Whatever it was, it was potent, and as I leaned over the counter in the bathroom and tried to get a grip, I reminded myself to slow the fuck down.
I didn’t want to be the first man in history to chase a girl away with commitment. However, even if I didn’t say it, I could be committed to her, and the beginning of that commitment meant I wasn’t going to treat this like a one-night stand. The thought of even being able to refer to it as such would tarnish it.
When I walked back down the stairs, I noticed her through the screen door, leaning over the rail on my deck and looking out into the field that butted up to my property. She was holding a cup of coffee and I saw that she’d fixed me one and left it on the island.
I picked it up and took a sip, enjoying the view before she knew I was watching. Her head tilted one way then the other, like she was having a debate with herself. I didn’t know what her points and counterpoints were, but I hoped they had everything to do with me.
Placing her cup on the rail, she shrugged out of the jacket and her bare shoulders were just too tempting, so I placed my coffee on the island and went to her. The sound of the screen door caused her to turn her head, and she smiled when she met my eyes.
Before I could talk myself out of it, my lips were on her skin from behind. I swept her hair to the side for a better vantage point and my eyes shut, inhaling a perfect Hannah-filled breath. Rightness mixed with her sweetness and something else that was more innocent than not.
Moving with my touch, she rolled her head as I claimed her warm flesh. One shoulder to her neck, to the other side, and suddenly I was under her spell.
She moaned and turned in my arms as I kissed just behind her ear. I think she liked being kissed there; always reacting the most when I hit that spot, a small shiver jetting through her.
I wanted to know everything she liked. I’d commit to memory every sound with every spot and, one day soon, I’d play her body like a guitar. Repeating my favorite chords over and over.
He kissed me breathless on the porch and my coffee cup fell off after he lifted me up in his arms so that our mouths met, my tiptoes barely sliding across the wood boards. I liked the feeling of being wrapped up in him, but it left me no room to explore on my own.
I lightly kicked my feet a little, and without words, he set me down, which allowed my hands to roam his chest. Something I noticed I was always attracted to.
Like they had any claim to it, or invitation, my fingers ran up his shirt, causing his stomach to ripple with the sensation of my cool touch.
My fingers wandered around his back as he deepened the kiss and I almost abandoned my pilgrimage, losing my train of thought. Soon we were turning toward his door, lips locked, hands pawing each other.
The counter on the island met my ass, and the screen door slammed in our haste not to close it. I heard thunder, which didn’t surprise me since I’d seen flashes of lightning while Vaughn had been upstairs.
“You taste so good,” he said against my mouth.
I didn’t know what to say, so I just kissed him harder. Holding the sides of his head against me as he lifted me to sit on the granite, which he claimed to hate.
My legs wrapped around him and he pulled my ass to the edge so that he could press against me. I was wild and reckless and my want for him changed to necessity.
My body dared me to lean back and see where that move would get me. Half of me wanted to slow down and act like I wasn’t a lustful girl who’d never been kissed like that.
Regardless, I was and I hadn’t.
The other half of me wanted to fuck him right there in his kitchen with the same amount of heat and humidity that hung in the early summer air. As the sky lit up with electricity and the promise of the first thunderstorm this year, I warred with myself.
I was easy.
If you define easy as a woman who usually only found herself with a man when she wanted one. Therefore, every man I’d ever been with hadn’t had to exert much effort. If they were cute, looked like a normal guy and were nice, on one of those nights, I was pretty much a sure thing. Few and far between as those nights were, I didn’t want this night to be like that. I wanted something different.
I’d been in similar situations, although none of them ever felt like Vaughn did, pressing against me in his kitchen after our first date.
None had been that potent.
That powerful.
That right.
So I needed to slow down.
I didn’t want to be easy with him. I wanted more than just a one-night stand. I wanted another date, and possibly a third. I wanted to know about his family and ask him about three hundred thousand more questions.
Seriously though, the chances of that happening, if I gave the milk away for free this time, were slim. He wasn’t the kind of guy who’d want some town Mutt, some easy chick. He’d likely want a lady, and I wanted to be someone he’d be interested in.
I wanted to be Hannah. For him.
The wind picked up and the unlatched door slammed again, knocking me out of the moment just enough to break the kiss.