Page 69 of Experiments in Offline Dating

I laughed again and pushed the hair and water out of my eyes. “Hey.” I took a big breath and caught his eyes. “I honestly couldn’t have done that without you. That’s . . . an understatement. We should not have taken the shortcut, and we shouldn’t have come here today in this weather. And I’m sorry I put you in danger. You were right, Tadhg.”

And then something new happened—a slow, lopsided smile crawled up one side of his beautiful mouth. It reached his eyes and they sparkled. And it was the first time he’d smiled a real, genuine smile at me, it was the first time we’d smiled together, and it pulsed through me with every pump of blood that was trying so hard to warm my freezing body.

He rumbled low in his throat like he was drinking it in. “Oh, I like the sound of that on your lips.”

My breath hitched. I looked a second too long at his mouth, with that mocking, playful smirk, and the moment spun out like yarn and thickened. I looked at his lips as the rain poured over them and into his beard, and I listened to the sound of my blood pound for a beat. Then another. And another.

And then time lurched forward. And in an instant I was straddling him and my mouth was crushed against his so hard I thought I would shatter into a million pieces.

Chapter 15 An Experiment in Melting in the Rain

He tasted like salt and rain and chocolate. His beard scratched against my skin as I licked across the seam of his lips and sucked his bottom lip between mine, biting down. He moaned into my mouth, and I ground my body against him. His hands were on my thighs, digging into me, pulling me closer. I wanted more. I wanted to devour him.

The wind picked up and I pulled away. Not enough to open my eyes. Not enough to break the spell. Just enough so that I could mumble across his lips. “Is this okay?”

His hands tightened on my thighs. They would leave a mark. I held my breath for a second and then another. He let out a breath but said nothing. Shit. I pulled farther away, giving him some room, and started to shift.

“No. It’s not.” The words came out just and firm and solid as he ever was. I pulled in a breath and my eyes widened.

“Shit. Shit, Tadhg, I’m so sorry—”

His hands moved to my ass and pulled me in tight against him. His voice came back lower, a slow scrape of steel against rock. A quiet growl. “It’s not enough.”

My stomach plummeted so fast it took my breath away. Then he was standing, holding me where I was, and we were walking, and my head was spinning, and my breaths were so ragged, and I could still taste him, and when he flung us down onto a patch of wet grass, a desperate whimper broke free from me.

He was on top of me, with all of his weight, and I wanted more. I wrapped my legs around him, arching into him, pulling him down to kiss him again. His tongue slid across my lips, and then he kissed his way down my chin and slowly across the arch of my neck as I sucked in big gulps of cold air. He kissed his way right down the line of my body—across the dip in my clavicle, across my shirt, breathing out warm breath through my wet clothes, between my breasts, across my belly. I grabbed his head, twisting my fingers into his thick, wet hair as he hovered, just an inch or two of burning electricity above the crotch of my leggings.

He looked up and locked eyes with me, the question in them clear. I nodded and pulled his mouth to me with a groan from deep in my chest. Hot breath curled through my damp leggings. His mouth was on me, working against the wet fabric as I pushed into him. It was way too much and nowhere near enough. I thought that I might actually lose it and come against his mouth—just like this, in the rain, with two layers of wet fabric between us and me so needy for him that my legs were shaking.

“I’m taking these off,” he said.

Then, one leg at a time, he pulled off my shoes and socks. He straightened out again and slipped his fingers under the waist of my leggings and locked eyes with me, and his face was every bit as serious and his brow every bit as stern as if I’d angered him all over again. The look in his eyes made my stomach flip.

“Please.” The word slipped from me so desperately that I barely even knew I’d said it.

And then my leggings were off, and I was half naked in the grass and cold of the driving rain.

He slipped his huge hands under my ass, and his mouth came over me, and it was so warm, impossibly hot, and as he licked up the seam of me, I cried out. No one was there to hear it but the storm. His beard rasped against my skin as his tongue dipped inside me. My eyes rolled back as I groaned. I couldn’t take it. Pleasure rose and crashed against me like waves, sucking me under, taking me with it until I shattered in his hands, jerking as he pulled me harder against his mouth, with a growl of his own against me.

Each breath came out with a moan and a whimper as I spiraled back down into my body, until I was laughing.

“Fuck,” I said hoarsely. “Fuck.” I breathed in and opened my eyes and he was above me again, but gentle this time, holding his weight on his arms. He kissed me softly.

“You taste fucking incredible,” he said so low that I could barely hear it. I kissed him back, harder this time. “Now get dressed and let’s get out of this rain.”

No.

“No fucking way.”

There was no chance I was going anywhere. I wrapped my naked legs around his clothed ones and pulled him closer, and I kissed him roughly. He was hard. So hard. I needed more. And then I flipped him, the whole huge weight of him, until he was under me.

I ground against him, slow at first, my body still weak, but built to a rhythm. His hands cupped my breasts and rubbed at my nipples through the cold fabric, and I rubbed harder.

“Fuck, Maya.” He dragged my name between his teeth, and it made my stomach flutter. I grabbed at my wet shirt and pulled it off, then dragged my wet sports bra off as well.

The sound he made—I felt it everywhere.

He rubbed both hands over my cold, naked breasts, goose bumps across every inch of bare skin, my nipples almost painfully tight in the rain, and he swore again. He rolled my nipples under his thumbs and I lost it then, whatever little shred of control I had left.