She straightens, her blue eyes finding mine. “That’s not true.” A grin tugs at her mouth. “You make good coffee.”
I should not be standing here melting like butter in a warm pan because a woman tells me I’m adequate at a basic life skill. But my whole life, I’ve been the guy who handles things. Built my identity around being needed. And being given permission to not carry everything nearly guts me.
“I also like having you read to me,” she adds, and I’m pretty sure she’s blushing.
“Give more credit to our buddy Henry David than my recitation of his words,” I say, embarrassed by my own reaction.
“It’s you,” she insists, then bites down on her lower lip. “I’d like to hear you read… Never mind.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“It’s something.”
She sighs as the smile she’s trying to hide breaks through anyway. “We’re reading a shifter romance for book club this month. I’d like to hear you read the sexy bits.”
Jesus.
I was rock hard before she finished the sentence, heat flooding through me as I try to keep my breathing steady. Sloane Winslow is going to be the death of me, and she knows it. I can see it in theway she’s looking at me with equal parts challenge and want, daring me to do something about it.
I close the distance between us and take her hand, lacing my fingers through hers. Her pulse flutters under my thumb when I press it to her wrist. That infuriatingjust friendslabel is so thin right now it’s practically transparent.
“I don’t know much about romance novels.” I bring her hand to my mouth and kiss her knuckles, then her wrist, then the center of her palm. Her fingers curl against my jaw. “But how about I narrate all the things I want to do to you instead?”
Her pupils blow wide, and her breath catches. “Yeah,” she says, her voice rough. “That would work.”
I draw her closer, one hand sliding around to the small of her back, and marvel at how she fits against me so perfectly. The way she has from the very first night in Nashville. It feels as if we were made to be together.
“I’d start slow,” I murmur against her temple. “Kiss you until you forget your own name and you’re holding onto me like you might fall if you let go.”
“Jensen.” I fucking love the sound of my name on her tongue.
“Then I’d work my way down to your neck and that spot behind your ear that makes you shiver.” I demonstrate, and mentally pat myself on the back when she does shiver. “I’d take my time. Make sure you know exactly how much I want you.”
“How much?”
“More than anything else in the world,” I admit, too far gone to be embarrassed by my need.
She rises up to kiss me, and I relish the taste of her and the soft sound she makes against my mouth. Our kisses turn deeper, more urgent, until she’s pressed against me and I feel her heartbeat through her shirt.
“This is a story that could take all night,” I promise against her mouth.
“I’m counting on it,” she breathes.
I kiss her again and walk her backward toward the hallway, and for right now, this is enough. Even if I still don’t know how I’m supposed to let her go.
Inside the small bedroom, the lantern light from the main room casts shadows across the walls. I take my time with her the way I promised I would. I map the terrain of her skin with my mouth, from the curve of her collarbone and the soft swell of her breasts to the slight tremor that runs through her when my lips graze her ribs.
“Jensen.” She threads her fingers through my hair and tugs, pulling my mouth back to hers. “Stop teasing.”
“I’m not teasing,” I murmur against her lips. “We romance narrators call it savoring.”
She makes a frustrated sound that turns into a moan when I slide my hand between her thighs, feeling her hot and wet through the fabric of her pants. I know how she likes to be touched. Started charting the map of her body in Nashville and have been adding to it since she let me in again, so I give her the slow pressure that makes her hips roll into my palm.
“Please,” she breathes, which shreds the rest of my control. Not because it’s new. But because every time she says the word, she gives a little more of herself with it.
We shed the rest of our clothes without grace, too urgent now for finesse, and when she pulls me down onto the bed, I go willingly, settling between her thighs with a groan that comes from a primal place I barely knew I could access before her.
