Harder (Caroline & West #2)(90)

“Right here,” I say. “Please.”

“No.”

“Please.”

He lowers me and backs away. “On the roof.”

“Open the door, then.”

He pushes me aside, unlocks it, and drags me behind him.

“Why do you have a key?” I ask.

“It’s Laurie’s master key.”

“They give out master keys to the art building? That’s not smart. That’s just basically asking students to f*ck on the roof.”

“I know, right? Open season. I’m surprised there aren’t twenty people up here right now.” He turns and grins at me, and then we round a corner and he says, “There we go.”

“What is this?”

“Grass.”

“Right, but …”

I’m looking at a patch of lawn, about fifteen feet square. Like, just … Grass. On the roof of the art building. “Is this somebody’s project?”

“It was some kind of prairie restoration experiment thing, I think,” he says. “But that was a long time ago, and now it’s just this rooftop lawn that Rikki mows.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s Rikki. Strip.”

“Out here?”

“I want you naked in that grass in thirty seconds. I’ll make it worth your while.”

“But what if there’s ticks?”

“How could there possibly be ticks?”

“How should I know?”

“It’s not like there’s deer up here, Caro. Or foxes, or any other kind of host animal.”

“We’re a host animal.”

“I don’t think there’s that many people f*cking on this rooftop that they could be passing ticks back and forth.”

“But—”

“Quit.”

“But—”

He blows out an exasperated breath and whips his shirt off. The moonlight spills over his shoulders and chest, turning his skin a milky white-blue, gooseflesh and hard muscle. Naked West chest and those jeans. Those f*cking jeans. When his hands go to his zipper I reach for it, because I want in on this. So much.

West pushes my hands away. “Strip.”

“All right.”

He finishes before I do, which means I push my skirt down with his gaze on me. I’m standing in my bra and panties, a little chilly, a lot turned on. “Come over here,” I beg.

“Lie down.”

“By myself?”

“On the grass.”

“This is strange.”

“Humor me.”

I do as he asks, because it is a little strange, but not so strange that it’s outside my comfort zone, and West doesn’t make so many unusual requests that I have any reason to balk at this one.

Mostly he just loves me and supports me, bolsters my confidence when I need it, defends me, makes me laugh, makes me come, makes me happier than anyone else ever has or probably ever will.

So, sure. I’ll lie down naked in this random patch of roof grass for him.

It’s stiffer than I expected, prickly against my lower back, my neck. Cool on the back of my legs and my butt.

He kneels beside me.

“Is this going to turn out to be a kink of yours?” I ask. “Exposure?”

He shakes his head.

“Rooftops?”

“No.” He’s smiling. “I’ve just wanted you naked under the stars since the first time I kissed you.”

He trails his hand from my neck down through the space between my breasts, almost-but-not-quite brushing my nipples, then lifting every downy hair on my stomach as he strokes his way downward.

Back and forth. Teasing me.

I close my eyes. It’s too much to look at him. The intensity in his gaze. The moonlight on his skin.

He drops down to his elbow, and his face is right there, his eyes and his lips, his chin and his jaw, his mouth. So exactly like it was that night when we climbed up on the roof of my childhood home, even though almost everything is different now.

That night, I was stoned and I was scared.

I heard mean voices when I closed my eyes, hounding me, and I couldn’t decide what to do about West because I wanted him, but I didn’t want to get hurt.

I’d looked and looked at him that night, because I could never get enough of his face, the shapes that make him up, the beat of his heart, the heat of the life moving inside him.

“Come here,” I say.

He leans down to kiss me. Shifts closer and warms me as his hand travels those last few inches and his fingers slide in.

“You’re wet.”

“No kidding.”

“Watch it,” he says. “Or I might figure out you’re attracted to me.”

“Oh, it’s not you. I was just hoping there’d be somebody up here who was willing to f*ck me.”

“Somebody who doesn’t mind bossy chicks.”

“Don’t call me a chick.”

He rubs his thumb over my clit and makes me gasp. Mumbles something that sounds a lot like, I’ll call you whatever I want.

“Be careful,” I tell him the next time I’m capable of drawing breath. “Or I’ll pick someone else to be my first lady.”