“Don’t get cocky, Mav,” she murmurs, her voice a little breathless. “This is still practice.”
“Uh-huh.” I slide my hands under the hem of her shirt, my palms coasting along the soft skin of her waist. “I know I’m special in your eyes.”
She leans in, her mouth brushing my ear just enough to make my pulse jump. “You’re definitely not special… just impossible to ignore.”
Fuck.
She kisses me again, slower this time. Her tongue meets mine with a slow, intentional stroke that makes my vision blur. I grip the back of her neck, holding her there, needing more, needing everything.
The room spins a little. Or maybe it’s just me spiraling into orbit because the woman of my dreams is kissing me back.
Her thighs tighten around my hips, and I swear I feel her shiver when my hand slides up her back, my fingers threading into her hair.
“Still think this is just for show?” I rasp, my forehead resting against hers. “Because I’m two seconds from begging.”
She laughs softly, that low, throatier kind of laugh that ruins me.
“I’ve seen you beg,” she says, brushing her lips along my jaw. “It’s cute.”
“Cute?” I blink, a harsh laugh breaking out of me. “Cuteis illegal.” My grip tightens on her hips as I drag her down hard against my cock, grinding her right over the thick length straining my shorts. A groan rips from my chest at the contact. “This—” I buck up once, making sure she feels every inch of how wrecked she’s got me—“is not fucking cute, Amelia.”
She gasps.
I tilt my head and kiss her deeper, my hands sliding under her thighs, gripping her ass. Her soft gasp against my mouth nearly kills me.
“You’re driving me fucking crazy,” I mumble between kisses. “Do you know that?”
She hums, lips swollen, eyes hazy. “That’s the goal, right?”
“You win.” I press my mouth to her neck, sucking lightly at her pulse. “You win, baby.”
“I always do.”
I smile against her throat. “Cocky.”
I press my forehead to hers as we catch our breath together.
I feel the shift before she says a word. Her facial expression changes in the blink of an eye; she goes from kissing me as if she meant it to now a grimace etched into her pretty features.
She hesitates, and I barely catch the tremble when my hand ghosts along the edge of her ribs.
“I can’t do this,” she says quietly.
Those four words might as well be a knife.
I pull back just enough to search her face. Her green eyes dart away, locking onto anything but me. Her fingers have stilled where they’d been clutching my shirt, now resting limply against my chest.
“Hey,” I say gently, anchoring my thumb underneathher chin, turning her face towards me. “What’s wrong, dollface? Talk to me.”
She shifts off my lap in a rush, settling beside me with her knees pulled up to her chest as her arms wrap tightly around them like she’s shrinking.
Like sheregretsall of it.
“I’m fine,” she says too fast. “I just… I don’t do this.”
I blink. “Do what?”
“This.” She gestures vaguely. “The kissing, dating, opening myself up.”
