Ride Steady(84)

He dipped his head and I held my breath as he held my eyes and glided the side of his nose along the side of mine.

Oh.

Wow.

“So f*ckin’ pretty,” he murmured.

“Joker,” I replied huskily.

He rubbed his thumb along my cheek and continued to stare into my eyes.

I squirmed a little bit.

“What you want, Butterfly?”

He was making me ask.

Why was that so arousing?

“I want you to kiss me.”

He did another nose glide and kept hold on my eyes as he added the tip of his tongue sliding along my lips.

That already made me better. So much better, a whimper slithered up my throat.

Instantly, his gaze fired, he slanted his head, and he kissed me.

I rounded him with my arms, pressed up, and kissed him back.

This commenced a make-out session on my couch that included some lovely groping, and for me, lots of shivers, melting, and whimpering.

Joker again had his hand up my top and he did the thumb slide at the underside of my breast, sweeping up to take in the side, and that felt so good, I was done making out.

I wanted more.

I didn’t have my head together to know how much more, but I did know I wanted him to stop teasing and at least slide into second base.

I also didn’t know how to tell him that, but my body did and it didn’t delay. On a deep mew, I freed my leg from its tangle with his, rounded his thigh with my calf, and slid the most intimate part of me against its hard length.

The minute I did, his hand came out of my top. He twisted his arm behind him to hook his fingers around the back of my knee, holding it there, but he also broke the kiss.

“Okay. We’re done.”

At his surprising declaration, I blinked right before I tightened my hold on him.

“What?” I asked.

“Carrie,” he said gently as I forced myself to focus. “That offer, straight up, I wanna take it, right now, on your couch. But, gotta tell you, baby, that what this is isn’t that. It isn’t me f*ckin’ you for the first time on your couch. I want what you’re offerin’, but I’m not gonna give it to you. Not that way. When we get there, you’ll get it the way you deserve. The right way for the girl you are.”

“I, um… I, well…”

I trailed off because I was still in the throes of a certain mood at the same time (slowly) processing what he said.

And it was incredibly lovely.

However, my certain mood was urging me to urge him to take things further on my couch.

“When Travis is with his dad and it’s you and me so I can focus on just you and you can give that back to me, we’ll go there,” Joker said. “Meantime, we’ll work up to it.”

“You’re very good at working up to it,” I told him, because he was.

Aaron and I had had our times. There was a period where those times were frequent and so good I didn’t know there could be better. Those times became infrequent and then they became not so good.

But just making out with Joker was better than any time with Aaron.

I stopped thinking of that and started falling back into that certain mood when I saw the humor in Joker’s eyes as he muttered, “I’ll keep you in check.”

“Well, okay,” I agreed, mostly because it didn’t seem I had a choice.

“Now we’ll watch TV.”

I wasn’t a huge TV watcher. I liked to read mysteries (though the odd romance here and there worked).

But right then I had absolutely no interest in TV.

Nevertheless, with no other option open to me, I said, “Okay.”

“Then I’m gonna go, Carrie. You need a good night’s sleep in your bed.”

I hadn’t really thought of it until then but the best night’s sleep I’d had in a long time was the night before on the couch. Or, more accurately, on Joker.

I didn’t share this.

Again not by choice, I said, “Okay.”

Joker didn’t move so I didn’t either. What we did was stare at each other, which made me feel strange and suddenly uncomfortable.

Until he said, “I like you.”

Of its own volition, my hand fisted in his shirt.

“In a way I wanna do this right,” he went on. “For you and for Travis.”

Okay, I could get on board with that.

“I like you too,” I told him shyly.