Back in college, when Liam hadn’t taken my rejection well, he’d persisted for months, nearly stalking me, trying to make me change my mind. He hadn’t done anything illegal or violent, but it left me leery of fanatic devotion. Ironically.
And yet, Shane drew me to him, like the moon pulls the tides. I liked that he didn’t play games. I liked that he didn’t play it cool.
It scared me in equal measure.
He scooted onto the bed and fluffed the pillows against the backboard. “This okay?”
I propped myself beside him but slid down flat and turned on my side. He did the same, and we faced each other in what felt like a bizarre sleepover.
His mouth was maybe six inches from mine. “What should we talk about?”
Our bodies didn’t touch, but I felt as though we did. Something like an electric charge built up in the space between us. “Maybe get to know each other?”
His hand found mine, but he didn’t twine our fingers. Instead, he followed my arm until he reached my shoulder and then took a sharp detour to the hair falling over my neck. With a strand twirling between his fingers, he answered. “I’m an open book. Ask me anything.”
It was hard to think of words with him looking at me with those dilated eyes, with his shallow breathing, with his tongue running along his lower lip.
“Um, how old are you?”
He smiled. “Oh, good. You didn’t research me ahead of time.”
If he only knew. “Why? Is there something you don’t want me to know?”
He shook his head. “Like I said, I’m an open book. But you can’t learn everything about a person from a Wikipedia entry.”
Wikipedia! I hadn’t even thought to check there. “You have a Wiki page?”
“Not much of one. It would have told you I’m thirty-one.”
I peered at him, memorizing the planes on his face, the curve of his lips. I wanted to watch those lips move. “Where are you from originally?”
“Outside DC.” He met my eyes, and I knew he felt the desire I was failing to combat.
He let go of the strand of hair he’d been examining and used his fingers like a comb, tickling behind my ear, my neck, along my collarbone.
My brain shut down.
I didn’t want to ask him questions or think or glean facts that didn’t matter. I just wanted to give in to feeling.
I touched his wrist and traced the length of his arm. His gaze locked with mine.
“What else do you want to know, Layla?”
Nothing. I didn’t want to know anything else. “Can I kiss you?”
He didn’t respond in words. His eyes softened, and he moved an inch closer. I rolled toward him the rest of the way.
This time when our lips met, we were closer in spirit than in body. He kissed gently, coaxing, like we had all the time in the world, and this deserved our full attention. He shifted slightly, and his hand slid up my spine, urging me closer, until we lined up perfectly, legs against legs, chest against chest. My fingers worked their way under his shirt. I needed to feel his muscles. Every touch brought another adjustment from him until our legs were completely intertwined, our arms wrapped around each other, and our mouths inseparable.
But feeding one need only birthed another. We were as close as we could possibly get, except for the thin layer of clothes that might as well have been a hundred feet thick.
The same thought must have occurred to him because he grabbed the hem of my shirt and tugged. I sat up to help him slip it over my head. Then he spent an eternity exploring the edges of my bra, touching my skin, inching down the lace until he’d exposed my very hard nipple. He devoted his full attention to licking me as he unhooked my bra and slid the straps down my arms. My entire body melted from the delicious magic in that tongue.
A groan escaped my throat, and he pushed me back against the pillows, kissing my lips, my neck, my breasts, hands now exploring my stomach along the waist of my pants.
He was getting ahead of me. “Take your shirt off,” I rasped.
With one arm, he had it over his head and tossed onto the floor, revealing a mess of tattoos I hadn’t known he had. I traced them, but where one ended, another began. I didn’t know why, but they made me even crazier for him. And those muscles. I’d never been with a guy who had such prominent biceps, but his chest was worthy of a Pinterest board—sculpted and hard. I shoved him over so I could devote myself to running my fingers along every pronounced bulge in his six pack. I was overwhelmed with desire to see the rest of him.
