Cream of the Crop (Hudson Valley, #2)(32)

Hmmm. “Are we playing twenty questions?”

“I don’t play games.” He took a step. “At all.” He took another step.

“Games can be fun,” I answered, standing my ground. Dating was a game, sex was a game, life was a game, for those who looked at it that way. Make your own rules, try not to run over anyone on the board, or at least make them think they wanted to be run over when it happened.

“You sure talk a lot for a girl who only said oh and yes forty-eight hours ago.” He took another step. So did I. Toward him.

Aaaaand cue soundtrack: “Simple Things,” by Miguel.

“You make me nervous,” I admitted, naming the feeling that had taken root deep in my tummy. The butterflies, the racing pulse, the tingling in my fingers and toes.

“I do?”

“Mm-hmm.” I nodded, taking that last step to just in front of him, my toes nudging at his. Other feelings were beginning to take over. A slow warmth was starting to spread, moving those nervous tingles further through my body. “But right now you make me . . . other things.” And then I stepped forward again, driving him backward, step by step, into one of the stalls. His hands came up, and I mirrored his, like that game of shadows you played when you were a kid in dance class, except here our hands touched. Fingers tangled. I ran my thumb down the center of his palm, and I could see his breathing change. He lightly pinched the skin between my ring and pinky fingers, and why this made me shudder, I don’t know . . . but I did.

I moved forward again, and suddenly I’m in charge, and I’m running this crazy train, and he was up against the back of the stall, and I pressed into his body. On tiptoes, I opened his arms and wrapped them around me, closing them tight around my hips, the way I already knew he liked to hold me.

Did he always like to hold women this way, gripping tightly? Or was it just me? Did he like the control, or did he just love the feel of a woman under his fingertips? Did I feel different from most women he’d been with, with actual curves to hold on to? I breathed through another shuddery shiver as I imagined him holding on to those very curves, his hands tightening as he guided me up and down on his . . .

Time to stop imagining what he was like and actually enjoy it. Still on my toes, I leaned in, inhaling that autumnal scent that was concentrated in this lovely warm spot in the exact center of his throat, where I could see his pulse beating.

I kissed it. He moaned. I licked it. He groaned. His pulse sped under my tongue. I allowed myself a secret smile, enjoying my effect on him. I pulled his head down to mine, and whispered, “You’re too tall. Get down here.”

He did, but whispered back, “You really do talk too much.”

But then no talking, because we were finally kissing. Again. I love kissing this guy.

Every Saturday at the farmers’ market, as I’d walked away, I’d fantasized what it would be like to kiss Oscar. To feel those lips on mine. Would he be soft and gentle? Would he be strong and forceful? Would he lick my lower lip until I opened up, then slide his tongue against mine sensually? Or would he put his perfect hands on my face, turn it how he wanted it, and f*ck my mouth with his own?

Yes. Yes. Yes. And f*cking hell, yes.

Because while Oscar didn’t talk much, when he’s focused on something, he’s all in. Fully present. This kiss, these kisses, they are lazy and unhurried, frantic and frenzied. How can they be both?

My hands left the perfection of his hair and slid down his incredibly strong chest, and I could feel his muscles through his thermal shirt.

While guys I’d dated ranged from tall to short, lean to not, white to brown to black, I tended to gravitate toward tall and lean; not so much muscle-bound.

This guy might change my mind forever. Feeling his innate strength beneath my fingertips, feeling the actual striations of his individual muscles, knowing that if I knew more about anatomy I’d be able to tell a pec from a delt to a tri-something; Oscar had them all. Tri-something. Great idea.

I snuck my hands down while the rest of the entire planet was watching him devote himself to sucking gently on my lower lip, and lifted just the edge of his shirt.

My fingers danced across the skin of his abdomen. His intake of breath stole my own right out of my mouth. Frozen for mere seconds, the entire world stopped once more as we panted. And then the world began to spin again, faster than before, as he spun me in a flash and had me pinned once more up against the side of a stall, my fingers scrambling for purchase as he held my arms out, away from my body, absolutely at his mercy and thrilled to be there.

His eyes were on fire as he stared me down. Then he dipped his head once more and licked up the column of my throat. When he looked into my eyes again, I saw hunger. Need. Absolute desire. The kind I knew was mirrored in my own expression. He licked me once more, primal, pushing the fabric of my turtleneck away with his nose.

“Yes,” I said, panting, not entirely sure exactly whether I was asking for permission or granting it. He released my arms, and as my hands tangled into his hair once more, he knelt down in the hay, his mouth still coming halfway up my torso. Dragging his lips down my skin, he left in his wake sweet little kisses, soft and wet. My back arched, pushing my skin closer to his mouth, wanting more, needing more of this man. Leaning his forehead against my breasts, his hands ran down the length of my boots, still thigh high, still muddy, still on.

Then he lifted his head, and with his gaze fixed solidly on me, he ran his hands up the backs of my thighs. The sound of twin Chanel zippers cut through the charged silence. That, and the sound of my heart beating so hard that I feared for my ribs.