After Hours (InterMix)(28)



He released my head, pulled at my hips with both hands, drawing me close so our thighs touched. I had to crane my neck to keep kissing him, and it made me feel small. It made him seem huge. His tongue was firm, slick, his fingers rough and restless. My * tightened, hot with impatience, squeezing every last scrap of rational thought from my head. I held his biceps, grabbed on to that thick, locked muscle like my life depended on it.

I was tilting, somehow, my weight in his arms. My head was on the pillow, back on the covers, Kelly’s thigh between mine, and his mouth plundering. I held his face, stroked his neck as we kissed—as he kissed me, more accurately. The bristle of his buzzed hair was soft, interrupted here and there by smooth furrows of scar tissue. I wanted to memorize every cut and bruise and hard swell of his body, to possess that knowledge with the accuracy of a map and pore over it in my memory on lonely nights.

His other knee moved, joining its twin between my legs. I should have been offended, but all I wanted was for him to lower his body and let me feel what I might have stirred between his thighs. Or what taking advantage of me might have stirred—that was how it felt, everything smacking more of coercion than seduction.

It felt like something I’d lament come morning, an impulsively downed shot that offered reckless exhilaration chased by hours of regret. It stirred the curiosity gnawing at me. I stroked his shoulders, the muscle pinched to hard crests from how he was braced above me. My touch was telling him I was okay with this. My body was telling us both that, a million invisible hands reaching for him, wanting him, welcoming him. Instincts warred in my gut, the urge to f*ck trading parries with the urge to protect my heart.

No, not my heart. No.

My pride, only. I was in danger of getting my ego bruised, not my heart broken. My pride wasn’t such a guarded commodity, and the chance to explore this man’s body was a tempting trade. My pride had been fine for ages, but I hadn’t felt desire like this in years—I’d thought my capacity for it had faded with the rest of puberty’s insanity. Kelly’s touch made me feel young and dumb again, excited and awake. Wanted, no matter how fleeting or selfish his needs might prove.

He kissed me slower, deeper, filthy as f*cking, and lowered his hips to mine. Unbidden, my hand tugged at his shirt. He let me peel it up and over his head, then stripped my sweater away, tossing it to the floor. Dark sounds rumbled from his throat as he claimed my mouth, moans and grunts brewing. My fingers curled against his bare back.

He’ll f*ck like an animal. I’d never been with a guy who was like that. I’d always picked safe guys, generous but civilized in bed. And I’d always looked forward to their final sprints toward release, for those frantic, impolite moments of driving flesh and fevered groans. Maybe he wouldn’t be generous, but I bet f*cking Kelly would be nothing but frantic, driving flesh and beastly sounds. Maybe he’d give me memories worth pleasuring myself to for the next six months. Or maybe not.

I freed my mouth and gulped a breath. Kelly went still above me, waiting.

All I managed was a croaky, “Well.”

“Well.”

I found the wherewithal to inch myself back, pushing up on my elbows. “Where are my roses?”

I hadn’t realized I needed it so badly, but when he smiled, my heart unraveled.

He crawled a bit closer, and spoke against my lips. “Brought you something better, if you want it.”

“You really are shameless.”

“You want this, same as me.”

“Want what?”

Kelly left me to stand beside the bed. Laces were tugged loose, shoes and socks kicked aside before I could realize what was happening. A freed button, a lowered zipper, and he pushed his jeans to the floor. As I sat up I stole only a glance, just enough to know his boxer briefs were black and his cock wanted out. He looked big and hard and obscene, and getting caught staring would’ve felt incriminating. I studied his bare chest instead, his chiseled belly. I memorized the shapes of his shoulders and hips, drank in the finest, most masculine body that’d ever been offered to me. I took a crisp mental snapshot of the very big mistake I was about to make, and swallowed.

He stepped out of his pants, and in seconds his weight was bucking the bed once more, his bossy hands urging me to lie back.

He’ll take a mile, some goody-goody in my head warned. Give this man an inch and in a blink he’d be halfway across the county and already forgetting me, just some newbie nurse he vaguely remembered nailing during her first week on the job.

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