Never Standing Still (The Never Duet #1)(32)

His finger came up to the skin of my neck and started making tiny, slow circles there, causing my head to fall to the side. I was enjoying his touch entirely too much.

Suddenly, we heard the front door open and we both leapt back from each other, like high schoolers caught in a bedroom with the door closed. My head turned to look down the hallway and I saw Nancy walking toward me, her cheeks flushed and eyes bright.

“Hi, Kalli. Have a nice evening?” she asked, just before she rounded the corner and saw Riot sitting on the couch. “Oh, my.” Her hand came to her chest and her eyes didn’t even try to refrain from running up and down his body. I rolled my eyes at her blatant appraisal. “Hello, I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Nancy.” She took another step toward Riot and held out her hand to him, smiling all the while.

“Hi, my name’s Riot Bentley. I’m a friend of Kalli’s.”

“Ah yes, the friend who drove through the night to see her,” she said, her smile shifting to mischievous. “I’m glad to see you made it safely.”

“It was an interesting drive, but totally worth it,” he said, winking at me and not even trying to hide it from Nancy. They were both being incorrigible.

“All right, you two, knock it off.” I stood up from the couch, trying to hide my wide smile and went to make sure Marcus was on track to get to bed soon. The entire time I was helping Marcus, I could hear Riot and Nancy chatting in the living room. I was too far away to hear their words, but every now and then I heard Nancy’s laughter, so I knew he was using his irresistible charm on her.

Once I’d flipped off his bedroom light, I shut Marcus’ door and made my way back to Riot.

“Where’s Nancy?” I asked as I found Riot all alone.

“She said she was headed to bed. Come here,” he said, crooking a finger at me.

I walked slowly toward him, but yelped quietly when he grabbed my arm, pulling me down onto his lap.

He was so large. It was impossible to not feel small when he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into him. It was an instinct I didn’t know I possessed to snuggle into him. I’d never been a snuggler. I’d been a ‘Hit It and Quit It’ kind of gal. I wasn’t ashamed of my past with men—I didn’t feel there was anything to be ashamed of—but I’d definitely skipped the parts where intimacy was involved. And sitting on his lap with his arms wrapped around me, his heartbeat thumping just below my cheek, well, it felt intimate as f*ck. But it also felt right, which was just as alarming.

After a few minutes I looked up at him to ask him when he had to head back to California, but his lips found mine before I had a chance, and I was okay with that. He kissed me, just like he had at the view point, and I eventually found myself straddling his lap again, my body searching for the friction it craved.

My hands cupped his jaw, feeling the stubble of his beard which had been growing for a few days, imagining the scratch of his skin on other parts of my body. His hands found my ass again, and somewhere in the back of my mind I tucked away that little observation, thinking perhaps Riot Bentley was an ass man.

He pulled away, his mouth landing at the base of my throat, kissing down, stretching the neck of my shirt, all while his hands found their way under it, skimming up my belly. He was moving toward second base and I was so ready to feel his hands on me, when suddenly he pulled back. His lips left my skin, his hands left my shirt, and my eyes shot open as I gave him a confused look.

His head was leaned back on the back of the couch, eyes closed, breaths heavy.

“Are you all right?” I asked, my fingers coming to touch my lips that felt raw and used, thanks to his stubble.

“Yeah,” he said, rubbing his hand over his face. “That just got really intense.”

He must have seen the confusion on my face, or the hurt, because honestly, I was feeling both. His hands came up to cup my face and he pulled my forehead to his lips, pressing a kiss there.

“Kalli, we don’t have to rush into anything. I’m not in any hurry. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to be with you, trust me, I do. I just don’t think this is the right time. Ya know? And I don’t know if I’d be able to stop if I went any further. If I got my hands on you, I wouldn’t be able to stop for anything.”

This was weird. I’d never been told to wait before. Never been turned away.

“So, you want to sleep with me…,” I said, my voice trailing off as I tried to work through our situation in my mind. “But, you don’t want to sleep with me tonight.” I looked to him for confirmation and his eyes were narrowed.

“I want, desperately, to sleep with you, Kalli. I want to spend hours on your body, and I plan to, but not tonight. Your brother’s down the hall, your, uh, Nancy is down the hall, too. It’s not the time or the place. Plus, we’ve got plenty of time to figure all this out.”

I listened to him, and knew he was right, but it was still strange to me to have a man turn me away. I sighed and continued on with my original question I’d tried to ask before we’d made out on my couch.

“So, when do you have to go back to California?”

“I have to leave in the morning, early. In fact,” he said, as he pulled his phone out of his pocket, jostling me as I still sat square on his lap, “if I’m going to get any sleep, I should probably head back to the hotel. I’ve only got about seven hours before I have to be on the road again.”