Page 18 of True Ruin

“Only one.” The words skimmed his lips.

Lust surged through him, blood rushing south.

“Your first was…?” she whispered, her hand sliding between them.

She moved before he could answer, and his thoughts scattered, blown apart by the stroke of her hand over his cock. He still held her breast, thumb circling the tight peak of her nipple, and she uttered that soft, wrecked sound again.

“Nineteen,” he managed, his vision blurring. “College.”

Her eyes lifted to his, dusky brown in the fluorescent light. “So if we’d…that night on the bleachers, I would have been your first.”

“Yeah,” he murmured, the sweet, cruel ache of that nearly undoing him as his fingers tangled in her skirt and hauled it up, bunching the soft fabric at her hip. “And before you ask, I would have said yes.”

She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and worried it for half a second. “I’m guessing you’re way past two.”

“Stop thinking,” he murmured, sliding his hand beneath her skirt. Her panties were damp, and the catch in her breath when he touched her burned through him. He trailed his lips along the curve of her neck, stopping at the frantic pulse beneath herear. She smelled like vanilla and something spicy he wanted to commit to memory.

Later—tomorrow, when he remembered this every two seconds—it would strike him how much the experience suited the setting. School choral room. Bad lighting. Breathless need. The kind of reckless desire he hadn’t felt in years.

Yet, there was nothing adolescent about Gabi. Her leg rose high on his hip, making it easier to push aside the thin strip of what felt like a thong to reach her. The way she sucked the end of his tongue between her lips when he thumbed her sex almost ended him right there.

He was overcome,overwrought, every rational thought lost beneath sensation.

She whimpered softly, and that was when he had to ask.

“Are you sure, Sparkle? We don’t have much time.”

“I’m sure.” She caught his jaw, dragging him into a convincing kiss. “It’s been two years and?—”

“Come for me, then,” he said, stealing a glance at the door to make sure they were alone.

Considering his delicate balance and the fact that Gabi still had her hand over his dick, Dallas did the best he could, sliding a finger inside her while he kept pressure on her clit. This was not the time for finesse.

His erotic payback: he watched her beautiful face the entire time.

So he knew when she was close, lids fluttering, kiss broken, conversation finished. It was devious—but hewasworried about getting her into trouble if they were found—to growl: “I want to fuck you standing up, go so deep we scream.”

It was also true.

In reply, she nipped a sensitive spot above his collar and shattered in his arms. She came hard, forcing him to catch the back of her head, press her mouth to his chest to muffle hercries. And he did the one thing he suspected other guys missed: he stayed with her until the shuddering, gasping end, until she begged him to stop.

Only then did he remove his hand, let her skirt fall to the floor.

Footsteps sounded in the hallway. “Shit,” Dallas whispered, catching her hand as he hobbled into a small room off the main space, cluttered with folding music stands, instrument cases, and stacks of photocopied sheet music.

“I must be out of my mind,” he said, peering around the doorway. Mostly to himself, because Gabi’s crooked smile had gone dazed. “My crutches are out there.”

She giggled, her breathing uneven. “Don’t worry, I’ll make up an excuse if we get caught. This town thinks I’m a good girl. It’s a curse.”

“They have no idea how wrong they are.” He eyed the distance to his crutches, swallowing against the chalk dust in the air. “Don’t bother with the hair,” he said as she fluffed it. “Trust me, you look undone.”

“Undone,” she repeated in a dreamy purr. “Such a writer, Hotshot.”

He had no more control over himself than he did over her. Turning, Dallas cradled her face in his hands and kissed her until they were both shaking.

“My cast is coming off on Thursday,” he whispered against her lips.

“And that means?” she whispered back.