“You sure?”
He nodded. “I want to smell your skin in case I forget it’s you.”
“Been on the road two days, brother. Might give you new nightmares.”
A faint smile warmed Embry’s face. “Couldn’t if you tried.”
I didn’t agree. Embry wasn’t a naïve dude, but sometimes he gave me too much credit. Still, if he wanted my grimy tee gone, I’d throw it off the goddamn roof.
Metaphorically.
Unless we wanted any brother below knowing we were losing clothes up here.
I pulled the black crew neck over my head and let it drop into the shadows around us, steeling myself against the shiver that rocked me. It wasn’t the first time Embry had seen my bare torso, not even close. Fuck, I’d slept in his bed with nothing but sweatpants to my name. But as he gazed at me, drinking every inch of me in, I felt more naked than I did in the shower with my dick in my hand.
The seconds ticked by. I hovered over Embry, keeping my weight from his belly, which left me nowhere to go but his groin.
He was still hard. For me.
Fuck. Was I even awake right now? Or had I knocked out at the side of the road, delirious with stress and fatigue?
Either way, my pulse rocketed. I wanted him so much. All of him.Anyof him. I’d never let myself dream of moments like these—not often, anyway. And as he slowly splayed his palm over my thundering heart, I was glad of it.
Cos I’d have been wasting my time. My imagination was wild when I let it fly, but against this right here, it never stood a chance. The best dreams were the ones that came true without you ever knowing they were there.
Embry pressed his face into my neck, breathing me in. Then he licked the sensitive skin he found there, kissed it, and dug his teeth in.
Heat flared deep inside me. I set my jaw, tilting my head on instinct, offering him more of my throat, shuddering as he kissed a path to my mouth.
Somehow, I ended up on my back again. My body craved the wicked sensation of Embry straddling my waist, grinding with me, pushing me off a cliff we’d never jumped from before, not together. But he lay beside me instead, tracing patterns on my chest, gazing at me as we took a break from kissing to reclaim some fucking oxygen.
I thought I might die of happiness.
Or combust with the scary heat still blazing inside me.
None of those things happened.
With Embry pressed up against me under the summer stars, I fell asleep.
11
EMBRY
Mateo had a bruise on his spine from where I’d manhandled him on the roof. He wouldn’t admit it, but I knew. His bullshit game was terrible.
Also, I saw him wincing every moment he thought I wasn’t looking, which was often. My game was on point.
“Are you even listening to me?”
I blinked and my surroundings came back into focus. A family farm I’d never lived on. A man who was a young version of a grandfather I’d never met.
My cousin Joe scowled, and I grinned, grateful that the time I’d spent with him over the years had trained me to deal with men like Mateo. “Sorry. Miles away.”
Joe’s glare deepened. “Kid,youcame to seeme. Any chance of you telling me why before you float off to another fucking planet?”
He had a point, but as much as I loved my moody older cousin, a boy I’d worshipped when I was younger, I had Mateo on the brain. Indelibly etched. I couldn’t breathe without thinking about his heated skin beneath my palm.
Didn’t even try.
