Page 70 of Back for Seconds

I swallowed against my heart beating in my throat, curling my fingers around his neck. I turned into his whisper, angling so my mouth was centimeters from his, his breath a sweet pulse against my lips.

“I would say yes.”

***

The music kept us flowing, in and out, touching everywhere but never enough. The song would change, and we’d break apart to sip our drinks or to make small talk with someone else. We’d take a moment to act like we didn’t want to still be locked together on the dance floor, like we weren’t desperate to taste the last sip of rum, the last drop of lime, clinging to the edge of each other’s lips. Desperate to taste, to be tasted.

The crowd thinned as children fell asleep across chairs and parents agreed it was finally time for bed. All of Joey’s cousins gone, along with his brothers and Mimi. Off to The Billiards to dance. When the last person left, Joey pushed the front door shut with a click and flipped on the overhead lights. My ears buzzed from the music, and I winced slightly at the sudden burst of warm light.

Joey turned slowly at the door, leaning back against it. He shoved his hands in his pockets, chin lifted as his eyes drank me in.

“So,” he said.

I cleared my throat, crossed my arms over my chest. “So. Good party.”

His brows shot up. “Only good?”

I ran my tongue over my bottom lip. My heart was hammering in my chest. “Could be great. There’s still time.”

Joey tilted his head down, narrowing his eyes at me. His curls were wild, a halo around his strong features. He looked delicious, feral. “Yeah?”

I nodded.

He crossed the room in a few quick strides. Then his mouth was on mine and my face was in the gentle hold of his big hands. He kissed me like he was starving. His tongue pressing and pulling against mine, deeper and wilder than ever before. I gripped his wrists, pushing up on my tiptoes to desperate for more—more of his skin on mine, more of his mouth. Joey took ahold of my lower back, pressing me to his body, solid and strong, moving us in a few quick steps until my back collided with the kitchen wall.

Finally.

He let out a soft grunt of pleasure—or maybe frustration and satisfaction mixing together into a perfect ambrosia.

I know he was thinking it too. Finally.

Joey pressed his hips into mine while his fingers tangled in my hair. He lifted me up easily against him, his erection pressing into the tight seam of my jeans. I choked back a moan as his mouth trailed hotly, desperate and frantic, down my neck as I fumbled to pull his shirt upward, trying to find purchase against the muscled skin of his stomach. His skin was hot and soft. I broke away from him and yanked the fabric up as high as I could manage, then watched as his muscles stretched and bunched as he yanked his sweater away.

An Adonis.

Thankfully his mouth was back on mine in an instant and he hadn’t caught me slack-jawed slobbering over his physique.

“Took forever for them to leave,” Joey said, his voice a deep rumble against my throat that awakened goose bumps across my body.

“Uh huh,” I managed as his tongue traveled lower and lower. Over the thudding pulse in my neck, the hollow of my throat. “I needed them gone.”

He pulled away just as his lips met the swell of my cleavage, lips flushed a deep Bordeaux red. “You shoulda told me. I would have told them to kick rocks hours ago.”

I shoved gently at his chest. “You liar.”

Joey smirked, caught my wrist, and tangled our hands together, pulling me against him as he guided us back toward the couch. We dissolved together again, a mess of hands pushing at fabric and heavy breathing as he collapsed into a sitting position on the couch.

He pulled me between his thighs, wasting no time, bringing his mouth to the soft, pale skin above my waistline as he unbuttoned my jeans and worked the fabric down over my hips, his big, rough hands moving nimbly. I pushed my fingers into his hair, smoothing his curls away from his face. I watched the hard masculine angles of his face dissolve as his eyes fluttered shut. My breath came in quick, ragged pulls as desire began its slow boil in the depths of my stomach. I was soaking wet, almost desperate to feel him touch me.

“Fuck, your body,” he whispered as his lips finally met the sheer panel of my underwear, eyes trained upward on me. “You’re fucking perfect, June.”

My insides warbled at the desire thick his voice, the heat of his mouth so close to my center. My impulse was to say: Really? This body?

But with Joey, I didn’t doubt myself for a moment. I believed him. In this moment, there was nothing—nobody else.

I swallowed roughly. “I’ve been wanting this so…” My voice was a flicker, a wisp of smoke.

Those dark, hungry eyes held me as his hands traveled down over the swell of my ass, then carving a slow, purposeful path as his mouth stayed—hot and still—over the thin fabric of my underwear. “So badly?”