“You definitely scare me.” His head falls back against the pillow, and his hand releases mine. I grab hold, not letting his arm fall from around my waist. “But I’m not walking away either.”
His arm tears away from me anyway, but it’s to lift himself up off his side. I roll onto my back to look at him; he hovers above me, his arms braced on each side of me.
“Do you know what you’re saying? Because you’re not exactly free of mixed signals, Cole. And I don’t think I can take kissing you again if you’re just going to turn around and tell me we can’t.”
I slide myself back a little, propping myself up on the pillow he vacated. His eyes watch me, hungry and hooded, and nerves dance low in my belly. I touch his forearm, now lined up with my hips since I moved. I trace my fingers up his arm, past his elbow, following the path of his muscles up toward his shoulder. Then, remembering the massage I gave him the other night and the warning he gave me about kissing me senseless, I lean forward and place an identical kiss on his arm, just below his shoulder.
The sound that rumbles in his throat immediately takes me back to our first kiss. And when his lips slam into mine, my mouth is already open.
His tongue sweeps in, demanding and daring, pushing just hard enough that I know how very serious he is without overwhelming me. I angle my head farther to the side, kissing him deeper. He lifts himself a little higher, kneeling on the couch, and I sit up more to follow. Without warning, his hands curl around my knees, and he yanks me down off the pillow, pulling my knees apart and settling all his weight down on me.
I gasp into his mouth, and his hands encourage me to wrap my legs around his hips. I do, and I’m drowning in him. His taste. His scent. His sounds. They swarm around me, dousing me in desire, and I welcome his weight.
With his chest and hips crushed against me, it’s almost like he’s pushing out everything else but him. All those niggling little fears and doubts and what-ifs are buried beneath the ache he’s spinning in me.
His hands run down the outsides of my thighs, curling around my ass and lifting me up just a little while his hips bear down into mine, and I swear my vision goes a little fuzzy. For the first time in a long time, I think about what it would be like to be with someone again, to be with him. I imagine our clothes disappearing, skin sliding against skin, the noise he’ll make when he slides into me.
I haven’t had sex since that one time with Levi. I haven’t wanted to. But now I want it so badly that I’m shaking. I lower my hands to the hem of his T-shirt, and at my tentative tug, he lifts up just enough to help me pull it off.
I swallow and stare and swallow again, because dear, sweet Jesus riding a unicorn, he’s perfect. Hard contoured muscles slope toward the broad plane of his chest. And I have this sudden unfamiliar longing to taste the muscled ridges of his abdomen.
“I will never gripe about you working out too long ever again.”
His answering smile is toe-curlingly brilliant, and the warmth that had been building in my center erupts into a flame. He leans down to nuzzle his lips against my neck, and I grip his waist, my hands sliding perfectly along the V of muscles above his hips. One hand brushes the line of hair leading down from his navel, and he groans, nipping my neck in response.
Shuddering, I want to pull him back down onto me, wrap my arms around him, and feel the heat flowing off his skin. But he disappears from over me, sliding down until he’s hovering above my hips. He lifts up my shirt, not taking it off, but just pushing it up enough to bare my stomach. Then he settles down onto his elbows and lays his open mouth against my hip.
The warm touch of his tongue draws a moan from my mouth, and he glides his hands up, slipping beneath my shirt and curving around my ribs. His fingers are so close to my chest, and if the fiery path of his mouth along my belly didn’t have me so rigid, I might have been tempted to arch my chest toward him.
His eyes glance up to meet mine when he places a hot kiss directly above the button of my jeans. The possessive way his body is caged around mine, coupled with a greedy look in his eyes, makes my spine seem to twist in my body. It coils and tightens, spreading to my hips and creating an unfamiliar ache between my legs that terrifies me.
I’m uncomfortable, miserably so, barely resisting the urge to writhe beneath him, and I know it won’t stop. Not until he touches me. Really touches me.
But I can’t ask for that. I’m not sure I can have that.
Sex and regret have always been intertwined for me, and if I sleep with Carson and regret it tomorrow, I think it might kill me.
I know now that with him, there will be no walking away. If it comes to that, I’ll be dragging myself away in pieces.
Chapter 18
Carson
I reach for the button of her jeans, and I see it in her eyes before she says it.
“I can’t do this.”
For a second, I think she means all of it, and I want to scream. But then she smooths a hand through my hair and pulls me up toward her mouth for another kiss, and I get it.
She just can’t do this.
I pushed things too fast. I seem to do that with her a lot. But as long as she keeps being honest with me, as long as she doesn’t run away, I can fix that.
“Okay,” I say, laying a series of kisses on her forehead, cheeks, and mouth. “That’s okay.”
“You’re sure?”
She looks like she expects me to fight her on it or kick her out because of it.
“Very sure.” I kiss her again, the compulsion to taste her too strong to deny. “This is more than enough.”