was in the lock before he’d finished talking, everything so heated and frantic it seemed obvious where this was going to go. He even made it clearer the second they were inside, mouth dropping to kiss at her jaw and throat and breasts. Lord, when he got to her breasts. He only touched through her T-shirt, but touching through her tee was enough when he did it like this. When he made a wicked point of his tongue and worked it back and forth over the very tip of one pointed nipple, lips parted so she could see, breath coming so heavy and hot it went right through the material.
By the time he moved to suck and lick at the other nipple, everything was wet there—wet and aching and oh so good. She was shivering before he started using his hands as well as his mouth, and afterward all kinds of things happened. A gasp came out of her; the shivering turned into shaking. And for some reason, her hands were hovering over his head. Like maybe she wanted to hold him there or run her fingers through his hair, but couldn’t quite work up the courage to do it.
What if he hated it?
He knew what she liked, but she had no idea what he did. Nor did she have any idea if he would enjoy the way she wanted to go about it. Maybe he preferred softer, more tentative caresses, instead of the desperate, clumsy grab she knew she was going to do. She could feel it building, until her hands were trembling with the effort of holding off.
And then he slipped a hand between her legs, and she forgot why she was. She just plunged her fingers into that hair right up to the hilt, barely caring if she fucked it up. Let him look like her, all tangled and sloppy and stunned. Let him be a mess because she had made him one—with the fists she clenched in that hair and all the clawing at his back that she didn’t quite intend.
She only meant to pull him closer.
Instead she wound up dragging him down on top of her, already bucking against that hand between her legs. Then when that wasn’t quite enough, she went one further. She dragged his face up to hers—by his hair, no less—so she could kiss that mouth, that filthy mouth. So she could taste him again and again without thought or feeling toward the consequences.
But thankfully, it turned out okay.
He wanted to kiss her right back.