“You look like you’re thinking again, Pickle.”
Her hands fly up to my chest again, and she pushes me back a few inches, enough that she can stand up straight instead of leaning back to look me in the eye.
“I swear to God if you call me that again, I’m walking right out the door.”
A smile stretches across my face, and I don’t know how she does it. How she pushes everything away until she’s the only thing left in my head. Before she knocked on my door, my head was so fucking dark . . . I’m not sure what I would have done.
“That sounds a little like someone is catching their breath.”
I grip the counter on either side of her and push forward. Her arms bend until they’re trapped between our chests. I lean in until our mouths are inches apart, until I can taste her breath.
Quietly, I ask. “You want me, Dylan?”
She sucks her bottom lip between her teeth for a second, and when she lets go, it’s wet and rosy, and I want to pull it between my teeth, too.
“You don’t have to have everything figured out. God knows, I don’t. I’m just asking about right now, in this moment. Do you want me?”
Instead of trying to push me away again, the hands on my chest smooth upward. Then slowly, she slides her hands around my neck until my chest is flat against that smooth, silky shirt.
“Of course I want you. Have you seen you?”
“I see you.”
She swallows, and her eyes bore into mine when she replies, “Yeah, I think you do.”
I pull away enough to pop open another button, revealing the top of her cleavage. She shifts closer, and she’s soft everywhere I’m hard, and the friction turns my spine into a live wire.
“For the record, I still think this might be a bad idea.”
“For the record, I think it’s the best idea I’ve ever had.”
Her fingers trace lightly back and forth over the back of my neck, and I’m a ticking time bomb. Each stroke makes my fuse a little bit shorter, and I need to get those buttons undone before I forget about not destroying her shirt.
With an agility and speed that I was missing today in practice, I have the rest of her buttons undone and her shirt open in seconds. Her bra is this pale purple that cups her small breasts perfectly. Her narrow waist flares out into curvy hips covered by a snug skirt. I can’t decide whether I want the skirt off or hiked up around her waist.
Deciding on the latter, I grip her hips and lift her up onto the kitchen counter. There’s a certain appeal in seeing her still in those fancy clothes, but pulled and bunched and revealed however I can manage. I love to see her go from pristine to disheveled all because of me. Slowly, I push the edge of her skirt up her thighs. When I can’t move it any farther, I say, “Lift up your hips.”
She wets her bottom lip, and my cock twitches at the sight. Her nerves just kick up my adrenaline. I give her a few seconds to adjust, taking two steps back to look at her.
She snaps her legs closed and sits up straight. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to decide exactly what I want to do to you.”
She hunches over, shaking her head and laughing under her breath. “It’s like you’re trying to give me a heart attack.”
“I don’t want to give you a heart attack. I want to make you come. The question is just how.”
She tilts her head to the side and blinks at me. “How are you so comfortable with this?”
I don’t think she wants the real answer to her question . . . that I’ve been doing this for a very long time, since before I was really even old enough to understand half of what I was doing.
“I just know what I want, what I like. And if you’ll let me, I’ll help you figure that out, too. You want that?”
Tentatively, she nods. I cross to her again and slide my hands up her thighs to where I left off with her skirt.
“So, tell me what you like, Dylan Brenner.”
“I don’t know.”
I give a light pinch to her thigh, and she yelps.
“Tell me what you like. Don’t think. Don’t worry about what you should like.”
“I liked what we did Friday.”
I slip my hand underneath her skirt, all the way around to cup her ass.
“Which part?”
“Uh . . . all of it.”
I dig my fingers into the fleshy curve of her butt.
“Be specific.”
“You’re, um, a pretty fantastic kisser.”
Of all the things I want to do to her, kissing is the blandest option, but it’s a place to start. I use the hand on her ass to pull her to the very edge of the counter. Her legs spread wider to accommodate my body, and her skirt stretches around her thighs. I cover her mouth with mine and press our hips together. The only thing between us is my shorts and her underwear, and I can feel the heat of her. Her mouth opens on a gasp, and I take my chance to taste her.
She makes these quiet little noises of pleasure that send my blood pumping faster. Her tongue pushes into my mouth, and her fingers tangle in my hair. I rock my hips into hers, and I’m lined up just right so that I could slide right into her if there weren’t any fabric in the way. I thrust forward, wanting to be closer to that heat, and pull her legs up to wrap around my waist.
I lean my forehead against hers. “Tell me what else you like.”
She breathes against my mouth, and with her eyes still closed, she says, “Your hands in my hair.”
I grin. “I like that, too.” I pick up the braid laid over her shoulder and pull off the band wrapped around the end. “I love your hair.” It’s golden and wild and hints at what I think is hiding beneath that laced-up exterior. “The night we met I couldn’t decide which I liked more . . . the idea of pulling on this braid as I fucked you or undoing it and watching it fall all around you as you rode me.”
She moans quietly, and I give the braid a quick tug before I start separating it.
