In the Weeds (Lovelight #2)(65)

“I want you,” I tell him, finally voicing the thought that has been running circles in my head since I first saw him step off the curb in the middle of town. Since I saw him step through the door of a dive bar. I don’t think I’ve ever stopped wanting Beckett, not really. I tiptoe my fingers up the delicate ink on his wrist and curl my hand around his forearm. Pull once. “And I think you want me, too.”

His eyes snap up from where they were burning a path across my bra strap and he gives me that half smile again, somehow better than the full grin that spills out of him like starlight. This smile feels like mine and mine alone. He gives in to my tugging and shifts up on his knees.

“Of course I do,” he says, sure and direct, impossibly Beckett. He says it like it’s something he’s been thinking about, too. Maybe since he saw me standing with my hip against a rental car. Maybe since he saw me sitting at a bar top with a glass of tequila in front of me. “Wanting you has never been a question.”

He maneuvers in front of me until he can grip my ankle, caressing it once with his thumb as he opens my leg wide, making enough space for him to move in between. We’re only touching at that one place, his hand against my leg, and already I feel it everywhere. In the small of my back and the tips of my breasts, the arch of my neck and the space between my legs.

His hand squeezes me gently and his palm moves up. The calluses on his hands catch on the rough material of my jeans, a stilted movement that’s better in its honesty. Another squeeze at my thigh, thumb dragging along the inseam above my knee. He hesitates there briefly, considering, and then reaches for my hip.

“If we do this again, Evie, there’s no running.” His eyes are serious, his body held perfectly still between my open legs. “I don’t want to wake up alone.”

I grip his shirt in my fists, regret slicing across my chest. For the way I left him all those months ago and for the ways I’ve left him since. I lean up and brush a kiss across his bottom lip. An apology, but a promise, too. “You won’t.”

“Alright,” he says, and his eyes flash darker, his tongue appearing briefly at the corner of his mouth. His hands flex at my sides, fingertips pressing and guiding. “Lay back then.”





CHAPTER SIXTEEN





EVELYN





I shake my head and urge him back until he falls with a grunt, my knees clambering up and over to hug his hips. I cup his jaw in my hands as he gazes up at me and trace once over the rough of his stubble.

“I want you to see the stars,” I tell him. Something behind his eyes flares and burns bright. Brighter than anything in the sky. My own private supernova.

He guides me further into him with his hand at the small of my back and trails small, biting kisses up the line of my neck. He sucks hard at a spot just beneath my jaw and then leans back, lingering there with his lips barely brushing mine.

“I’ll only be looking at you.”

His mouth on mine sends shivers cascading down my arms, both twined tight around his neck as our lips meet and press. We lean back in the same breath and readjust. Something deeper, hotter. He kisses me like he’s telling me a thousand secrets, each one something different. I missed you, his first kiss says—soft and lingering against my bottom lip. You’re so pretty, says the next—a sweet, teasing brush. I want you, says the last one—a hungry, grasping thing as he licks into my mouth and holds my face against his. So fucking bad—his fingertips sinking into my hair.

His hand fists and pulls, a slight hint of roughness that earns a desperate sound low in my throat. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted someone so much. Not even at the bar that first time. I roll my hips down onto his and he pulls his mouth away to suck in a lungful of air. I like that he hasn’t stopped me—that he hasn’t asked if this is something I want. He can feel it vibrating through me, same as him. Perfectly in tune. I circle my hips again and he exhales a shaky laugh.

“You feel better than I remember,” he says.

I grin. “You haven’t even seen the best part yet.”

He smiles up at me, his grin a little wild. I take back what I thought about his half-smiles. This is the one I want to keep. “I’ve already seen your tits, Evie.”

A laugh bursts out of me, muffled by a rough kiss against my lips. It’s clumsy, the both of us smiling into it. I want him to ask me here, like this. That same question he asks every evening while we sit on his back porch, the sun dipping low in front of us.

Did you find your happy today?

Yes, I would tell him. I found it right here. With you. Like this.

I reach for the hem of my shirt and I pull it over my head. His hands immediately slip up my belly, thumbs rubbing in a firm sweep below my breasts. I let my head drop, my hair tickling at the small of my back. It feels so good everywhere he touches. I only want more.

“You cold?”

I shake my head and reach for the clasp of my bra. “Not with your hands on me.”

His eyes flare. He likes that answer. The material of my bra falls away and I’m bare skin in the moonlight. I feel Beckett’s deep exhale brush the valley of my breasts, the tip of his nose following after. Big hands bracket my hips and slide up my back—a delicious pressure on both sides of my spine. He curls his hands around my ribs and tugs me closer.

“What about my mouth?”