“What are you, my drug dealer now?”
“Nah, I got my own supply from various injuries. But A could score you some too if you need it.”
“I have a prescription. Just need to fill it. But I can’t work on any more than I’ve already taken, so it has to wait anyway.”
“Baby,” he said, ducking his head a little to give me harder eye contact. “I get that shit might be tight, but you can’t skip out after a car accident?”
“I need to work. Now I am going to have to try to save for a new car.”
“Totaled?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I went right from the hospital to here. I didn’t even ask about my car yet.”
“I’ll look into it,” he said.
“I didn’t ask you to do that.”
“And yet I’m still gonna do it, you stubborn fucking ass,” he said, smirking like he appreciated that fact about me.
“Okay. Thank you,” I said, nodding, glad to have one thing off of my plate. I felt my shoulders slump at the weight falling off.
“Hey, come here,” he said, his hand going to the back of my neck, using it to pull me against his chest. “Figure no one else offered this yet,” he said, wrapping his other arm around me, and holding me tightly against him.
I didn’t remember the last time I’d had someone hug me.
Fuck, had anyone ever hugged me?
I mean, I’d dated guys. We’d been physical. They maybe would put an arm over my shoulders. But I don’t remember any of them actually pulling me against their chest and putting an arm around me.
“Go on, melt into it,” Dezi invited, making me realize how tense I’d gotten. “I won’t think you’re any less of a badass,” he assured me.
To that, a little laugh moved through me, loosening me up enough that I did. Melt into it.
My own arms rose a bit, hovering by his sides before sliding around him.
“There you go,” he said, arms tightening even more.
And, well, I’d already melted that much, what was slipping my head into the crook of his neck at that point?
Dezi didn’t waver as I leaned into him, as I let myself be held. He just kept holding me tight, making no move to release me or move away.
It wasn’t long before a warmth was swelling through my chest. Not desire, but something else. Affection, I guess.
It kept expanding until it seemed to overtake me entirely, making me feel warm and fuzzy and almost a little drunk off of it.
It was that, surely, that had my good arm moving up his arm, then shoulder, only to stop on the side of his neck as I lifted my head to look up at him.
His gaze slid down to me, brows a little furrowed, not sure what I was up to.
And, honestly, I wasn’t sure what I was up to until I was going up on my tiptoes as my hand slid to the back of his head, pulling him down a bit as I sealed my lips to his.
It wasn’t hard or hungry.
It wasn’t even full of heat.
It was almost a soft, sweet kiss, something I never would have thought I was capable of until that moment.
I’d never been a soft or sweet woman. Life had beaten that out of me before I went through my adolescence.
I’d gotten comfortable with being hard and harsh and cold with only brief interruptions of the kind of molten heat that came with desire.
Desire, for me, had even been rough and forceful. Sexual, but never really intimate.
I just figured that was how I was, all I was capable of.
But maybe it was more accurate to say that all I needed was someone to be soft and sweet to me to bring it out of me.
Dezi didn’t try to deepen it, either, he simply gave me back what I was offering him.
And that just made that warm sensation keep moving through me, intensifying, until it eventually started to get hotter and hotter.
In response, my lips got harder and deeper, and his reacted in turn.
It wasn’t long before my hands were moving over him—down his arms, around his waist, up his chest.
My lips slipped from his, going down to his neck instead.
“We should stop,” he said, his voice so tight that I could tell he wasn’t saying that because he wanted to. But because he was worried about me.
And that, somehow, only made the desire get stronger and stronger in my system.
“Why?” I asked leaning up to nip his earlobe.
“You’re hurt,” he said, trying to hold onto his control even as his hand started to move up and down my spine.
“Funny,” I said, leaning up to nip his lower lip. “This is the first time in hours that I’m not feeling any pain,” I told him.
To that, his lips curved up at the end.