Deeper (Caroline & West #1)(56)

“You set an alarm?”

“Knew I’d never stop otherwise.”

Reluctantly, he pushes me off his lap and reaches for the phone, silencing it. Then he’s standing, adjusting his belt, lacing up his boots.

When he lifts his head, his eyes are sleepy and sexy, his lips stained, color high in his cheeks. Looking at him does something crazy to me, a wet hot clench between my legs, heat spreading outward, upward. I wish I’d gotten his shirt unbuttoned while I had the chance. Seen more of him. Pressed up against his bare skin.

Next time.

God, I hope there’s a next time.

“You coming to the bakery tonight?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“Cool. I’ll be back Tuesday. If you want me back.”

“Yeah. I do.”

He retrieves his jacket from the couch and puts it on. When his hand is on the doorknob, he says, “For the record, Caro?”

“Yeah?”

“Hard as a f*cking rock.”

He slips out the door, and I’m still smiling at it like an idiot when Bridget comes back from class.



Tuesday.

Fifty minutes.

Outside, the sky is dark. It’s snowing, blowing icy slush sideways, gray and miserable. I’ve put on Bing Crosby just to make West shake his head and pretend to lament my terrible taste in music.

His hair is cold and damp, his nose freezing when he presses it against mine, but his lips are warm. His smile is warmer. We have this dim room, this bed surrounded by color, our feet intertwined, his body pushing down on me.

We have slow, deep kisses that keep getting deeper.

I ruck up his shirt and follow the gully of his spine up. The muscles of his shoulders flex under my hands. I scoot down. My shirt hikes up. We kiss and kiss, and I find a way to wiggle until my bare stomach is touching his.

Do you feel this? Your skin and mine?

Because I feel it everywhere.

I want it. I want you.

I skate my palms up his sides. Over his shoulders, into the inner sleeves of his shirt until I run out of room over his hard biceps. His hips move into my thigh, belt buckle nipping into the top of my leg, and I press my fingernails into his skin and scoot down another fraction, seeking better alignment.

Seeking pressure between my legs.

I want the knowledge of what I do to him, the heat of what we do to each other.

When I get there, he grunts and bites my lip. His eyes are slits, his nostrils flared as he breathes in deep, fast. “Caroline.”

I lift into the ridge of heat in his jeans, loving that I can do this to him. Loving the pressure, the weight, the way his kiss gets darker and more desperate and we move together, synchronized.

It’s not sex. It’s better than sex.

It’s West.



Thursday. I wore this shirt—this joke of a shirt. It’s supposed to fall off at the shoulder. It’s supposed to be layered over another shirt, but I didn’t tell him that, and as soon as we lie down to start kissing, it comes off my shoulder and exposes my bra strap and a little bit of my bra.

Red lace.

Come on, West. Be tempted.

Everything is faster this time. His first kiss is hungry, and I’m glad because I’ve missed him, I’ve missed this, I’ve thought of nothing else for two days. His hands have a desperation in them, sliding up and down, into my hair, back to my arms. Starving.

It’s not enough anymore. These limits he drew on my body, the pencil marks faint. I want more. We both want more.

I don’t have to be sneaky in order to get him between my legs. I tug at his belt, and he’s over me, as hard and hot as I remember him but better. So much better. The way he rears up suddenly to look at me. His eyes in this light, keeping no secrets. My stomach is showing, one bra cup half out, and his hands tremble on my wrists as he pulls them overhead and crosses them on the pillow.

I’ve never felt so desirable. It’s a drug in my veins, a giddy ecstasy that makes me grin at him with well-kissed lips. Makes me powerful.

Do something, I order him with my eyes and the small, restless movements of my hips. Do something, or I will.

He sinks down, hair falling in his face, and kisses me again. He thrusts—really thrusts—and my head tilts back. My whole spine arches up, moving into him. I’m wet, and I want his fingers. I want his whole hand inside my jeans, fumbling into my panties. His mouth on my breasts. I want us to round all the bases, one after another, in the next half an hour.

“Please,” I say.

West breathes against my ear. Licks my earlobe. Bites me. “That is not a shirt.”

I grin at the bunked bed above me. “Please.”

He sits up again. “Take it off.”

Gladly. Gladly I do, and then his hands are just … everywhere.

Everywhere. More than once.

My bra hooks in the front. I show him, helpfully, and then the bra is gone and he’s kissing me again, his shark-bit T-shirt so annoying, his warm palm on my breast. Long fingers. Gorgeous, capable, intelligent hands. He knows exactly what to do. Exactly.

“Take this off,” I say, tugging at his hem, so he does, throws the shirt on the floor, comes back down on top of me, skin-to-skin, naked from the waist up—oh, my God, this is the best thing that has ever happened to anyone in the history of the universe. I slide my hands all over his back. He kisses a trail from my mouth to my jaw, down my neck.