“What . . .” She pauses, swallows, and begins again. “What do you like?”
I bury my hands in her hair and drag her lips up to mine, grinding my hips into hers. “I like the way you blush when I talk about what I want to do to you. I like when you pull on my hair, too. I like when you dig your nails into my skin without even realizing you’re doing it. I like having your legs wrapped around me.”
She clears her throat. “I mean . . .” She slides one of her hands between us and down to cup me through my shorts. “What do you like?”
I drop my head to her shoulder and drag in a labored breath. I push forward into her hand because I just can’t help it. She strokes her hand up the length, and I attack her neck with my mouth. Suddenly impatient, I kiss my way down to the valley between her breasts, and nip one curve when she squeezes my erection.
She slides down off the counter, and I step back to make room, but only just enough. She reaches beneath my waistband and wraps her small hand around my dick.
“Tell me,” she says, and I fucking love that she’s turned the tables on me. “Tell me what you want.”
The last thing I want to do is stop her, but part of me thinks she’s doing this on purpose. If she focuses on other people, on what they want, she never has to decide for herself.
“I don’t know if you’re ready for what I want, baby.”
Her eyes are wide and even though she probably knows I’m right, she asks anyway. “What?”
“I want to bury my hands in your hair while you take me in your mouth. I want to see those perfect, rosy lips wrapped around my cock. I want to tell you every dirty thing I imagine doing to you, and then I want to do whatever you’ll let me do.”
She licks her lips and fuck.
Fuck.
I’m so hard it’s painful, and her grip is too light, too still.
“Um,” she mutters.
“Told you it was too much.”
She’s got this determined look in her eyes, even as she looks terrified. And I almost want to see how this plays out, see how far
she’s willing to go. But considering she’s the only thing in my life right now that doesn’t make me feel like shit, I don’t want to scare her off too fast.
And I don’t want this to just be about me.
I kiss her on the cheek, and then pull her hand out of my shorts.
My dick fucking hates me, but it will keep until I’ve got her comfortable.
“Wait, I—”
“Later,” I answer. “I believe I promised you something else.”
I gather her skirt up and drag it up to her waist, then I lift her up onto the counter again. I lean over and kiss her inner thigh as I curl my fingers around the waistband of her dark blue thong. I groan because I wish I’d gotten a look at her ass in it before I put her up on the counter.
Another time, I tell myself.
Impatient, I drag the scrappy piece of fabric down her legs and shove it in my pocket. Dylan’s legs stiffen, but I place a hand on each thigh to hold her open for me.
“You asked me what I want. This is what I want. I’ve been fucking dying to taste you. I want to make you do more than breathe. I want you to scream for me.”
It’s more than that, though.
I want to make her come so hard that for the rest of her life, she remembers me anytime someone touches her. I’m going to leave my mark on her perfect body, beneath the skin where she’ll never get me out.
I want to ruin her for anyone else.
And I’m pretty damn good at ruining things.
I drop to a knee to get a better angle to do just that, but before I even touch her, the front door bangs open, and I hear Torres and Brookes heading our way.
Chapter 12
Dylan
His mouth is so close to me, and I can feel his breath. Henry never did this, and even though I’m terrified and self-conscious, I feel greedy. Henry and I didn’t exactly have an explosive sexual relationship. It was . . . normal. Regular.
Whatever else Silas Moore might be . . . regular, he is not.
Just the anticipation of his mouth down there puts most of the sex I had with Henry to shame. My eyes are squeezed shut, and I’m in danger of biting straight through my bottom lip when Silas jerks back and stands up.
I whimper, wondering if he’s going to just keep playing these games with me until I’m so far gone that I let him do whatever he wants to me.
And there’s a real danger I will let him do whatever he wants to me.
Then he pulls me down off the counter, and I stumble into him, my legs too numb and unprepared to stand. My skirt is up around my waist, and he’s just begun pulling it down over my rear when two guys walk in the kitchen.
For a few seconds, I don’t do anything. My mind starts screaming at me to move long before my body actually manages the action. I dive behind Silas at the same time that he steps over to cover me.
“Oh my God,” I mutter as I try to get my shaking hands to button up the shirt that had been wide open when they walked in.
One of the guys is the Hispanic guy who’d been walking around without a shirt at the party. The other is a super-tall black guy who’s staring at Silas with an expression that makes me wither, and it’s not even directed at me.
The first guy, Torres, I think, was his name, says, “Ah, man. What did we say about sex in the kitchen? Anywhere else but the kitchen, dude.”
I nearly rip the button right off my blouse. I wouldn’t have had sex with him in the kitchen. Would I? Oh God, what I was going to let him do was hardly any better.
Silas is right . . . I do feel a bit like I’ve been suffocating. I think that’s part of why the breakup with Henry didn’t upset me as much as it should have. We’d been together so long, and our families loved the idea of us together, and it started to feel like my future was already written in stone. He would propose, I’d say yes, we’d have kids, and get old, and that would just be it. The end.
