Oh my God, how long was I going to stand out here debating?
Don’t be a chicken.
I knocked.
“Come in,” Landon called out, and I sighed in relief. At least I wasn’t knocking on some stranger’s door in the middle of the night. Even worse, it could have been Dr. Messina.
I opened the door and found him lounged on his double bed, mouthwateringly shirtless with a book perched in his hands.
“Rachel?” He sat up fully, putting the book down next to him.
“What are you reading?” I asked.
“A Moveable Feast,” he answered. “What are you doing here? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. My roommate is currently getting some, which isn’t anything I wanted to be around for, and it was either Hugo’s room or yours. I chose yours.”
“Good choice,” he said.
“So, Hemingway? Is that on your reading list for Lit?” I dropped my bag and sat on the corner of the bed, since there was nowhere else to sit.
“No,” he answered.
That simple word told me that part of him—the book lover—hadn’t faded in time. “How is it?”
“Good,” he answered. “Kind of makes me feel a little like a voyeur, though.”
“Because he never meant to publish it?” I asked.
Landon smiled. “Ah, the journalism major knows her Hemingway.”
I shrugged.
“God, I’ve missed you.”
My eyes shot to his, and I held them there, refusing to look at the yards of inked skin that he had on display. One look at those swirls of color and I’d ache to trace them with my fingers—my tongue.
“I have,” he reiterated. “Not just the sex—though it’s the best I’ve ever had—just being around you. Not feeling the pressure to live up to some hype.”
“You weren’t as big of a deal when we first met,” I reminded him.
He didn’t deny his current status or feign being humble. “I’d trade it all,” he said, ripping his hand over his hair with a self-deprecating laugh. “God, Rach. Looking back, I would trade everything to have you in that apartment. I know I don’t get to complain, not after what I did, but it’s been so empty. Nothing filled the void you left. No amount of tricks or medals or mountains or girls touched it. If anything, it grew until I was one giant pit of empty.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “Don’t say things like that.”
“Like what? The truth?” I felt the bed move as he did.
I covered my face with my hands. “Things that make me…feel things I’m not ready to.”
“Okay,” he said softly as he pulled my hands from my face. “What are you ready to feel? Just tell me that.”
He sat a breath away from me, his eyes luminous and so very green in the lamplight. My chest felt like it would explode or I was going to fly; one way or another, things were changing…but one thing had stayed the same.
I hadn’t fallen for Landon—I’d never recovered, never unfallen, never gotten over him—and that spark in my heart told me there were much bigger words and emotions at play. Emotions that would crush me with their weight if I let him in and he repeated our past.
“Rachel?” he asked softly.
Without letting myself examine it too much, I moved, straddling him easily with one knee on either side of his hips. His eyes were wide, but I saw the barely leashed hunger there as I cupped the back of his neck.
“You. I’m ready to feel you.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Rachel
Papua New Guinea
I kissed him with a hunger I hadn’t known I was capable of. There was no sweet preamble or soft intro. No, there was tongue, heat, and the sweetest groan I’d ever heard out of him.
“Rachel, baby,” he said against my mouth.
“Touch me.”
His hands ran up and down the back of my tank top, like he was relearning the line of my spine. Then he filled his hands with my ass and squeezed. “I am touching you.”
My tongue traced the line of his ear. “I want more. Don’t make me beg.”
Faster than I could blink, Landon spun us, moving so I was on my back in the middle of the bed. God, yes.
I’d almost forgotten what he looked like above me, his hair falling rakishly near his eyes, the need in him palpable. “You’re beautiful,” I told him.
He grinned. “Nothing compared to you.” He ran his finger across my collarbone. “This skin, so soft.” His hands traced the outsides of my breasts. “This body, so fucking perfect.”
Both of his hands skimmed my curves until he cupped my face. “But this face…the stuff of dreams. I would know, since you’ve haunted mine.” His mouth crashed into mine, and I met him, kissing him back with everything I had.
To think I’d almost never had this again.
I was going to enjoy every second of him, because even as I lay there beneath him, I knew my allure would fade the moment he’d caught what he’d been so diligent in chasing. In that moment, I didn’t care. I was doing this for me, and if this was the only time I’d hold him, then I was going to relish it.
He abandoned my mouth, raining kisses down my jaw to my neck, where he licked and sucked his way toward my collarbone. I moved restlessly beneath him, running my hands down the smooth, inked skin of his back.
He looked up at me and reached for the bottom of my tank top.
I nodded, and he took it off, slipping it over my head before throwing it somewhere. His breath left in a quiet hiss, and then he set his mouth to my stomach, kissing every curve and hollow with a soft nip or soothing stroke of his tongue.
His hands ran up my back, and I arched to accommodate him so he could get his fingers to the strap of my bra. I nodded again when he wordlessly asked permission, and with a snap of his fingers, my bra disappeared.
“Damn. You’re just as exquisite as I remembered,” he said as he carefully cupped both of my breasts. “You fill my hands exactly, like they were made only for holding you.”
I looked down at the erotic contrast between my pale skin and the colorful tattoos that decorated his, and a wave of desire washed over me, warming me from head to toe.
How had I almost forgotten the way my body called for him? I hadn’t been abstinent. I’d had two lovers since Landon, but neither of them made me feel this primal, screaming need. Only Landon.
His lips replaced his hand, licking and finally drawing my nipple into his mouth. My back arched off the bed as every nerve begged for more. Pleasure swept over me at the feel of his tongue, the caresses of his fingers, the scratchy material of his shorts on my freshly shaved thighs. Even his weight on top of me was inflaming me.
I wanted to flip him over, to run my mouth along the carved lines of his chest, to worship him as I’d dreamed for an embarrassingly long time now. But I could do that later. For now, I’d let him do whatever he wanted to with me.
He knew I loved everything he did.
I whimpered when he ran his tongue over my nipple, the feeling good, but I needed so much more. Every wave of desire he brought was washing over me, crashing and pooling right between my thighs. “Landon,” I pleaded.
“What do you need?” he asked as one hand stroked the skin of my stomach to the button of my shorts. “Here?”