His megawatt smile turns on like a switch. “Are we headed to myplace?”
I give a curt nod. “And I’ll give you a hint. I might even spend thenight.”
* * *
Seth takesme by the hand and traverses us up to his apartment as Hollow Brook melts around us in ablur.
We get inside his cozy apartment, and he locks the door behind us, pinning me against the wall with his hand. Our chests palpitate in rhythm, and for a moment I trick myself into believing that I’m not the only one who’s unimaginably aroused. It’s like a scene from some romantic movie that I’m very much hoping will morph into a skinflick.
“Hit me with it,” he says it low and slow, and my entire body bucks with pleasure at the sound of his deep, hypnoticvoice.
“Before you so rudely interrupted Eli and me, I was about to haul him in the back and force him to retrace his steps.” I glance down at his Levi’s in hopes he’ll take the hint. I am so not cut out for asking for sex. As far as I’m concerned, it’s right up there with asking women their age and your friends how much money they have in their bank accounts. It’s just not something I was raised to do. Oh hell, why the heck not? I open my mouth, and a choking sound evicts from it. And then in an instant defeat rains down on me before it ever begins. “I wanted to ask you something, but it all feels kind of silly now.” I stagger over to the sofa and kick off my shoes because the sodium level in grande nachos is enough to fill Salt Lake ten times over. Plus, Seth couldn’t care less if my feet were swollen because of nachos or if they smelled like nachos. Seth is just a good friend who’s going out of his way to be nice to me. I bet he secretly hates me and wishes I’d go away. The thought is so hard to bear I actually moan as if I were inpain.
“Please tell me you don’t hate me.” I put my feet up on his coffee table as he lands next to me, his hand brushing the hair from myforehead.
“Hate isn’t a word I’d use to describe what I feel foryou.”
“Oh great. I guess I’ve surpassed all the synonyms known to man for that hellish emotion. I can’t believe I’ve thrust myself on you like some unwanted cold sore or STD. I’m basically the third nipple you neverwanted.”
He belts out a laugh. “Try again. You’re everything I’vewanted.”
A moment stills between us, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say there was something real brewing here. My body begins to shake, a volcanic eruption begs to rip from my throat in the way of words, and there’s not a thing I can do to stopit.
“I love you, Seth.” Every cell in my body sighs with relief. There. The biggest bandage of them all has just been ripped right off my heart. “I’ve loved you from the moment we met and my brothers made sure I never let on. But I wanted to.” I shrug as the silence thickens the air in the room. My God, I did it, and now there is a weirdness so deep and wide we’re both about to drown init.
Seth’s eyes gleam with moisture as his features harden. And I can’t tell whether he’s pissed or relieved to hear it. “You loveme?”
“Yes.” It comes out hoarse. “I’m so in love with you I can’t sleep at night. Well, that and I’ve got the worst indigestion day after day.” True as God, but I’d bet all the money I don’t have that the feelings I’ve been harboring for Seth are the real source of myunrest.
“That’s because you eat like a frat boy.” The corners of his lips curl up at the sides, and his eyes bear hard into mine. “I love you, too,Sunday.”
“No, no, this isn’t one of those tit-for-tat things. You totally don’t have to say something you clearly don’t mean. I promise, I’m a big girl. I’m okay with it. I just wanted to tell you. Get it off my chest.” My voice breaks because I totally appreciate his tit-for-tat efforts. Seth really is going to make the best plus one to some lucky girl outthere.
“I mean it.” He leans in and glides his arms around me, his forehead touching mine for just a brief moment. “Sunday, I’ll be honest, I can’t wrap my head around what you just said. I’m the one who’s in love withyou. I’ve been in love with you since the beginning. When I heard you wanted to come to Briggs, I made it my first choice so I could be near you. You’re my first choice. You’re my only choice.” Those dark navy eyes press into me, and it’s as if his soul is confirming what his mouth just spoke. “I love you, Sunday Knight. I will never love another girl the way I love you. You’re it for me. You were from thebeginning.”
“So, Trixie was right all along?” An impish grin rides up my cheeks. “You’ve been my most proficientstalker?”
He tips his head back and barks out a laugh. “Perspective iseverything.”
“You know what else is everything?” My breathing picks up pace, and it’s hard to contain this flood of emotion. My hands glide up his sweatshirt, and a jolt of electricity jumps from him to me as soon as my hands make contact with his skin. Skin over steel. Seth is that rock-hard.
His lids hood low as he leans dangerously close. “What’severything?”
I pull him in by the neck until his lips are just a hair away from mine. “The things you’re going to do to metonight.”
His mouth latches onto mine, and just like that, Seth and I detonate in an explosion of love. All tongues and teeth, pulling and tugging at one another as he dances us down the hall and into his bedroom. The faint scent of his cologne lingers in the air as he lands us next to his mattress. Seth and I strip one another clean until we’re without a stitch of clothing. I lean back and take him in, his wide chest, the cut six-pack, the hard V that leads to another hard element of his body. It both shocks and exhilaratesme.
He exhales with a sigh, and a part of me is afraid he’s seen enough and wants a refund on his night. “My God, you are beautiful.” He swallows hard as he eyes my distended belly—not exactly your standard cover girl fare. His hand glides over it, and he shakes his head. “So damnbeautiful.”
“I’m cold, too,” I tease. “How about you find a creative way to warm me up?” I run my finger over his lips. “Like, say, with yourmouth?”
Seth lands a kiss over my lips, lingering and subtle at first before bringing something much darker to the party. Seth rides his hands slowly over my body as if he were mapping out the geography of human anatomy for the very first time. He lands us on his mattress and brushes every last inch of me with his mouth, that tongue that makes me cry out with pleasure I never knew possible. Seth is a master with his body, with mine. Carefully, ever so slowly, he enters me and we become one, and I feel it this time, soak it in, feel him hitting the deepest part of me, and tears come to my eyes because this is how it should have been in the beginning. Seth and I, making love, having a good time—not in some frat house where neither of us belongs, not with me running through the snow the next morning like some fugitive. We belong here, in each other’s arms, with our bodies interlocked as if it were the last piece to the puzzle, and it is. Seth and I make the perfect picture. We alwayshave.
Seth makes love to me thoroughly, leaving no sexual stone unturned. Deep down, I knew there was no one else who could have scratched that itch. I only wish I realized it last December before it was too late. When all is said and finished, he scoots down to my belly and lands a warm kiss right over thetop.
“I love you, Little Fish. I promise I do. I never meant to hurt yourmom.”
“Hey”—I reel him back up to me—“you could never hurt me if youtried.”
