Funny Feelings (55)

“Then make it about your life. What takes up space in that brain these days?” I chew my lip to stop the smile.

Her cheeks lift only briefly before they drop. “Jesus, I have to go out there and talk completely out of my ass. This is going to be a disaster.” She blasts out of her seat and scrambles around, snatching her notepad and a pencil. “I probably shouldn’t be letting you distract me with your vampire eyes and your body right now, Meyer. I’m flustered and tense enough as it is.”

I chuckle, time to double down. “Letting me, huh? And do share with me how my body’s involved?” Her cheeks redden immediately.

“I’m here for tension relief, if needed?” I add, and she chuffs out a choked sound.

She’s not one to be outdone, though, so I see it happen when the gears in her mind turn over and land on her next words.

“You’d just let me take what I want, then?” The huskiness in her tone has warmth crawling up my neck.

“Jones, I’m happy to follow your lead in most things. All things, really, up to a point.” I watch her chest rise and fall quickly, trace her collarbones with my eyes. “But past that point, I’d be certain to give you what you need.”

“Awful full of yourself, aren’t you?” she breathes, eyes lighting.

“I could help you out with that, too?”

She inhales a gasp-laugh and her eyes go wide. “I doubt even you could wind me down right now, My.”

“When have you known me to be unjustifiably conceited?” I ask, clamping down my jaw as I mentally shuffle the ways I’ve imagined working her body, wringing her out. How her skin would feel on mine, the fit of her in my lap.

She inhales through her nose, cheeks reddening and spreading down her neck. I imagine it bleeding to her chest the way it did in the hotel and shit, okay. Now, it’s time to walk this back, immediately, before I go full mast.

Her eyes grow bigger though, color shifting beneath the surface again, “Meyer,” she says, bursting from her lips in a panic. “Meyer I can’t remember anything, not any of the old stuff either, I can’t remember it. I’ll freeze. I’ll die out there.” Her lips go completely ashen in an instant that has me diving for her.

“Woah, woah, woah,” I snag her eyes and hold them. “You’ve gotta breathe, Fee. It’s just another regular day. You—You’re sharper than everyone out there in that room. Go out there and tell them whatever it is going on in that insane brain of yours, literally, whatever it is that you’re thinking and you’ll make them fall in love with you, I promise. They’re going to hang onto your every word. You’re safe, here. It’s Lance’s.” I suck in a slow breath, blow out. “Breathe with me for a second, here, angel.”

She’s never, ever spun out like this, but she gets her bearings and matches my breathing.

In, two, three, four, out two, three, four. We repeat it countless times, the minutes slipping away.

Her face and lips start to regain their color eventually, but my eyes remain glued to her until she sighs through her nose. My thumbs stroke back and forth on her shoulders rapidly, like I’m seeking my own comfort. Because damn if her panic didn’t just throw me into my own a bit…

“Fee, I didn’t know you were on the edge like that. I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have teased.”

“I don’t think I really knew either,” she inhales and shudders. And then her eyes meet mine and her tongue darts across her lips. “Kiss me?” she asks.

I search her face, unsure if this is actually a good or healthy diversion, but when her teeth sink into her lip hesitantly, self-consciously, I break.

More like I keep my foot on the gas and hope we don’t spin out.

With a groan, I grab the lapels of her little vest and yank her to me.

It’s fucking, what our mouths do. Tongues and teeth and lips, biting and sliding and pressing. It’s warm and heavy. Then there’s that fruity mint flavored gum that I plan to buy a whole damn palette of. I moan into her mouth when her cool fingertips graze beneath my shirt and feel her lips curl into a smile in return. I’m immediately relieved that the distraction is working, despite the warring emotions. My hands skate down her waist to her ass and squeeze as her hips arch into me, the jut of them pressing to my thighs. The recesses of my mind prompt me to check the clock, so I eye it when I tilt her head and kiss her neck below her ear, her warm scent invading my senses like a drug. Under twelve minutes until showtime. My hands trace the soft skin of her lower back and around to her front, just above her jeans button, my heart thundering in my chest because it’s been at least four—maybe five—years since I truly touched a woman and this is Fee, my Fee. I look down at her and she’s already nodding, eyes heavy-lidded. She tries to undo her button with shaky hands, movements jerky. I grab her hands and kiss a palm before I link them around my neck. “Let me.”

A breath winds out of me as I do, my rough and clumsy hands so at odds with the delicate scrap of yellow lace I uncover. The heels of her palms press into the base of my skull at either side and I have to stifle a groan, feeling the heat of her before my hand even reaches its destination. And then when I do, fuck, my own eyes roll back in my head and I clench my molars together to stop my teeth from chattering because I’m dying to be here. Right here. I press my forehead to hers as she hitches on a sound. I think I could come just like this, I realize. Swallowing her gasps, watching her expression knit tighter and tighter, eyes closed and lost in feeling. I circle and slide and I feel every tiny noise she makes from high in her throat, feel like it’s me being tugged with each filthy little wet sound. She pulls tighter when I stay right here, not pressing hard, just lightly swiping at a steady pace. The steadier I am the more frantically her breaths drum against the shell of my ear. Until she stops breathing altogether, holding it just a beat before she begins pulsing rapidly on my fingers, her lids cracking open and whispering my name through a pant, melting all around me. On and on and on.