I swallow hard as he takes hold of my hands, sliding them underneath the loose fabric of his tee to press against his sides. My thumb trails mindlessly against the thick scar low on his right side, the lone reminder of his first and only real accident.It was the one that made him take wearing his gear seriously, and it’s probably part of why he gets on me so much about not wearing any of my own.
His nose presses against mine as he moves a hand to grip onto the back of my neck.
“The question I think you have to ask yourself is: do you hate me, Tripp? Or do you want me?”
My hands slowly trail up the length of his body, my heart hammering like an echo chamber in my head that pulses in my vision.
I’ve only ever felt something like this twice before. The first time that I had sex with Julia, in the dim lamplight that filled her high school bedroom; and again that night in our hotel room.
My nose brushes against his, and my lips beg me to close the distance between us, but I hesitate.
“I won’t kiss you first,” he whispers. “It has to be you.”
A palm presses hard against his chest. His exterior is cool and collected, but the beat of his heart betrays the truth resting just beneath his skin. It feels the same way mine does. Slamming.
Shit.
I don’t offer myself another second to hesitate. Taking him by the back of his head, my lips crash against his. His hands clamp onto either side of my face, and as his tongue slides into my mouth to swirl against mine, it forces a whine from low in my chest.
Every twisted, confusing thought is forced from the cloud of my mind, and the anger I’ve felt for him all day melts into nothingness. The only thing that I can think about is the way that he tastes and how fuckingrightit feels to have his mouth on mine.
My teeth graze his lower lip, tugging at it. As my tongue meets his once again, I push him backward, earning a satisfied grunt as his back hits the trunk of the tree behind him. I brace a handagainst the rough bark, letting it scratch against my palm while the other cups his face.
This moment, untainted by the haze of alcohol, sparks in my veins like a bolt of electricity. Connor’s hand reaches for mine, bringing my palm against the hardened bulge struggling against the fabric of his riding jeans. I let my skin glide against the length of it to let my fingertips meet the head of his cock, adding pressure to force a groan from his lips as I fight the need to reach behind his waistband and touch him, skin to skin.
I let it linger there for too long before bringing it to the back of his head, tangling my fingers into the mess of his hair. His hands move underneath my shirt, his palms grazing a path upward toward my chest, and he pushes me with just enough force to make my lips leave his.
“See,” he says as we part, breathing heavily with his forehead pressed against mine. A smirk crawls across his face as his fingers meet his lips to wipe mine off of them. “I told you, you like me.”
In the years since we met, Connor’s shown me on more than just a few occasions that he knows me, sometimes better than I know myself. Little things, like food that sounded gross on the menu, but he forced me to order anyway, because he knew that I’d like it. Talking me down from piercings I thought I’d wanted, but he knew that I didn’t have the patience to heal.
He’s right about this, too.
Fuck.
Are we actually going to do this?
Chapter 27
JULIA
He’s trying to be quiet.
I can hear the effort to quiet each movement as Tripp walks into the house and up the stairs. The lone squeaking step lets out a loud, long whine as he carefully steps onto it, and I stifle a laugh as I close my ebook and rest my e-reader next to me on the bed.
Drumstick shouts his annoyance that his dad is taking so long to get where he’s going, likely circling Tripp’s legs in a figure eight in demand for attention, like he tends to do.
The door to our bedroom, like that one lone step, lets out its own long squeal as my husband pushes it open.
“Jules,” he whispers as he pokes his head into the door. “Baby, I need to talk to you.”
“I’m awake,” I chuckle.
My hand pats the empty space next to me, and Tripp accepts my invitation to sit. His fingertips anxiously tap against his knee as he pulls it onto the mattress. The longer that he takes to say anything or to look at me, the more I find myself scanning his body for any signs of damage. A scrape on his exposed knee,another area of road rash he may be trying to hide from me – anything, but I don’t see it.
“I kissed Connor,” he finally tells me. “I don’t want to downplay it. It was— there was a second that I thought we might have sex.”
Pushing myself to a sitting position, I reach for the lamp on my bedside table to turn on the light.
