I let my tongue slide along his bottom lip, and his grip on my hips tightens, the pressure of his fingers sending a soft moan out of me and into his mouth.
He pulls back and looks down at me, his breathing fast and raspy, his eyes three shades darker than a moment before, and I’ve lost my mind. Not a single wit is left between my ears. All I hear is the pounding of my pulse and the voice in my head demandingmore. I arch back a little and untangle my hands from his hair and shirt, then slowly lift my tank top up and over my head.
James stops breathing altogether as he takes me in with his eyes before running one finger up from my hip to my sternum, taking his time to trace the scalloped lace that dips and rises along my breast.
“You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he says, his eyes sliding up to meet mine.
And even though all of my blood is definitely pooling down below I still manage to flush at his compliment.
He reaches behind me and unclasps my bra, then slips the straps from my shoulders at a painfully slow pace. It slides to the black-and-white tile, forgotten at our feet as he lets his eyes wander over me, down and up, up and down, his gaze heating every inch of skin it touches. I know he’s taking mental snapshots, and the idea of him actually photographing me like this sends a shock wave straight down below my navel.
“James, if you don’t touch me, I’m going to go crazy,” I tell him.
One side of his mouth tilts upward and his hands keep tracing slow lines along my torso and beneath my breast.
“I am touching you,” he says in a tone that’s far too reasonable for my liking.
I make a frustrated sound and lift myself onto the kitchen table behind me, pulling my cotton skirt up to my hips while I wrap my legs around him and hook my ankles at the back of his thighs. I pull him toward me, and when the hard part of him rubs against the soft part of me he lets out a sound that makes me want to spend all day getting him to make it again.
His mouth crashes down over mine and there’s no space between us now. His lips know everything about my lips. His hands are everywhere, on my thighs, down the back of my skirt, circlingand teasing at my nipple, and I want him inside me so badly that the thought of it already has me climbing toward an orgasm. I pull him closer, arching against him, needing more—
“Avvvvvvvvvvvvva!”
James stills above me, his mouth a fraction of an inch from mine.
That voice was in my head right. Because no fucking way that voice could be real. That voice is back in Wayne, Pennsylvania.
But then there are footsteps and the sound of something being dragged up the stone steps on the other side of the wall, and I am scrambling off the edge of the kitchen table, trying to find my tank top and my bra, and James—well, James looks way too fucking calm and somewhat amused as he watches me try to slip into my bra and put it on upside down.
“This city is amazing but you should still lock the door, Aves. This is the worst fucking place for an apartment—how high is the elevation up here, A—Oh.”
Tammy looks like she’s just stepped out of Urbino’s only spa and salon. Her perfectly glossed mouth is making a little O as she takes in James and me. Her brows lift when her gaze settles on the tag at the front of my tank top. Inside out and backward. Great.
“Ohhhh. Okay. I see,” she says, her surprised O-shaped mouth now stretching into a grin.
James moves first. He steps forward and holds out his hand.
“I’m James.”
Tammy holds his hand a little too long, shaking it a little too excitedly as she keeps that grin pinned on me.
Then she steps forward and opens up her arms.
“Surprise,” she says with a laugh.
And I run so hard into her arms that I nearly knock us both back down the steps.
TRENTAQUATTRO
Ava
“What. In. The. Actual. Fu—”
“Stop. It’s nothing,” I tell her, reaching for the glass of white wine James poured for us before disappearing back down the spiral staircase into the apartment.
Tammy’s here.
I keep telling myself this fact even though she’s directly across from me. It just doesn’t seem real.
