The Hating Game(94)

I let the dress drop and step out of it, bending to pick it up. Self-consciousness prevails and I hide behind it a little, until I look so silly that I have no choice to hold it aside. I had to wear an ivory bodysuit under the dress, like a little swimsuit, to give it a smooth line, and it has little suspenders holding up my stockings. Sleepysaurus, it ain’t.

Josh looks like he’s been stabbed in the gut.

“Holy shit,” he says faintly.

I hand him the dress and put my hand on my hip. His eyes eat every line and curve of me, even as his hands neatly fold my dress in half. My legs are ridiculously short, and I don’t have the benefit of my heels, but the way he looks at me makes my tiny knees weak.

“You’ve gone a bit quiet on me here, Josh.” I slide my finger under the shoulder strap of this ridiculous thing I’m wearing, and pause. I see his throat swallow.

I put my hands on his neck, squeeze briefly in a strangle, then slide them down. He’s so solid, heavy, the heat radiating from within the muscles flexing under my palms. I step in closer, and put my face into his throat, and breathe him in. I close my eyes and beg myself to remember this. Please, remember this when you’re a hundred years old.

His hands slide down my waist to take my butt in both hands, and when I begin to kiss his throat he squeezes me tighter.

“Shirt off. Come on now.” My voice is rough and cajoling. He begins unbuttoning his shirt, looking dazed. When he shrugs out of the shirt I can see his back in the reflection of the dresser mirror. “You’ve still got paintball bruises. I do too.”

My free hand is groping along his chest, and I break off the kiss to watch myself do it. The muscles are all stacked together like LEGOs. I press my fingertips to watch his flesh give. His hands haven’t moved from my ass, but his fingertips have slid down to stroke the little ribbons holding up my stockings. To stop myself from making an embarrassingly loud moan I kiss him again, wriggling closer to him.

“I had it all planned.” He finally finds his voice again, moving me backward smoothly to the bed. He hauls the coverlet away and lays me back against the sheets with easy strength.

“It was going to be a little more romantic than a hotel room.”

Josh, thinking about romance? My heart can’t take it. He captures my mouth in a kiss, and it’s so gentle I could cry.

“See,” he says into my mouth. “I don’t hate you, Lucy.”

His tongue touches mine, tentative, shy. He drops himself down on his elbows, caging me with his biceps, and it triggers the memory of him pressing me against a tree, shielding me, covering me.

I was always covering for you.

I sigh, and he breathes it in. “That’s it . . .”

I stretch and wriggle underneath his weight. “You’re so big. It gets me hot.”

“And you’re so tiny. It makes me wonder about all the ways we’ll fit together. It’s all I’ve been thinking about since the day we met.”

“Oh, sure. The momentous day you looked at me, head to toe, then out the window.”

He’s giving my throat the softest bites imaginable. He slides his fingers into mine above our heads and we’re now holding hands. How did we get back here? To this tender place after the blaze of anger burned us both up? It’s so sweet, so completely soft and gentle and Josh.

“If we do this tonight, I’m not going to let you get weird on me.” His eyes are solemn as he braces himself up a little. “Are you going to have one of your infamous freak-outs?”

“I don’t know. Very possibly.” I try for a joke but he’s not remotely amused.

“I wish I knew how much I have of you. How much do I get?” He’s kissing me on the throat again, fingers tightening on mine.

“Until the interviews, you get it all,” I say into his skin, and he lets out a shaky breath, like I’ve offered him forever, not a few days.

We begin kissing again, and the friction of my thigh against his groin is spurring him into a slightly heavier rhythm. His mouth is wet, soft, delicious. The moment he stops, even to take a proper breath, I tug him back.

After an eternity, he tangles his hand in the strap on my shoulder. He runs it lasciviously through his fingers pulling it taut, releasing it with the faintest snap, and then does it again.

“The zip’s at the side,” I tell him. Technically I think I begged him.

He ignores me completely and instead slides his finger down to the bow between my breasts. “The smallest bow I’ve ever seen.” He dips his head and bites it.

We’re going so slowly, I wouldn’t be surprised to open my eyes and see daylight. He’s always completely different from what I expect. Soft instead of hard. Slow instead of fast. Shy instead of brash. My previous boyfriends and any of their egg-timer foreplay attempts are distant memories now that I’m experiencing the intense pleasure of lying underneath Josh.

He slides a hand into my hair and the scrape of his nails against my scalp makes my skin break into goose bumps. He licks them. He coils up smoothly to kneel between my feet, seemingly just for a better view. It works for me. I watch his stomach flex, and I make a sound like ohhgah.

“How do you even look like this?”

“I don’t have anything better to do than go to the gym.”

“You do now.”

I sit up too and drag my mouth across the muscles, and I do what I’ve always wanted to. I get my hands on his ass, and it is fabulous.