Tino’s eyes were so dark it was difficult to see the irises as he stared at her. He took a sharp, hard breath as if he was fighting a battle she couldn’t see.
Then he rolled onto his back and looked up to the top bunk. “Bri—”
“It’s just as friends. So I know what it feels like,” she explained quickly so he didn’t get the wrong idea. That she thought about him constantly. That she begged and pleaded with Jasmine to put them in as many routines together as possible because he was the only partner she wanted to dance with. That she went to bed every night dreaming about him. “’Cause you’re my friend.” She took another deep breath. “Just friends, Tino.”
“You don’t know what it feels like?” he asked her, sounding shocked. “You haven’t kissed anyone? What about Vito Brandini? I thought—”
“He smelled like black licorice.” Brianna stuck out her tongue and made a gagging sound. “I mean, I guess, but—” She shuddered from the memory. “No.”
“I wanted to kill Vito. He said he touched you. That he felt you.” Tino looked away as he said it, his shoulders tensing as if he was remembering it. “Jesus.”
Brianna probably ought to be really pissed off at Vito.
She was fascinated with Tino instead. Especially when he sat up and cupped her face. He ran his thumb over her bottom lip, making her shudder as all the fine hairs on her arms stood on end.
“Just as friends?” Tino asked.
She nodded. “So I know.”
“I don’t know either.” He raised his eyebrows as he looked at her mouth. “I haven’t—”
“Never?” she asked in surprise, because the girls at the warehouse and pretty much any female with a pulse who got near Tino clearly wanted him.
“Not with anyone I want,” he corrected himself, which made no sense, but then he said, “Not with anyone I think about.”
She frowned at that, knowing somehow it wasn’t right, but Tino slipped his hand to the back of her neck before she could ask. He tugged her hair, one sharp jerk that made her gasp because she wasn’t expecting it at all. Then he leaned in and licked at her parted lips, tasting her like it was something he craved.
It was a wet kiss.
A dirty kiss.
With his tongue brushing against hers.
It was a kiss like the ones on the train. Open. Indulgent. Blatantly sexy for anyone to see because that was what she’d asked for.
His hold on her hair was still tight, and he tugged her head back, forcing her to break the kiss only to lick at the line of her throat, dragging his tongue up slowly to her ear before he asked, “Like that?”
Her breath felt trapped under the wave of pleasure.
Crushing, shuddering pleasure that hazed out everything but the feel of his breath against her skin and his fingers tight in her hair.
“Like that,” she agreed, clutching at his bare shoulders.
She didn’t want to let him go, even if he’d already done what she’d asked. So they stayed there, their breathing harsh, so very hot and sweaty in that bunk, but suddenly she liked the hot.
She loved the sweaty.
She ran one hand down Tino’s bare back, savoring the slick feel of it. Somewhere in the distance, past the hum of the television, Brianna heard the sharp, hard, feminine gasps of pleasure from the other bedroom. They ricocheted through her like a pulse, a throb, over and over again. Once she heard it, she couldn’t stop. It was like all her senses homed in on it, making her almost feel it with her own body. The sounds came alive like the lights on the floor had.
Tino slipped his other hand under her shirt, caressing the bare skin at her waist, and she moaned just from the feel of it. From the sounds washing over her again and again and again. Building somehow. Getting louder. More desperate.
“I could make you sound like that.” Tino breathed against the curve of her neck, making it obvious he was sitting there listening to the same thing.
“?Ay! Si, Papi, dámelo más duro! Asi mismo! Sigue, Nova! No pares!”
“I could make you scream like that.” Tino’s voice was low and gravelly, as if he was feeling it like she was feeling it. “You want it?”
“Yes.” She nodded quickly and pulled back to look at him, seeing his dark gaze running over her body, his muscular chest rising and falling with heavy breaths that made him seem primal in a way that had her shifting her hips from the ache between her legs. “I want it.”
Brianna moved to slip her shirt off, but Tino stopped her, pulling it down over her shorts. “We’re keeping ’em on.”
“But how—” Brianna asked, because she could hear what they were doing in the other room.
She could practically feel it.
Tino switched their positions and pushed her down against the bed, with her head on the pillow. He ran one hand up her thigh, beneath the fringe of her cutoff shorts, and then slid his palm around to the inside. He forced her legs apart, his gaze on hers as he said, “You’re gonna use me.”
“For what?”