I slug his arm gently. “Let me show you that I’m much better at kissing now. How’s your dick? Still wanna throw up? Wow, the effect I have on men is poetry.”
“I can play through the pain, maybe.”
“Is that how it works?”
“No.” But he cages my face in his hands and presses his lips to mine, anyway. I inch closer, positioned awkwardly, and make very certain I do not stick my knee anywhere sensitive as I hover over his lap. I run my palms over his stubble, down his chest. While I don’t feel a reaction in his shorts, he’s undeniably into this. His hands vanish under my shirt, gliding up. Oh, yes. This is happening.
“Alexa,” I call out. “Turn on Marvin Gaye.”
The black circle lights up with a ring of brilliant blue. “Heard It Through the Grapevine” swells from the speaker.
Alex stops kissing my shoulder, shadow of a beard abrading me when he turns his face toward the Alexa. I can tell he’s trying not to laugh.
Obviously, I’d meant for a more carnal song to serenade us. Technology requires too much hand-holding. “Alexa, play ‘Let’s Get It On,’ ” I revise.
Okay, it responds in robotic monotone.Turning on “Let’s Get It On” Radio on Pandora. A second later, Otis Redding is crooning “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay.”
“Goddamn it!” I yell. “That’s not what I said.”
Alex’s chest is shaking. I push two fingers into his stomach. “Don’t laugh! You’re still turned on.”
He begins to sing along with Otis. “I’ll have to add this to the playlist now. You give me no choice.”
“Alexa,next,” I say firmly.
The next song is also not what I asked for. “Ain’t too proud to plea-ead, baby, baby!” Alex belts out. “Please don’t leave me—Hey! I was listening to that.” I’d lowered the volume. “How you gonna turn down The Temptations? Have you no taste?”
I blow out a breath. “This is a disaster.”
Alex rolls on top of me in one quick motion.
“Whoa.” My eyes fly wide open, arms splayed above me on the blanket. “Hello.”
“Just like that,” he says teasingly, trailing a finger down my bottom lip, the arch of my throat, between my breasts. He flicks open a button on my shirt. “That’s what your face looked like when I first tried to kiss you.”
I paw his hand away. “You’re so mean.”
“Still the most amazing kiss I’d ever had, at that point.” It was his first.
I try to tickle him, but he seizes my arm.
He raises my shirt at a leisurely pace, exposing my stomach. His lips whisper soft kisses below my ribs, around my navel, fingers playing with the waistband of my shorts. Lowering them centimeter by centimeter.Yes, I think ardently, heat pooling between my thighs. Then my stomach growls, directly against his mouth.
He lays his cheek against my stomach and the blaze between us dies at once, plumes of smoke curling up into the ceiling. “Romina.”
“Keep going or I’ll combust.”
“But you’re hungry.”
“Hungry forsex.”
“You didn’t eat much, did you? I noticed you didn’t touch your sandwich. I was going to ask if I could have it, but then you distracted me with all your seductive puzzle talk.” He stands up, an impenetrable wall against my (loud, colorful) protests. “All night, remember? We have all night, and once we get started I want to continue fora good while. C’mon, flower girl, let’s get some food in you.”
“I want something else in me,” I mutter, but reluctantly allow myself to be wrenched off the bed. He wraps around me from behind and sways us to whatever song he’s still listening to in his head.
“What if we spend all night laughing and getting your dick stepped on and we never do it?”
“I promise you’ll come before the sun does.” He kisses the nape of my neck.“Promise.”
