“What?” I screeched. “No. I . . . that’s not what I’m doing.”
“Babe,” he said in a chiding tone. “First you’re adamant that you don’t want to date. But here you are on a date with me. Then at dinner you’re very definite about agreeing to take it slow and want to talk about light and easy things. Now you’re giving me fuck-me eyes and asking me to take off your dress. What does it look like to you?”
“So you don’t want to have sex with me?”
“Oh, I want inside you like you wouldn’t believe. But if you think trying to make things purely physical between us is going to work, you’re kidding yourself.”
“We could try.”
“If you like,” he said, nonplussed. “But I’m warning you now, if we have sex, we’re cuddling after.”
I groaned. “Are you serious?”
“Absolutely. I’m not putting out otherwise.”
I tipped my head back and looked at the ceiling. “Fine. Whatever. Undo the dress.”
“I wasn’t expecting you,” he said in a more contemplative tone of voice.
“No,” I agreed. “I wasn’t expecting you, either. I was going to quite happily live out my life next door with the addition of a dog and cat, maybe. But with a town and a job and people that I love. Just a whole lot of peace, you know?”
He nodded.
“But here we are, making things complicated.”
“Yeah,” he agreed.
I waited, my heart in my throat.
He stepped closer, and the warmth of his breath on the back of my neck was sublime. His hands slid over my shoulders, fingers caressing my neck. And oh, he could touch me forever and a day. The feel of his skin on mine.
“The things I want to do to you,” he said softly.
“Oh?”
“This is . . . it’s important to me, okay?”
“I know,” I admitted. “Me too.”
And ever so slowly, he pulled the zipper on the dress down the length of my back. Not stopping until it draped loosely around me. The pads of his fingers traced my spine, pushing the bunched-up fabric over my hips and down to the floor. Going, going, gone. His firm grip on my hips was everything. Like my world began and ended right here and now with him. This moment had it all.
With his face buried in my neck and the press of him against my back. I held his head to me, threading my fingers through his hair. We just stood there leaning against each other for the longest moment. The intimacy of it got to me. Being in his room with him late at night, all alone. It was beautiful and full of meaning, no matter how much I might try to deny same.
Gentle fingers trailed over the scar high on the side of my neck that I usually tried to keep hidden. Hair or makeup usually did the trick. He traced its path up behind my ear. But he didn’t ask me about it. Thank goodness.
“Stay with me,” he said out of nowhere.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Thank you.” He ground his burgeoning hard-on against my ass. “Before I lose my head, where are we at with safety?”
“Do you have condoms?”
“Shit. No. I didn’t think.”
“Me neither. It’s been so long. I was so worried about everything else that I forgot about that.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m negative. I, um, it’s not the right time of the month,” I said. “But you should know I’m not on any birth control.”
His teeth imprinted on my shoulder ever not so gently. “I’m negative too. Not the right time of the month?”
“No.”
My strapless bra loosened before Garrett tossed it aside. “Fuck. Babe.”
And I happy sighed, because bras really are the worst fucking thing ever. But Garrett’s big hands were divine. He cupped my breasts and I was kind of in heaven. The way his thumbs played over my nipples. Just knowing it was him touching me. Only the feel of his lips sliding across the side of my neck could beat it. Talk about happiness. “I feel like my vagina would mount an insurrection if we stopped now. We could do other things, though, if you’re more comfortable with that?”
“This is us, right?”
“What?”
“This is us,” he repeated. “This is you and me now. We’re seeing this through.”
“Yeah,” I agreed with a sigh of defeat. “It’s you and me now.”
“Thank fuck.”
His hands spun me and then we were face-to-face. Hell yes. Nothing could beat his lips on mine, his tongue in my mouth. The sheer heat and power of him. When Garrett finally let himself go, it was all gracious and good.
My hands shoved his tee up and over and off. His skin was hotter and better pressed against my bare breasts. Any other time I’d been to bed with someone, it had been play in comparison. It had been convenient or pleasant or I don’t know what. But not important like this. Trying to make it purely physical between us was already a complete and utter failure.