Page 55 of With Love, from Cold World
He drew his brows together in mock confusion. “I thought you finished?”
She rolled her eyes, smacking him playfully on the arm. “You know what I mean,” she said. “Unless you don’t, in which case welcome to the most embarrassing moment of my life.”
Truthfully, Asa wasn’t completely sure hedidunderstand where Lauren was going with all this. But he didn’t want to say the wrong thing and spook her. He caught her by the hips to draw her closer, until she was standing between his knees.
“If you’re asking if I’d like to do it again,” he said. “The answer is emphaticallyyes.”
She pushed at his shoulders, her fingers digging into his T-shirt. “Not like we have to doexactlythe same stuff...”
“Oh, we can change it up,” he said, sliding his hands around the warm, bare skin of her waist under her shirt. “Like this time I’d really,reallylike to see you naked.”
He pressed his lips to the hollow of her throat, tugging gently at the collar of her shirt with his teeth.
“Um,” she said. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to undo your buttons with my mouth,” he said. “It’s a very sexy move if you’d stop ruining the moment and let me do it.”
She threaded her hands in his hair, pulling slightly so his head tilted back to look up at her. “You’re going to ruin my shirt. Or choke on a button.”
“Well, I see which one of those you prioritized.” He smiled, realizing he was also perfectly happy just doing this. Teasing Lauren, making her laugh, enjoying the rare privilege it felt like just to be able to touch her.
But then Lauren was reaching up to undo her top button, and he was more than happy to dothis. She unbuttoned the second, then the third, all the way to the bottom until her shirt gaped open, revealing pale, smooth skin.
He parted the two sides of the shirt, his hands running up the dip of her waist to her rib cage to just under her breasts. Her bra was blush pink and simple, two cotton triangles that did nothing to hide the hard points of her nipples underneath. She shuddered when he brushed his thumbs across, her fingers tightening in his hair.
“I bet you have three of this exact bra,” he said, pushing one of the triangles of fabric aside to reveal the swell of her breast, the tight pink bud of her nipple. God, she was beautiful. Hewished he were enough of an artist to do justice to this image of her, half undone. He knew it was an image that would live in his head forever.
“I bet,” he said, leaning in to take her gently between his teeth, swirling his tongue around her nipple. “You wear them under all your white shirts, because they don’t show through.”
“I have two,” she said, sounding breathless as he continued ministering to her breast with his mouth. “Not three. And how do you know that, anyway?”
He pushed the bra up, pressing warm, openmouthed kisses to every inch of skin he revealed. “I’m starting to know you, Lauren,” he said. “You’re very practical. But not always. Like, when I do this...”
He flicked her nipple with his tongue, and she arched into him, her knee digging in his crotch. He was so hard it was almost painful, but a good kind of pain. He’d just cupped her ass to bring her closer, wanting to kiss and lick and suck her perfect breasts, when there was a knock at the door.
“Have you seen—” Kiki said, swinging the door open before hurriedly shutting it again with a gleeful“Whoops.”
Lauren sprang back from him like she’d been administered an electric shock, drawing her shirt protectively around her body. “Oh my god,” she said. “Oh mygod.”
He ran his hand through his hair, still feeling hot and flushed. “Sorry. I would’ve locked the door, only I didn’t know...”I didn’t know we were going to pick up where we left off last night.“I think she might’ve been looking for you. Did you tell them you were coming to talk to me?”
Lauren’s eyes were wide and panicked. “I told them I was going to the bathroom.”
Asa knew it wouldn’t help the situation to point out that she’d been gone for almost twenty minutes, that theend ing credits had probably started to roll and his housemates would’ve rightly started to wonder if she was okay. It definitely wouldn’t help the situation to tell her how cute it was, that she’d thought to slip away on such a flimsy pretense to come see him in his room. Howhotit was, that she’d apparently come with the express intention of seducing him. Not that he needed much seduction.
“I’m the rudest person on the planet,” Lauren said. “Kiki invited me over to watch a movie, and I justbailedon it.”
“Hey.” He tried to reach for her hand, but she’d moved too far away. “Kiki doesn’t care.”
Lauren had already adjusted her bra and was starting to button up her shirt.
“And,” he added, “for what it’s worth, your back was to the door. I don’t think she saw anything.”
“She saw us together,” Lauren said, “doing...that.”
Cold washed over him. He couldn’t tell if Lauren was just freaking out because she was embarrassed to be caught in the act—which, fine, having housemates had inoculated him some to that kind of embarrassment, but he could understand if that was where she was coming from. Or was she specifically freaking out that Kiki had caught her withhim? He’d thought that the change in venue meant they were no longer operating under awhat happens at Cold Worldrubric. But what did he know?
He shifted in his chair, wishing his body would catch up to the change in circumstances a little faster. “We should talk about whatthisis,” he said. “Because I don’t know about you, Lauren, but I—”
