It Must Be Your Love (The Sullivans #11)(54)

But before she could do more than skim her fingers over his warm muscles, he took her hands in both of his and kissed them. “If you keep touching me, we won’t make it into the shower, Mia.”

“That’s okay with me,” she whispered as he held her hands over his heart and she felt how hard it was beating. Nearly as fast as her own.

“No.” He shook his head. “No,” he said again as if repetition could somehow convince both of them that a shower could be enough. “Okay isn’t good enough.” His eyes were dark with desire and with emotion. “I don’t want okay with you. I don’t want good or good enough with you. I want everything. I want even more than that.” She could see him working for his control as he suddenly said, “I don’t think I ever told you that I was fourteen years old when I lost my virginity.”

“That’s pretty young,” she murmured, wondering where he was going with this information that had seemingly come from out of the blue.

“By today’s standards, not so much. But back then, yeah, it was pretty young. See, there was a girls’ school across the river in Boston, and it was a badge of honor to come back to the guys and tell them you’d scored.”

“And they believed you?”

“They did when you had the panties as proof in your pocket.”

“Teenage boys are scum.”

“In more ways than you can imagine.” He shook his head. “The thing is, I didn’t know anything about friendship or love back then. I wasn’t trying to get anything from those girls but their panties and to hopefully be the one to pop their—”

She held up her hand. “Picture already painted, thank you.” Mia knew she had no reason to be even the slightest bit jealous of any of those girls, but reason didn’t always come into play where Ford was concerned.

“Every single woman I was with from fourteen on was exactly the same. None of them meant anything to me. Not until you. And when I felt like I couldn’t hack it as a boyfriend instead of just a hookup, it was easier just to let the sex take over with you until it buried everything else we could have had. But the stakes are too high this time, Mia. You’ve given me a second chance, and I’m not going to blow it by screwing up everything we’re starting to build.”

She knew in that moment that he didn’t just want her heart. He wanted her soul, too. And, oh, it was so tempting just to tell him that he had them both. Because then he’d stop holding back, stop keeping his vow to hold himself in check with her until they’d created something truly solid.

But she could still hear the way he’d asked her that morning in her office, “I want to be the best friend you’ve ever had. But I’m not yet, am I?”

Just as she could still hear the echo of her own silence.

She’d driven to Eugene to see him because she’d missed him all day, because she’d thought about him every single second of it, because she simply couldn’t have made it through another night without him...and because she was still looking for answers. Answers that she knew wouldn’t just come from sex alone.

“I promise I won’t push you to make love to me tonight,” she told him, “but I need more than just kisses.”

Instead of answering her with words, he undid the button of her jeans and unzipped them. The heat of his breath over the lace of her panties made her legs tremble, especially when he quickly stripped the denim completely away. She was shaking from the force of her need and it was only the steady strength of his hands on her hips as he pressed his mouth to the top of her pelvic bone that kept her upright.

Mia had always been a strong woman, but whenever Ford touched her, even if it was just the slightest press of his mouth against her skin, she melted. Once upon a time, she’d hated herself for this weakness. But tonight, as he transformed her reality by spinning it into the sweetest fantasy she could ever have dreamed of, she finally understood that it wasn’t weakness.

No, not weakness at all. Because when she and Ford came together, it was the biggest, boldest force she’d ever known. One that only a truly brave man or woman could withstand.

They hadn’t been strong enough five years ago. But now?

More and more, she was beginning to wonder if they might be...

The scrape of his teeth on her lower abdomen had her releasing her breath in a gasp while he dragged her lace panties past her sex, then stopped with the fabric still at the base of her hips. She heard him take one deep breath, then another shaky one, before he groaned and pressed his lips to her bare skin.

A low sound emerged from her throat and echoed back at her from the walls of the bus as he pressed a soft kiss between her legs. It was so good that she was already nearly coming apart.

“Ford!”

His tongue was magic, even though he was just barely flicking against her. His shoulder muscles flexed beneath the tight grip of her hands and all it would take was the next slick of his tongue over her and she’d be free-falling out over an edge that had never seemed quite so steep.

But the next thing she knew, instead of ripping her underwear all the way off and tasting more of her, he was back on his feet and lifting her into his arms.

“Why are you stopping?”

“Has anything changed from this morning?”

She’d never seen his eyes this dark. This intense. This hungry. This desperate for her to tell him what he needed to hear.