Normal.
Thinking back on that now, I almost want to cry with relief that he ended things. Because I don’t want to be normal.
But just because I was feeling trapped isn’t a good enough reason to go jumping off the first cliff I see.
Silas’s other roommate speaks next, and his voice is low and reproachful. “You really think that’s the best way to deal with this?”
Silas shakes his head. “It’s not what you think it is, Zay.”
What does he think it is? And what actually is it? Because I’m not sure I know myself. We’d made some kind of weird bargain, and I knew what I was doing for him . . . sort of. But I was still a little unclear exactly what he was doing for me.
Other than turning me into a hormonal, lecherous mess.
“I told you. I fucking told you that you do this to yourself.”
Silas drops his head, and instinctively I place my hand on his back in support. They might not see it, but I know how torn up he is over this. He was so different today. I could be imagining it, but I think Silas stands up a little straighter under my touch.
“Listen—”
“No. I watched you fuck yourself over this weekend. We all watched it today at practice. I don’t know if you’ve just stopped caring or what, but you’re bad for the team.”
I peek around Silas’s back just in time to see the way those words contort his expression. And I say something. Because that’s who I am. I’m the girl who says something. Maybe not for myself, I don’t always know how to speak up for me, but for others? That’s what I do.
“This is the exact opposite of what he needs right now.”
His roommate, Zay, glances at me, and if possible his expression turns even colder.
“No offense, but I don’t think what you were giving him is what he needs, either.”
My mouth drops open, and I see Silas stepping forward out of the corner of my eye and I throw out an arm to stop him.
Then I give my best diplomatic smile and say, “No offense, but you don’t know me. And I don’t think you know your friend all that well, or you’d know that he cares a lot. And he’s already on his knees and doesn’t need you pushing him down farther.”
Torres snorts and says, “On his knees, was he?”
I skip straight over embarrassed to furious.
“No wonder he’s spiraling out of control. Clearly he doesn’t have any support from his so-called friends. One of you just wants to make jokes and the other wants to yell at him. Both of which are only going to make things worse!”
“Listen,” Zay says. “I’m sure you’re a nice girl. And you obviously mean well, but I think you’re overestimating why he brought you here. You might think you’re here to support him while he’s upset, but trust me, if we hadn’t walked in, you would have been gone the minute he was done with you.”
“Brookes.” Silas’s voice is hard, and when he lays a hand on my shoulder, I realize I’m trembling. “Lay off. This has nothing to do with you.”
“You want me to go in the other room so you can finish dragging this girl down with you?”
“Brookes. I mean it. Lay. Off.”
I know as soon as the other guy opens his mouth where this is heading. Right as Brookes says, “Fuck you,” I slide in front of Silas and place a hand on his still bare chest to stop him from barreling over there and starting his third fight in less than a week.
“Hey,” I say. His chest is pushing forward against my hand, but not enough to move me like I know he could. “Hey. Look at me. Getting angry at him won’t change the fact that you’re angry at yourself.”
He glares over my shoulder. “Maybe not. But it will take my mind off it.”
I grab his jaw and make him look at me. “We made a deal. You have to listen to me or none of this works. Getting angry at him doesn’t fix anything, so let it go.”
He lets out a harsh breath, and under my hand, he grinds his teeth together.
“Fine.” His eyes shift from me to his two roommates, and I let my hand drop away from his face. I go to move, but he rests a hand at my waist, keeping me close
. Then he says to his friends, “I fucked up today. I know that. I knew it even as it was happening. And I’m gonna figure my shit out. I promise.”
That was actually a pretty mature almost-apology.
My heart clenches for a moment because I can feel the desperation buzzing around him. He does have issues. And I don’t love that his first inclination is always to get angry, but there’s something there. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but even with the violence and the issues and the dangerous sex appeal . . . there’s something about him.
I believe in him.
His friends don’t say anything, and when I turn to look at them over my shoulder, they’re leaving the kitchen. But Silas apparently isn’t done.
“Isaiah.” His friend turns. “I am sorry, but I will kick your ass if you can’t mind your own business.”
I sigh, and think, baby steps. His friend nods his head thoughtfully and exits the kitchen without a word. I relax and breathe easy for the first time since his roommates walked through the door.
Silas pushes some of my hair behind my ear, and I glance up.
The look in his eye flattens me, twists me up, and wrings me out. A girl could read all kinds of things into the look he’s giving me.
“Thank you,” he says. “You were right. That would have made things ten times worse.”
“That’s what friends do.”
That look disappears. And I’m both incredibly relieved and a little sorry to see it go.
“So . . . what’s the plan?” he asks me.
For possibly the first time in my life, I am completely without a plan. I’ve got no backup, no safety net below me in case I screw things up. And I can’t decide if it’s more exhilarating or terrifying.
He must get where my head is at because he clarifies: “Our deal. What do we do first?”
It’s hard to think with him this close to me, and I’m still a little too caught up in what we almost did as part of that deal.