Never Sweeter (Dark Obsession #1)(57)

And then there was him, eyeing her with a mixture of wariness and hope.

All of which just really guaranteed the complete dissolving of her heart.

“You really thought I was going to be a smart-ass about this?”

“Well, that was what happened in the nightmare I had about how this would play out. Though you also took off your skin and revealed you were actually Coach underneath, so…I probably shouldn’t have put too much stock in it.”

“Not unless you’re secretly crazy about him.”

He shook his head, but he didn’t laugh.

Instead, he said, “No. Just you.”

Then held her gaze until it started to destroy her.

She had to glance away in the end, just to hold on to her few remaining brain cells.

“Stop. I already need to climb down off this incredible cloud of total romance. If you do one more thing I’m going to end up on the romantic moon. NASA is going to have to send people to come get me.”

“For real? You like it?”

“I like it.”

“It’s not too weird?”

She had no idea why he would think it was. What would make him bite one thumbnail like that and seem so awkward about it. But then she remembered what he had said before he brought her up here: He had never done this before.

He had never done it for anyone, except her.

“Tate, weird is spending your whole life dreaming of blankets in barns and candlelight and looking at the stars with the guy you like, and never thinking you’re worthy of it. Actually getting it is amazing. I don’t know what to say. I should probably stop talking altogether before I make a fool of myself.”

“No, no, keep making a fool of yourself. It actually reads a lot more like something awesome.”

“Now I know you’re just full of it,” she said.

But her cheeks were tugging at the corners of her mouth anyway.

One more good pull and she would be grinning wildly.

“You only say that because you can’t see how cute you look. Blushing and trying not to look too excited.”

“I’m not blushing. It’s just super warm in here.”

“It’s f*cking freezing and you know it. But don’t worry—I came prepared.”

He had, too. Behind the picnic basket was a battery-powered space heater, of the sort that was probably going to set them on fire. Damn though, did it feel good. He switched it on as she made herself comfy on the blanket, and seconds later she was taking off her jacket and he was taking off his hat.

Though she protested the latter.

“Seriously, the hat does it for you?”

“It makes me really appreciate all your features.”

“Guessing that means you didn’t appreciate them before.”

“Not like this. Not like I can’t stop staring at every little part. I feel like I’m eating you with my eyes. I feel like being six inches from your face isn’t actually enough.”

“Come closer, then,” he said.

Because he was a tricky f*cker. He beckoned, and she was helpless to do anything but. She leaned and he leaned back and then his mouth was on hers. Gentle, at first. Soft, like at the door to her dorm room. But then she put a hand on his face, tentative but clearly greedy to feel all the things she’d only just accepted as handsome, and something shifted almost immediately. It was like flicking a switch.

One second things were polite and romantic.

The next he had a leg between her thighs and a hand on her ass.

Not that she minded—her other hand appeared to be on his ass. Though she wasn’t sure how it had gotten there. Or at what point she had decided that pushing under his waistband was a cool idea. In fact, there were a lot of things she seemed to be doing that she hadn’t planned. Nor did she have full control over any of them. One second she was kidding him like a normal person. The next she was pressing her mouth to his so forcefully she could feel him pulling away. She could hear his muffled protests echoing inside her.

“I wasn’t intending to…I didn’t mean for this to be…”

“Oh. Sorry. I just…”

“Just what?”

“Really need to.”

“Fuck. Fuck. Seriously?”

She wasn’t sure what she liked best.

The spat curse words, or the breathless incredulity.

Both were impossible to fight, at any rate. Her hands were on him before he got to the question mark at the end of his sentence. No hesitating, no trembling, no trying to navigate around an imaginary force field. Just a lot of yanking at his sweater and shoving aside of things, while he did his best not to seem shocked.

And failed, pretty badly, on all fronts.

The sound he made when she smothered his face in his own lifted sweater was almost baffled, and several times it dissolved into laughter. She even heard him say from behind the woolen mask she’d made: oh so everything is just coming off right here, I guess. Though it wasn’t meant in a reluctant, outraged sort of way. There was this gorgeous note of pleasure shining through his words. Just sheer, goofy pleasure, to have her wrestling him so eagerly out of his clothes.

Like in the room, when she’d ask to see.

Only a million times more intense.

He was almost shaking with it, by the time she started running her hands all over him. Face a picture of bliss and wonder and wanting, hands hovering over a million different parts of her.