I spin around to face him, and before I can think about what I’m doing, I swing one leg over his. Shift until I’m kneeling over his lap, my hands cradling his face between them, gazing down into those familiar, deep green eyes.
“You can do this,” I tell him, and I’m talking to him, but also to myself. To the past me who fought her way free from Norman. To the me who just told my mother off earlier today. And then, I lean down and press my lips to his.
26
Lark
For a moment, all I can see, hear, smell, think about is Cassidy. Her soft lips against mine, which part in a sigh as I pull her further down over me, my hands tight around her soft curves, sliding up her back to trace her shoulders, then back down, down, until they land of their own accord on her firm ass.
She moans a little, a soft breathy sound, the one that always drives me over the edge when we’re in bed together. I love hearing her make those noises, knowing I’m the reason she can’t help herself. That I’m making her forget about everything but the heat between us.
I part her lips with my tongue, and she inhales sharply. I pull her body flush to mine, her soft curves practically melting into my pecs, my abs. I kiss her harder, claim that perfect, pert little mouth of hers, and revel in the feel of her wriggling against me. She arcs her hips, presses them down over mine, and now it’s my turn to groan, faintly, in the back of my throat, because fuck. She’s wearing jeans, but even through them, the feel of her hipbones hitting mine, her mound pressing down right over my rock hard shaft, drives me wild.
All I want to do is flip her over right here and tear off every layer of clothing she’s wearing.
But I hold myself back. Take my time. Because another part of me, a stronger part, wants to savor this. I finally have Cassidy where I want her; where I’ve been dreaming about having her for weeks. Hell, ever since the first night I touched her, if I’m being honest. She’s a drug, and I don’t give a damn what I have to do to get more of her, I will.
She draws back from our kiss, just far enough to gasp for breath. I take advantage and trail my lips along her jaw, down the side of her neck. She lets out another of her faint little sounds, almost a mewl this time, and I grin against her pulse point, tracing my tongue over her soft, smooth skin for a moment. “You like that?” I whisper, knowing my breath will feel hot where I just licked her.
“Mm, can’t you tell?” she replies, and of course I can, because she’s already breathless, and with my arms around her and her body pressed to mine, I can feel every twitch and tremble in her limbs, every inhale she takes and every shiver that passes through her.
I bend to nip at her neck, gently, right where my lips had been a moment ago. There’s that shiver again, more violent this time, her arms tightening their grip around my neck. “I had some idea you might, yes,” I reply, grinning, and she laughs.
“Damn it, Lark.”
When I look up again, she’s gazing at me with new emotion in her big brown eyes. “What is it?” I reach up to tuck a stray strand of hair, newly fallen across her face, behind her ear. She shivers again. But whereas before, she’d normally pull away from me now, put up a wall between us, now… She stays.
“I thought the right thing to do would be to stay away from you,” she finally admits, her voice low with feeling. “I thought I needed to learn how to… to be on my own, and to walk away from messy situations. But now…”
I raise an eyebrow. “You’re elbow-deep in my mess, is that what you’re saying?”
She laughs again. “That’s not exactly how I’d phrase it.” She leans in to kiss my cheek. I can feel the graze of those soft lips against the 5’o-clock shadow that’s on my cheeks. Then she shifts. Kisses my lips, feather-light. It’s too quick for me to catch her and deepen it. She’s there and then gone, sitting back to look into my eyes again, and I want to have this conversation, I do, but God, fuck she’s still sitting with those hips against mine and her thighs draped around mine, and another part of me just wants to reach down and push those stupid jeans of hers off.
Her cheeks turn a delicate shade of pink, as if she guesses what I’m thinking. But she doesn’t move, either. “I just mean… I’m sorry.”