A shot of adrenaline strikes through my veins.
I’ve never kissed someone I know so well before. It’s heady. I know when this man is smiling out of politeness and when he’s smiling because he’s happy. He’ll eat almost everything I make, but any Brussels sprout gets exiled to the edge of the plate. He wants to repair the relationship with his brother. He loves this farm and simultaneously wishes he didn’t. And now I know wine tastes delicious on his tongue.
James is sunlight. And I am toasty warm, already scheming up ways I can hold his attention forever.
Our teeth clank together, spurring a new sense of urgency in usboth. My arms slide around his neck. Our noses bump. His forearms loop behind my back to haul me off the ground, feet dangling, chests pressed together. I feel his smile tug before he laughs—mouth to mouth. “Wrap your legs around my waist,” he urges, hands clutching behind my thighs to help.
It’s hysterical he has to prompt me. I am an alternate universe Madison right now—so lost in the feel of James that technique is nowhere near my mind. And oh god, once I’m up here, legs knotted around his torso, a pulse of heat flames at my center.
He pivots us, not resting me on the counter but pressing my back to the wall, holding me firmer against him. His mouth leaves a hot trail down my neck. I’ve never loved making out with someone more. Felt it this much.
As he sucks at my jaw, the pressure between my thighs grows, sparks building behind my eyes. I tip my head back, resting it against the wall as James’s tongue dances circles behind my ear.
I whimper as he adjusts to a new angle, using the wall to help hold me in place. Hearing it, he pauses.
“Oh . . . I see,” he says into my ear. “Does this feel good?”
Keeping me pinned between his body and the wall, he dips and rises. Intentionally slow. I am choking on my desire, unable to form words as the muscles of his abdomen rub against where I’m aching.
I nod.
“How long has it been?” he asks.
“About twenty-four hours,” I answer honestly, drawing a low chuckle from him.
“I meant . . .” He moves to the other side of my neck, wringing a fresh round of sensation as his lips crawl across my clavicle, over my shoulder. “How long has it been since someone else gave you an orgasm?”
Just hearing him say that word is practically enough to tip meover. He’s stopped moving, withholding the friction I so badly need.
I squeeze my legs around him as I answer, “A year or more.”
When I open my eyes, he’s staring at me, pupils dilated and lips parted. “Do you want me to fix that?”
In the past, fun, reckless sex is all I ever really needed. But not anymore—not where James is concerned. “Not if it’s going to mess up what we have.”
“Oh, Madison. This is only the beginning.”
I suck in a sharp inhale, and his lethal smile is all I see before his mouth claims mine and I close my eyes. We’re kissing again. Soft caresses to needy pulls. I bite his lip into my mouth like I’ve been dreaming of for months. He groans, the sound mounting the furious pressure between my legs.
He kisses me harder. Deeper. Feral.
My arms and legs coil around him so tightly that he doesn’t even need to hold me up, so his hands move to my ass. He squeezes me. Urges my body up and down, to move against his taut stomach. Once my body is on autopilot, rubbing against him, his right hand moves up my side, under my shirt, to palm my breast. Squeezing. Kneading over my bra.
I think I might pass out.
The sensation mounts, my blood twists through my body, his hands squeeze and press, tongue begging and giving as I rock against him until all at once the pressure shatters and vibrates through me. I gasp, clutching at his shoulders as my body rings with bright, long-awaited pleasure. A kind I’ve only experienced now, with James.
“That’s it,” he whispers, movements soft and comforting as I come down from the high. Reality is waiting for me at the bottom, and it’s now I realize I just rode James’s stomach to orgasm, upright and fully clothed.
And somehow it was better than any sex I’ve ever had.
Slowly, he lowers me to the ground. My muscles twinge with soreness like I ran a marathon. And James—his hat is gone, discarded god knows where in this room. Sweat dampens his hair. From helping me or from holding himself back?
I’ve never in my life felt so needy. So wanting. Even now, I want it again.More.He never even unzipped my pants. Embarrassment prickles its way up my neck, where James’s mouth had just been.
But he doesn’t hesitate a second, doesn’t give me time to sink into that feeling.
He hooks a finger under my chin, forcing my gaze up to his. He kisses me, once, firmly. “That was . . . the best thing I’ve ever experienced. Thank you.”
