But tonight, for the first time in a long time, Ifeltlucky.
I cocked my head to the side. “Sawyer?”
His eyes glowed in the dim lighting. “Yeah, baby?”
“Will you take me home?”
Thank God we’d already paid. Sully moved like a man on a mission, tugging me out of my chair and leading me through the restaurant, eager to leave.
Just as eager as me.
As soon as we got in the car, his hand found my inner thigh.
“Can I?” he rasped, eyes darting to mine as he used his other hand to back out of the parking spot. “Fuck, can I touch you? I don’t think I can wait until we get home to feel how wet you are. I saw you squirming, Eleanor.”
“Yes,” I breathed—the only syllable I could manage at the moment.
But Sully didn’t seem to mind, slipping his hand beneath the hem of my dress. I parted my thighs, giving him better access, and he took advantage of it, hooking a single finger beneath my soaked underwear and yanking it to the side. I watched his wrist rotate and then felt his knuckle drag through my center before it found my clit.
“Sawyer,” I gasped, grabbing onto the door handle as liquid heat spread from my head to my toes.
“Fuck,” he groaned, and then a finger dove inside me, making my jaw drop. “Oh my God, Ellie baby.”
I closed my eyes, letting bliss wash over me, letting his touch bring me back to life.
But then, to my dismay, he pulled away. I opened my eyes to find him with his fingers in his mouth, sucking them clean and then gripping the wheel with both hands again.
“Home,” he grunted. “Now.”
“You’re the one getting distracted,” I chastised, and his lips curved as he shook his head.
Luckily, we were only a few miles from Maple Street, and before I knew it, I was getting whisked out of his car and carried up the frontsteps and then, once inside, up the stairs, until we finally made it to his bedroom.
He kicked the door shut behind him despite no one else being home, and something about his desperate, gruff movements made my pulse tick faster. An undeniable urgency thrummed in the air, bouncing between us.
Things had been hard lately—the busyness of classes and exams, the roller coaster of my health, it had spread us thin. We needed this. We needed tonight. Honestly, I needed him in a way that I didn’t recognize—a new level of wanting, like I was desperate to cling to this and us.
Sully paused by his bed, ducking his head until his lips flirted with my ear. “You look so fucking good in that dress, Eleanor.” He released my legs first, letting them slowly fall to the floor, tipping me down. “You make me wish I was a fucking artist. There should beartcreated of you looking like this. It should be hung in museums and worshipped. Books should be written about it. And movies. Goddamn sculptures, baby. But the only one who gets to read and watch andlookat them is me. Because I don’t really like the idea of sharing, not when it fucking comes to you.”
“Sawyer,” I breathed, twisting to face him now that my feet were on the floor. I placed a finger to his rambling lips, outlining them. When I was sure he was done, I smiled. “Just please kiss me.”
He did. He kissed me like it was our first kiss. It was soul-capturing and deep and desperate, tongues twisting and lips clashing.
And then he kissed me everywhere else, too. Down my neck and in the dip of my collarbone. He kissed my shoulders and brushed away the straps of my dress, one at a time. He kissed down my body, dragging the red fabric with him, until it pooled on the floor. And then I was on the bed with my legs on his shoulders and his tongue buried deep inside me.
He kissed me between my legs until I was crying for more. And more and more, unafraid that anyone would hear us. Because no one else was here, something that never happened. Just Sully, me, and the glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling.
His name left my lips as I shattered into pieces, drunk on pleasure alone.
I decided it was the best kind of drunk that a twenty-one-year-old could be.
“El,” he rasped as he crawled over me. “I love you. Fuck, I love you, baby. Do you want?—”
“Yes.” I grabbed at his massive frame, pulling him down toward me, needing to feel his weight, his comfort. I wanted him in my bones, wanted him to be a part of me, wanted him to beinsideme.
But Sully drew back, his gaze meeting mine steadily even as his body shook. “Are you sure?”
Sex had been off the table for a while. Despite what Sully had said that day while administering my medication, he agreed we should be careful while I wasn’t on birth control, and it took me a bit before finally deciding on an IUD as an alternative, which had been more of a hellish experience than I’d ever anticipated. And then we’d been busy, and there’d been roommates and life and everything in it.
