He chuckled and practically flung me onto the bed, mylegs draping over the edge. I gasped in both surprise and pleasure. He stepped between my knees, forcing my dress to ride up my thighs as his hands followed the same path.
My eyes fluttered closed at the sheer pleasure of his skin on mine. But when echoey laughter sounded from downstairs, I was reminded that the door was wide open and any of the many guests—or his mother!—could wander in at any moment. I pushed myself onto my elbows, his body blocking me from shifting any farther.
“There are people,” I said.
“Where?” he asked, undoing the button on his jacket, then dropping to his knees. “I don’t see any people.” His hand pushed my dress up even more, then continued past the hem and up my inner thigh. His intense gaze was fixed on mine as his fingers came to the edge of my underwear, a lacy black pair. He traced the scalloped edge and my body reacted, lifting to meet his touch. He palmed me, and I was sure my underwear did little to hide how ready I was for him.
He let out a low hum, then placed a kiss on the inside of my left knee, then an inch higher, and another.
I wanted to enjoy this. Iwasenjoying this. But the thought of his parents, a whole party full of people, downstairs kept interrupting my ability to completely relax.
“Elijah,” I said, his mouth, his tongue, now tracing the line of my underwear that his finger had earlier.
“You want me to stop?” He paused.
“No,” I said, and his mouth resumed, his tongue lighting up every nerve ending on the hollow spot of my inner thigh. “I mean, yes. Now is not the right…”
He pulled away. Thoughts of his tongue in even more places flashed through my mind, and a spasm of pleasure wentthrough me. I wanted to grab him by the hair and pull him right back. I didn’t. I sat up and adjusted my dress back down my thighs.
He stood and rebuttoned his jacket, then held his hand out to help me off the bed.
“So we can scratchchildhood bedroom while a party is going onoff the list of places you’d have sex.” He was teasing, I knew this. After our talk about airplane bathrooms and coat closets and basically anywhere in public. Okay, maybe he wasn’t joking. Maybe my list of acceptable places for sex was pretty small. Maybe it was part of my personality. Maybe I didn’t have the adventurous gene. I wanted stability and predictability and security. Boring.
I wasn’t sure if my demeanor had changed or if my thoughts were written all over my face, but whatever the reason, his expression softened. “Hey,” he said, kissing my cheek and the corner of my mouth. “I’m just teasing you.”
“I kissed you in an elevator,” I reminded him and myself.
He smiled. “You did. But I don’t need to ravage you in a public place.” He moved his lips close to my ear. “But for the record, I do want to ravage you, pretty much always.”
I nodded. “I want to be ravaged.”
He chuckled and started to straighten up when I smashed my lips to his in a passionate kiss. Or maybe it was a desperate one. He reciprocated, wrapping me up in his arms and exploring every inch of my mouth with his tongue. When we broke apart, I could hardly breathe.
“Go ahead of me,” he said, when I moved toward the door. He tugged at the crotch of his pants. “I’m going to need a minute.”
I chuckled, but as I headed downstairs, I couldn’t help butwonder what we were doing. I didn’t live here. I was leaving in a matter of weeks. A month, two at the most. He knew that. I knew that. Neither of us had uprootable lives. Was that the point? This spontaneous, fun-loving,unsettledman saw me as someone he didn’t have to commit to and just wanted to have a little fun with.
I had never wanted to have a little fun with a man in my life. I’d always dated for a purpose. Could my purpose be fun? Could my purpose be to live in the moment and then leave it all behind? Because I knew long distance wasn’t for me. Not when my dad left and never looked back.
CHAPTER 24
“Am I fun?”
“What?” Raya asked. It was Monday morning. Raya was reporting to me on the weekend business. Weekends were always the busiest, but since the review, they’d been declining. She had some ideas for marketing posts, and I agreed that we needed to step up our social media game. I hoped that would help until we could figure out what to do for atmosphere. I had a feeling nothing was going to change until I got back though. I needed to get back. “Fun?”
“Yes, I can have fun, right?” The fence outside my bedroom window stared back at me.
“When?” she asked. “No, that came out wrong, I mean, like in what setting are you asking about?”
“Ever,” I said, realizing that if she was having a hard time just sayingyes, then the answer was obviouslyno. “Oh, god, I’m not, am I?”
She laughed. “Sutton, I enjoy your company. I opened abusiness with you for fuck’s sake. You are one of my favorite people to be around.”
“None of those statements included the wordfun.”
“Is being in your childhood home for this long giving you an existential crisis?”
“Yes,” I said. “You have no idea.”
