It's Only Love(15)

Ella was reaching for the cabinet over the stove when his hands landed on her hips, making her forget what she’d been about to do.

He gathered her in close to him, his chin on her shoulder. “Sorry, but I couldn’t stand to go another second without touching you.”

She closed her eyes and focused on continuing to breathe as his nearness overwhelmed her.

“Did you need something up there?”

Gavin’s question didn’t compute until she realized he meant the cabinet. “I don’t remember what I was doing.”

His low rumble of laughter sent goose bumps down her arms and backbone. “How long do we have until we have to head to your parents’ house?”

“About forty minutes.”

He brushed aside her hair and began placing kisses on her neck that made her legs go weak under her. Fortunately, he had an arm locked around her waist to keep her from sliding to the floor. No man had ever had such an effect on her, and she was wise enough now to know that no other man ever would. He was it for her. He always had been, which was why the stakes were so high in this new game they were playing.

Then he was turning her and she couldn’t spare the brain cells to think about the high stakes or the game. Not when Gavin Guthrie was apparently planning to kiss her. He moved slowly, cupping her face in big work-roughened hands and gazing into her eyes.

She wanted to kiss him—badly—but more than that she wanted to know his thoughts. “What’re you thinking right now?”

“About how much I want to kiss you. I’m asking myself if this is real, if I really get to kiss Ella Abbott any time I want to. I’m wondering how I got lucky enough to have someone like you care so much about someone like me.”

She curled her hands around his wrists and felt his pulse hammering under her fingers. “What does that mean? Someone like you? What’s wrong with you?”

“Everything,” he said softly. “Every freaking thing is wrong with me, but for the first time in a long-ass time, I want to make what’s wrong about me right. For you.”

Ella went up on tiptoes to join her lips to his. Like him, she couldn’t believe she was now allowed to kiss him any time she wanted to. She was going to want to often. She hoped he was prepared for that. Judging by his enthusiastic response, he was more than prepared.

His hands slid down to cup her bottom, and then he was lifting her.

Ella curled her legs around his hips, bringing his hardness against her softness and drawing gasps of pleasure from both of them. Then he was lowering her to the sofa and coming down on top of her, all without losing a beat in the tongue-twisting kiss.

This kiss made the one they’d shared last summer at the beach in Burlington seem like child’s play in comparison. She’d spent all the months since thinking she knew what it was like to kiss Gavin. She’d known nothing. The kiss on the beach had been just the start of what they were capable of together.

His hand slid under her sweater and came to rest on her ribs, making her skin burn under the heat of his palm. He broke the kiss, looking down at her as if to gauge her reaction. Then he pulled back, taking his nice warm hand with him.

“I’m sorry.”

Ella covered her face with her hands.

He tugged on them until she gave way. “What did I do this time?”

“You stopped!”

“Because we have somewhere to be.”

She glanced at the clock on her cable box. “In thirty minutes.”

“That’s not enough time for what was going to happen on this sofa if I hadn’t stopped when I did.”

Her heart beat erratically. “What was going to happen?”

“Clothes were going to start coming off.” He leaned in to tug on her sweater. “Starting with yours.” His lips were swollen from kissing her, his jaw was covered in stubble, and brown plaid flannel had never been so sexy. She could lie there staring at him until tomorrow morning, and it wouldn’t be long enough to absorb the fact that Gavin was sitting on her sofa looking at her like he wanted to eat her up.

Not that she would say no to that . . .

“Quit looking at me like that,” he said gruffly.

“How am I looking at you?”

“You know. I’m trying to be honorable by not jumping you the first chance I get, and you’re lying there looking all sultry and sexy.”

“Am I?”

“Ella! Stop it.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“You’re breathing. That’s enough for me.”

“I keep thinking I’m going to wake up, and it’s going to be Saturday night and my Cherry Garcia would’ve melted during the time I had this amazing dream about sleeping with Gavin and grocery shopping with him and making out with him.”

“You’re not dreaming, and neither am I. For the first time in a very long time, I’m having a really good day, and it’s all because of you.”

“Thank you.”

“Do not thank me. All the thanks goes to you, my little bulldog.”

“Um, is that supposed to be a compliment?”

“Yep. You were tenacious like a bulldog, never letting me get away with anything and calling me out on my shit. You have no idea how much I needed someone to do that.”

“I’m glad I helped, but let’s retire the bulldog analogy.”