Funny You Should Ask(86)

I’m breathless with how much I liked it. Gabe stares down at me like I’ve just given him everything he’s ever wanted.

“They’re just breasts,” I say for literally no reason at all.

He looks up, and shakes his head, long and slow, his hair falling across his forehead.

“There’s nothing just about you,” he says.

If I hadn’t already been literally swooning beneath him, that would have done it. My entire body feels itchy and crackling and desperate. I’m ready for more. I’m so ready.

We remove clothes. My jeans. Gabe’s shirt. My shirt.

It’s like high school, but better—that sweet, hot anticipation of kissing, kissing like you’re the first people in the world to discover it, like there’s no possible way other people are doing it like this, because if they were how in the hell would anyone ever get anything done.

I let my hands wander. I’d gotten a chance with his chest ten years ago on his couch in Laurel Canyon, back when he was fighting fit—on his Hollywood Bond diet, lean but muscular, his torso as waxed as my kitchen floor.

The muscles are still there, but he’s nowhere near as chiseled as he was. The six-pack isn’t as prominent and he even has the tiniest of love handles on his sides. And his chest. His chest is covered with a sprinkling of hair, his shoulders unreasonably broad.

I love all of it.

I love how his chest hair tickles my palms, the same way his beard is rough and soft as he rubs it against my chin. I love feeling the way time has passed through his body, the way we’ve both changed. This Gabe feels more real to me than the one I basically dry-humped on his couch ten years ago.

And this is the Gabe I want.

“Take off your pants,” I murmur as his hands skate along my sides, tracing my hips.

Laughter sputters out of me as Gabe rears back, attacking the buttons on his well-worn jeans as if they were on fire. He flings them across the room and comes back down against me, kissing the remaining humor from my lips.

That need—his need—is enough to make me shake.

Because this is Gabe. Not just Gabe Parker the Movie Star, though it must be acknowledged, but Gabe. I’m feeling too many things at once, and for a moment I’m overwhelmed, stepping outside my body and looking down on our forms entangled on the bed and wondering, How the fuck did I end up here?

I know that if we do this, I’ll never get over him.

He stops, pulling back to look at me, his eyes searching my face.

I’m in love with him.

But I can’t say it. I can’t.

Instead, I take his face in my hands and kiss him. Sweetly and then less sweetly. He’s a quick study and not a fool, so it doesn’t take long to ratchet both of us back up to that burning, taut point of desire we’d been climbing toward.

Dragging my hands down the length of his spine, I hook my fingers into the waistband of his boxer briefs and begin to push them down. He shifts to help me, leaning back enough that he can do the same for me, removing my bra and my underwear.

Then he’s on me again, kissing me hard.

I think of the dumb joke from all those years ago. What’s my perfect weight? Me with Gabe Parker on top of me.

If that isn’t the whole damn truth, though.

Gabe’s mouth finds my ear, each touch of his like he’s discovering something new.

“Please,” I beg. “Please, please, please.”

I don’t even know what I’m begging for, but thankfully he does. He drags his hot, perfect mouth downward, nipping my collarbone, his beard coarse against my stomach.

Then the weight of him, the heat of him, is gone. He wraps his long, beautiful hands around my ankles and pulls me toward him, my feet hanging off the edge, his palms hot on my legs.

“Can I?” he asks.

I nod, my heartbeat like a drum throughout my entire body.

The sight of him there, kneeling in front of me, is the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.

But then he actually touches me—his thumb circling the inside of my knee, the stubble of his beard brushing against my inner thigh—and I know that every sexual experience I’ve ever had in my life pales in comparison to the way it feels when Gabe puts his mouth on me.

His tongue is hot and wet and eager as he drapes my leg over his shoulder. And I can tell he’s making a point down there. Making up for what happened ten years ago.

It’s the tremble, though, that makes my heart feel like it’s a vibrating anvil. The slight shake of his hands when he touches me, the groan he let out when he first knelt on the floor, the way his fingers tighten around my hips, holding me as if he’s afraid I might disappear.

My head is against the mattress, my arm over my eyes. My other hand is in his hair, and it’s so soft against my palm. I want to capture everything, hold it in my memories forever.

Gabe’s tongue stokes a forest fire of need inside me, burning brighter and brighter. I dig my ankle into his shoulder blade, toes curling.

“There…Please…Gabe…Please…” I’m a broken record, unable to verbalize anything but the same words over and over again. “There. There. There.”

I squeeze my eyes shut like I’m standing on a twenty-foot-tall diving board, about to hurl myself off the edge.

I realize I’m coming a half second before it happens—that moment after leaping, when your heart is still in your throat and there’s nothing but air around you.