His eyes darken, narrow, the long lashes curling and tangling at the corners. “Are you?”
I grip the back of his neck, pull him closer to leave the truth on his lips.
“Hell, no.”
We crash together and our first kiss in years burns from the beginning. His lips are hungry and desperate and familiar. It overpowers me, theyou-thought-you-knew-nessof it. Theyou-had-no-ideaof it. The hot novelty of a man I’ve known for so long kissing me with first-time fervor. The taste of him overtakes everything with the speed and intensity of wildfire. I can’t see or hear or even feel. Every sense convenes between our lips, and all I can do is taste the whiskey and want on his tongue.
“Yas,” he expels my name on a labored breath and presses our foreheads together. “We gotta stop.”
“Why?” I drag my lips across the abrasion of his shadowed jaw.
“It’s not a good idea. I can’t…I can’t go there with you again.” The wildness of passion in his eyes is overlaid with resolve and caution.
These old feelings, stirred by alcohol and nostalgia into a witch’s brew, went to our heads, but don’t wash away my mistakes or erase all the ways we’ve hurt each other. I was a fool to think they could. His lips brush my temple for the briefest second before he pushes to his feet and walks across the room. He runs both hands over his face, the kickstand in his pants leaving no doubt that he wanted it as much as I did.
Until he remembered.
The air cools, but my heart still thunders in my chest. My lips throb from the thoroughness of his kiss. I’m still wet between my legs. Shame pools in my belly, and I stand quickly, needing to get away from this and from him.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble, rushing to the bedroom and closing the door, slumping against it and biting my lip to stifle a scream of frustration. Yes, because my body is humming, revved with nowhere to go, but also frustration with myself for forgetting that I did this. It’s my fault and there is no second chance.
I can’t go there with you again.
I don’t even bother undressing, but slide between the cool sheets wearing my clothes. Turning my head into the pillow, I feel the sting of tears but refuse to let them fall. Not with him in the next room regretting the kiss that breathed so much life into me. I’m kicking myself a thousand different ways when a noise at the door stops me. I turn onto my back, easing up onto my elbows to watch Josiah’s imposing frame fill the doorway.
“Once,” he says, his voice hoarse but controlled, eyes hot and unwavering. “We do this once, get it out of our systems, and forget this night happened. That’s the only way it works.”
Can I do that? Can I live with having him just one more time, knowing I’ll probably always want him?With the promise of pleasure we’ve always found together, my body screamsyes. My mind and my heart ask if I’m sure. I hurt him. I know that, but does he have any idea how much he could hurt me? That if I give him my body, my heart can’t help but follow? I wish we’d talked sooner. Wish we’d gone to therapy. Wish I’d found the right therapist, the right meds, the right everything in time. It would have made a world of difference. Maybe it would have saved us, but none of those things happened and this is all that’s left.
His body, tonight and no more.
I’ll take it.
I sit up, sheets pooling around my waist, then pull the T-shirt over my head. He’s always loved my breasts, so I take my time showing him. I reach behind my back, unlatching my bra. His eyes flare in the lamplight as the straps slither down my arms and my hard nipples come into view. His sharp, indrawn breath fills the room. I push the covers away from my legs and tug my pants down, past my knees and over my feet. When I toss them to a corner, he crosses the room to tower over me. I crane my neck back to look up at him, fingers twitching at my sides with the need to strip him and explore every hard muscle and the warm skin hidden beneath his clothes. Before he can start talking, rationalizing, laying out conditions or changing our minds, I reach for him.
Our second kiss is more explosive than the first. There’s nothing tentative about the way he plunders my mouth, groaning into the kiss and gripping my arms. He cups my breasts, thumbing the nipples, and I arch into his touch. I’m starved for this. I haven’t had sex in a very long time, but it’s not just the physical release I crave. It’s the complete focus of his eyes on me, the reverence in his touch that, despite all the hell we’ve gone through, somehow survived.
His hand coasts from my breasts and down my stomach to rest between my legs, touching me through drenched panties. Our eyes lock and he presses his thumb to my clit, nudges aside the silk and flattens his hand against me. As his eyes burn into mine, fiercely possessive, he cups my pussy.
“This is mine tonight, Yas.” His voice is half growl, half groan.
No one has touched me there since he last did and doing this with another man has not seriously occurred to me. He wouldn’t believe it, looking down at me with his doubts hovering just beyond his desire. He sees the woman who sent him away. He wouldn’t understand how my body has felt hollow since the last time he was inside of me. That I miss him so much, sometimes I wear his shoes to feel close to him. That at night, alone in my bed, I hear echoes in our room of him gasping my name like he did all the times he lost himself in my arms. He wouldn’t understand that, so I just nod my agreement. Tonight I’m his.
My breath quickens when he slides the underwear down and off. He turns me so my legs hang over the side of the bed and goes down on his knees. I stare at the top of his head, the deep waves of his hair and the strong line of his shoulders. He leans down to kiss the skin inside one thigh, repeating the intimate gesture on the other, before lifting my legs and resting my heels on the mattress. This position exposes me completely and my knees drop together with involuntary modesty.
“Open,” he says, pushing them apart. “I want to see you. I’ve thought about this pussy so many times.”
He runs a knuckle between the lips, brushing my clit, stealing my breath and making the muscles in my legs go tight. He dips his head, drawing a deep breath through his nose.
“God, yes,” he rasps and lowers his mouth to me.
I writhe under the assault of lips and tongue and teeth. He grips my hips, dragging me closer and holding me in place for his mouth. The deep rumble of his groan vibrates through the center of my body and I’m head-to-toe shaking, on the verge of shattering. When he adds one finger, two, three, all the while sucking on me and licking at me like he’s afraid to miss one drop, my hands claw at his hair. I can’t help it. I push his head, his mouth deeper into the vee of my thighs. Shameless, I grip my knees, pressing them wider, holding myself open for him as my hips buck and my chest heaves. I come like crashing waves, wet and hard, drowning every rational thought.
“Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.” It’s a chant, a prayer, a litany that falls from my lips over and over as my head tosses back and forth on the bed. The orgasm clenches the muscles in my stomach, in my legs. My toes curl and I fist the sheets. He runs his fingers over my pussy, locking his eyes with mine. We both hear how wet I sound, and he licks his fingers clean as I slowly come back to myself.
I’m still a trembling mess when he gently turns me back onto the bed. My mouth is slack and my eyes are hungry as I watch him strip. He jerks the sweatshirt over his head, revealing a slab of muscled abs and precisely cut biceps. I’ve always loved his chest, the pecs carved and smooth, his nipples dark discs in the rich brown of his skin. His pants and briefs follow, and I literally lick my lips. I want him in my mouth. I had always been squeamish about blow jobs, much to former boyfriends’ dismay, but from the first time I wrapped my lips around Josiah, I loved it and gave him head eagerly and often.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he says with a rueful chuckle and climbs onto the bed. “I promise I wouldn’t last long in your mouth.”