Beach Read(68)
There would be consequences. This had to be a bad idea.
He stepped in closer, pinning me to the shelf. I reached for his hips.
21
The Cookout
GUS’S HANDS TRACED down the sides of my body, feeling every exposed line and curve.
“You’re so beautiful, January,” he whispered, kissing me more tenderly. “You’re so fucking beautiful, you’re like the sun.”
His mouth moved down my body, tasting all the places he’d touched. It wasn’t enough. My fingernails dug into his back and he jerked me away from the rack and guided me onto the freezer beside it, fumbling with the button on my shorts. I lifted myself so he could slide them down my thighs, and as he straightened, his hands crawled back up my legs, slipped under the sides of my underwear to burrow into my skin. I arched against him and he pulled my thighs up against his hips, his mouth moving hard against mine. “God, January,” he said.
My want throttled my voice into a breathy gasp when I tried to reply. I ground myself against him and his touch sharpened.
We stopped being gentle with each other. I couldn’t slow myself down enough to be careful with him, and I didn’t want him to be careful with me. I undid his pants and jerked them down. One of his hands slid between my legs and he groaned. The other dug into my hip as his mouth trailed down my stomach. His hands squeezed my thighs, and I gripped the sides of the freezer as he lowered himself between my legs. My breaths came faster, his fingers sank into the creases of my hips and his name slipped between my lips. He cupped my hips harder. It wasn’t enough. I wanted him. I only realized I said it aloud when he said it back to me—“I want you, January.”
He straightened and yanked me to the edge of the freezer, lifting my hips against him as I tightened my thighs against the sides of his body.
“Gus,” I gasped and his gaze rolled up me, heat pulsing under my skin. “Do you have a condom?”
It took him a minute to answer, like his brain was translating from a second language. His eyes were still dark and hungry, his hands wrapped tight around my thighs. “Here?” he said. “In your father’s spare house’s basement?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of in your pocket,” I said, still out of breath.
He laughed, a throaty rattle. “How would you feel if I’d brought condoms with me to tell you about the potato salad?”
“Thankful,” I said.
“I didn’t know this was going to happen.” Gus ran a hand through his hair in distress as the other maintained its nearly painful grip on me. “Next door. I have some.”
We stared at each other for a moment, then started grabbing our clothes off the floor and pulling them on. As we ran up the stairs, Gus grabbed my ass. “God,” he said again. “Thank you for this day, Lord. Also Jack Reacher.”
We didn’t bother with shoes, just ran out the door and across the yard. I reached his front door first and turned back just as Gus was coming up the steps. He let out a gruff laugh at the sight of me and shook his head as he seized me by the hips and kissed me again, flattening me against the door.
I threaded my fingers through his hair, forgetting where we were, forgetting everything but his hands sliding over me, dipping into my clothes, his tongue coaxing my lips apart as I touched as much of him as I could get to. A small, dissatisfied noise slipped out of me, and he reached around my hip to twist the doorknob, leading me backward into the house.
We barely made it three feet before he pulled my shirt off and peeled off his again. In a flash, I was on his console table, his hands undoing my shorts, sifting down over my hips and thighs as he pulled them down me and let them fall to the floor. He walked in between my knees.
I lifted myself against him as he dragged his hands down my breasts, catching my nipples, massaging me until everything in me pinched tight. He scooped me off the table as I wrapped my legs around him and spun to pin me against the bookcase. His hands twisted into my thighs, and I arched against the bookcase to work my hips against his.
Not enough, not even close.
He undid his pants and pulled them down from right under me. My hand scraped down his front to push ineffectually at his briefs. He adjusted me against the shelf and pushed them down.
It was almost too much feeling him against me. A gasp escaped me as I rolled my hips on him. He clutched me with one broad hand and groaned into my skin, “Fuck, January.”
The rumble of his voice sent goose bumps racing over me. His free hand reached along the shelf at my shoulder level until it met a blue jar in my peripheral vision.
He fished a condom out of it, and I laughed, despite myself. “Oh my God,” I murmured against his ear. “Do you always have sex against your bookshelves? Are your books behind me right now? Is this an ego thing?”
He drew back, smiling wryly as he tore the wrapper with his teeth. “It’s for on my way out the door, smart-ass.” His grip loosened and he drew back a few inches. “This is a first for me, but if it’s not doing it for you, we can always wait until we stumble across a good beach cave on a rainy day.”
I greedily grabbed for him, catching his bottom lip with my teeth, before he could pull away any further. He closed the gap between us, kissing me hungrily as he worked the condom on. His hands came back to my waist, tender and light this time, and he coaxed me into a slow, sensual kiss as I trembled with anticipation.