“No matter how close, you are always too far
“My eyes are drawn everywhere you are.”
He paused again, and I thought he wouldn’t go on, but then he pitched his voice higher, and I melted at the sound.
“I’m tired of the way we both pretend
Tired of always wanting and never giving in
I can feel it in my skin, see it in your grin
We’re more. We always have been.
“Think of everything we’ve missed.
Every touch and every kiss.
Because we both insist.
Resist.”
They were only words, but their effect on me was just as strong as the kiss we’d shared earlier in the evening. The anticipation of his touch was almost as exquisite as the contact itself. I had to concentrate to keep from arching up into his hands. He began taping gauze across sections of my back, and I lived for the moments when his finger would smooth the tape down and graze my skin.
“Hold your breath and close your eyes
Distract yourself with other guys
It’s no surprise, your defeated sighs
Aren’t you tired of the lies?”
His volume had grown, and I felt nailed down by his words, trapped by his hands. I knew this song wasn’t for me. It couldn’t be. We’d only met today. But just because the song wasn’t for me, didn’t mean it wasn’t about me.
“Think of everything we’ve missed.
Every touch and every kiss.
Because we both insist.
Resist.”
I could feel his breath against my bare skin as he sang, and my whole body tensed. I couldn’t even pretend I wasn’t affected anymore. It took all my concentration just to keep breathing.
“No matter how close, you are always too far
My eyes are drawn everywhere you are.”
He placed the last bandage, smoothed down the tape, then his finger continued on, tracing the line of my spine. My skin broke out in goose bumps, and I tried to smother a moan into the cushion, but he had to have heard.
“I’m done. I won’t ignore.
I won’t pretend or resist.”
His hand settled at the base of my back. The last line was half-sung, half-spoken, and I was half-mad with desire.
“I want more.”
13
Cade
I was playing with fire, touching her like this. My hand was resting just above the curve of her behind, and I swear she arched her hips back into my palm.
My voice was low and rough as I said, “All done.”
If I were a superstitious man, I would think I’d angered Milo’s alcohol gods because I was having a very inconvenient reaction to our closeness.
I moved my hand, and was ready to make a quick getaway, but she sat up and said, “Wait, let me do you.”
I tried to keep a straight face, I really did. But no male in my condition, whether he’s fifteen or fifty, could hear those words and not react.
She rolled her eyes and said, “Your head, Golden boy. The one that’s supposed to do your thinking.”
God, she was so different from Bliss. I could envision completely how this scenario would have happened with her. It would have started with a lot of blushing and mumbling and probably would have ended with something broken or on fire.
Max was honest. Unafraid. She was so comfortable in her skin.
And it was sexy as hell.
“Let me get a new cloth.”
She stood and took the washcloth and water into the kitchen with her. I sat on the couch, and did my best to adjust myself so that my predicament wasn’t glaringly obvious.
I’d tried to talk her out of the song because I thought it was a bad idea. I thought it would bring up memories of Bliss, but it didn’t. In fact, singing it hadn’t made me think of Bliss at all. I could only think about Max, and that caused an entirely different problem than the one I’d expected.
I kept my eyes focused forward when she returned because I didn’t trust myself not to touch her again. She pulled one of her knees up onto the couch, and slid closer to me. Her knee pressed against my thigh, and all I wanted to do was grab her other leg and lift her over onto my lap.
I searched for something, anything, to distract me, but there was nothing in this apartment to look at. There was only us and the electrifying heat that filled the space between us.
Her fingers touched my chin, and she turned my face toward her. She was staring at a wound on my forehead, so I had a few seconds to drink her in without getting caught. Her cheeks were flushed, probably from the pain, and her lips pulled down into a frown as she surveyed my injury. And her eyes were the kind of light blue that you only see on wild, untouched beaches.
“I should have taken care of you first. You’re still bleeding a little.”
I was? It didn’t even hurt anymore. There were too many other things on my mind.
Her fingers shifted on my chin, brushing across the stubble that I hadn’t bothered to shave this morning. Her eyes met mine for a flicker of a second before she pulled away and began dipping the washcloth in the water.
I watched her small hands and delicate fingers as they wrung out the rag, and then folded it into a small rectangle. She slid even closer when she turned back to me, so that her knee was almost resting on top of my leg. I was already facing her, but her hand found my jaw anyway. She cleaned the area around the wound first, and then started dabbing at the cut just along my hairline.
She used the hand on my jaw to tilt my head down slightly to give her a better look. It pointed my eyes straight to the delicate architecture of her collarbone, which had been the last place I’d kissed her.