The Hot One(39)

“Remember what you said about the time in the library?”

He nods. He knows what I want.

“And the English lecture hall,” I add.

Another nod. He steps closer, like he’s stalking me. I back up to the mailboxes. His eyes darken with desire. I feel it, too. It swoops down my chest, flies through my belly, settles between my legs like a pulse beating.

“We were good together,” I whisper, a new boldness taking over. Because I want to touch him. I want to know if all those things I’ve imagined at night are still true. If he can take me away. Lord knows, we could barely keep our hands to ourselves in the park. We were like kittens, paws all over each other, swatting, playing, nipping.

But it’s not just physical.

I like this man.

The parts of him that I loved before and still see in him, I still like. But more than that, I like the man I’m getting to know today. How he laughs, how he needles me, how we tease and scratch and bite in the way we talk. I like, too, that he’s a fighter. That he can’t seem to back down from me.

Now I want to know if contact with him is still as good.

The metal on the bottom row of mailboxes digs into my spine. Tyler plants his hands on either side of my head. Those tingles? They fly now, like a roller-coaster car soaring downhill. I tug on the neck of his T-shirt, slightly sweaty from the run.

“So good together,” he rasps, echoing my words.

I twist more on the fabric. “Kiss me good-bye.”

He leans in, closing his eyes. But I stop him with a hand on his chest before he hits my lips.

He frowns in confusion.

“Remember the time in the laundry room?”

He growls, and it’s the sexiest sound, deep, masculine, and rough. “I remember everything,” he says, then he sets his hands on my shoulders and spins me around.

One time when we were doing laundry late at night, he pushed me up against the two-stack of dryers and did unspeakably erotic things to my neck.

Kisses that made my knees weak.

That soaked my panties.

That made me so primed to come.

He grabs my wrists, slides my hands up the metal rows, and pushes them flat to the mailboxes.

I shiver.

Releasing his hold on me, he says, “Don’t move your hands.” He drags his thumb over my wrist. Then up my arm to my shoulder. He cups my jaw, brushing his thumb along my face.

I nearly melt.

I always liked it best when he took over.

Sure, our kiss last night was outrageously passionate, and I started it. But I like to give him the keys. Tyler is a pursuer. He likes to chase, he likes to catch, and I like to be caught.

That’s what he does now, pinning me with his body. His chest is sealed to my back, and with one hand he gathers my ponytail and moves it off my neck. With his other hand holding my jaw, he gently, but firmly, stretches my neck to the side, exposing the flesh for him.

He dusts a kiss on my collarbone.

My stomach flips.

Then another. His lips travel across my neck, along my hairline, down to the top of my spine. He kisses me everywhere, imprinting his lips all over my shoulders, my collarbone, the back of my neck.

I moan, and he presses his cock harder against me. That only makes me moan louder.

“You missed this?” he asks, his voice smoky and ridiculously sexy.

“So much,” I admit, and it’s the whole damn truth.

“I bet no one else has kissed you like this.”

“You’d be right.”

“And did you miss this?” he asks, then sucks on my neck, hard. “Or this?” He nips me with his teeth.

“I did,” I say, my breath coming fast.

“But maybe you missed it more like this . . .” He bites down harder, and I shudder.

The fireworks show begins. He kisses harder, his lips crushing against my skin, his bruising kisses turning my world hazy.

He kisses the shell of my ear, and the fireworks explode. When he bites down on my earlobe, I am nothing but tingles. Everywhere. Just everywhere.

A door creaks somewhere. Maybe above us. He freezes, and I want to care that someone is around, but I want him more. “Don’t stop.”

“Never,” he tells me, as the door closes and silence once more surrounds us. There’s just the squeak of pipes and the far-off pads of footsteps on floors above.

I just don’t care who’s coming or going, because if anyone decides to get mail at this early hour on a Saturday, they’ll surely turn the other way when they see us—his mouth all over my neck, his hands traveling down my sides, me pushing against him, seeking as much closeness as I can get.

His hand slinks to my belly, splays over my shirt. He yanks it up and presses his palm against me, flesh to flesh, and it feels so damn good.

“The things I want to do to you,” he murmurs in my ear as he plays with the waistband of my running shorts . . . “Strip off your clothes.” Tugs at the material . . . “Bring you to the bed.” Dips a finger inside my shorts . . . “Spread those gorgeous legs wide open for me.”

I groan. I am nothing but flames and sparks and heat.

“Would you like that?” he growls, low and dirty in my ear.

I answer with a nod, as wetness gathers between my legs. I’m dying for him to touch me, I’m praying for him to taste me, I’m wishing for him to fuck me.