Page 94 of When We Had Forever
I do my utmost to sound unaffected. “Actually, kettle corn would’ve been the likeliest way to get results. But now you know.”
His eyes rove. “Now I know.”
The words sound completely different in his throaty purr, and I succumb to a full-body shiver. Great. We’ve exchanged roughly ten sentences and I can already tell I’m playing with fire.
Some irredeemable part of me decides that means I should pull the door open wider. “Would you like to come in?”
“Hell yes,” he says.
Yep. Definitely in trouble.
Inside, I lead Grayson to the kitchen, where he sets down the food while I pull paper cups from the cupboard. “Sorry I don’t have any glass—”
When I turn, he’s standing close, hemming me against the counter with a wall of muscle and sparking eyes. Whatever I was about to say evaporates.
“You look incredible,” he says.
I take the flimsiest of breaths. “Thanks. So do you.”
“I want to touch you.”
He says it just like that, hoarse and heated, and makes no move to step away.
I pretend my heartbeat hasn’t taken up residence in the roof of my mouth. “Is it the eyeliner? Wow. I guess I know now why this stuff costs forty bucks a tube.”
He chuffs, not quite a chuckle. “No. I wanted to touch you earlier, at the coffee shop. I was dying to, actually. But I wasn’t sure you wanted that. And we had an audience. Now we don’t.”
My mind gears up for some tired calculation about what will happen if I agree. But the machinery sputters out before it truly gets started, because for once, I don’t actually care to think. I just want tofeel.
As if in slow motion, I set the cups aside and reach for his chest. A breath hisses from between his teeth at the contact.
His heartbeat slams against my palm like a fist on a door, demanding entry. His hands come up to cage me against the counter. The leathery musk of his jacket hits me, undercut with a note of...something I can’t quite identify. Whatever it is, it makes my stomach melt into a delicious surge of heat.
“Tell me to stop,” he says. “Say one word, and I’ll leave you alone.”
I hold his gaze and lift my chin. And say nothing.
His oceanic eyes heat to a simmer. When he bends down, I expect him to kiss me, but he angles past and presses his lips to my neck.
Wet warmth hits my skin. A mewl of surrender sneaks out as he tongues the shivery spot below my ear. My back arches. He kisses and sucks, gentle enough not to leave a mark, but firm enough to send my rationality draining into the floor.
I clutch at his shirt and fist my other hand into the glossy temptation of his hair. He resists without even seeming to. No matter how desperately I try to pull him closer, the pressure of his mouth remains steady, a torture of nips and soft, sliding heat.
It’s exquisite. Excruciating. I close my eyes and come within a hairbreadth of asking him to hoist me onto the counter and splay me open right here. It’s been so long. Far, far too long, and I can already feel the gathering electricity at the base of my spine that means I’ll fall apart in moments.
But I want this beautiful torment to last. Because who knows when I’ll feel it again? When I’ll indulge like this?
Maybe never. Once I give in, Grayson will undoubtedly find some new conquest—maybe a mountain, maybe a woman—which suits me fine. It’ll save me from having to cut him loose myself.
He kisses his way down my neck and slides his tongue along the exposed half of my collarbone. When he pulls away, he leaves me draped against the counter like a limp rag.
“Is that it?” I say weakly.
“For now.” His tongue sweeps out over his bottom lip, as if gathering up my taste. “I’m hungry, first. For food. And I owe you a rematch.”
“A rematch?”
“At Monopoly.”
