Page 71 of Nowhere to Hide
He looks up at me, tired past sleep, and I kiss him.
His grip goes from pressing to holding, and he makes a sound at the back of his throat I feel more than hear. He starts to stand — ready to take charge, the captain-reflex — but I plant my hand flat on his chest and push him back onto the stool.
“Stay,” I say.
His eyebrows lift, and the protest is gathering, thelet me do it. But I push again, just enough, until his back meets the stool and he gives up on whatever he was about to do. Then I step closer, between his knees, until we’re nose to nose.
“Don’t move,” I say.
His breath stalls as I pull my sweater over my head and drop it on the kitchen floor. There’s nothing underneath but a plain black bra, and his eyes go straight to my chest. I watch him forget every other thing in his apartment.
His hand lifts to my back and his mouth finds my collarbone, then he kisses down to the curve of my breast above the bra, warm against my skin. I reach behind me and unhook the clasp.
The bra falls, his mouth moves to my nipple, and the sound that comes out of me is not quiet. But this time, with this guy, I let myself be loud, and I don’t flinch from the sound of my own voice.
As one hand slides up my back, his other arm tightens around my waist, holding me to him. I give him a long minute with his mouth on me, because the look on his face when he switches sides is wrecked.
Then I step back, and he makes a small involuntary noise. “Sloane…”
“I said don’t move.” I grab the hem of his sweats and pull. “You moved your mouth.”
“So?”
“So that’s not allowed,” I say. “And now you’re going to be punished.”
He huffs out a laugh, low and unsteady, and lifts his hips when I tug the sweats and his boxers down together. I pull his T-shirt over his head while I’m at it and toss it onto the second stool. And there he is — hard and flushed.
I don’t rush it. I wrap my hand around him and he hisses through his teeth, head tipping back, throat working. I stroke him once, slow, just to watch his face, then again, and his fingers go white-knuckled on the edge of the stool.
Then I drop to my knees.
He makes a sound that isn’t quite a word, and his hand comes toward me like he’s going to lift me up, but I catch it and press it down to his thigh. He stares down at me, chest rising and falling fast, then nods like he’s giving himself permission.
I take him into my mouth, and the sound he makes creates a hot pull low in my belly. As I go to work, I put a palm flat on hisstomach because I love feeling the muscles clench every time my tongue moves on his cock.
I look up at him and his eyes are on me, glazed, his lips parted. When I take him deeper, his thighs tense on either side of my shoulders and his breath turns jagged. Then I pull off him with a slow drag of my tongue, and his whole body shudders.
“Not like that,” I say. “I want more.”
I stand, undo my jeans, step out of them, and then off goes my underwear. Then I’m standing in his kitchen completely naked in front of him. He’s on the stool with his sweats around his ankles, hands open on his thighs, looking at me like I’m something he doesn’t want to fix.
His gaze snags on the birthmark high on the inside of my left thigh — the spot his mouth always finds first — and holds there. And while I once felt self-conscious about that spot, this time I just let him look.
“Condom,” I say.
He blinks like he’s coming back from somewhere, then twists and pulls open the drawer beside him — the same drawer where he keeps his garlic, except this side has a strip of condoms tucked next to a stack of takeout menus from June’s.
“Rowan.” I stare at the drawer. “You keep condoms with the garlic.”
“Since we slept together, I keep condoms everywhere,” he says.
The way he says it — matter of fact, like a man who went to the pharmacy the day after the library and distributed them around his apartment like emergency supplies — makes my mouth twitch.
“Everywhere,” I say, with some degree of skepticism.
“Nightstand. Bathroom cabinet.” He pauses. “Gym bag.”
“You’re insane,” I say, tearing one off the strip, “and I’m going to find every one.”
