Ride Steady (Chaos, #3)(70)

He was right. Some were better than the one I saw, some not quite as astounding.

But they all were stunning.

*

I stood beside Travis’s crib, looking down at him, waiting for nothing.

And he was finally giving me nothing after an unusual hour where he had trouble falling asleep.

It might have been our busy day and the fact he’d had to nap in places that were unfamiliar that made him have trouble finding nighttime sleep.

It might have been that he clearly liked Joker and didn’t want to fall asleep when he had his new biker buddy around.

Whatever it was, he was down and I could finally join Joker in the living room.

I left my bedroom, swinging the door so it was open by a crack to drown out the light but I could still hear him if I needed to.

I moved into the living room, announcing in a hushed voice, “He’s down.”

“That took a while,” Joker noted.

“It did,” I agreed.

“That usual?” he asked as I rounded the couch.

“No… oh!” I cried out because I got close and Joker’s hands shot out and caught me at the hips.

I fell into him as he guided the fall, my bottom toward his lap.

It was a busy day but not an exhausting one. Still, I didn’t mind ending it by stretching out on top of Joker on my couch and watching TV.

However, I found in short order that I wasn’t going to stretch out on top of Joker and watch TV.

Joker was going to stretch out on top of me, and I had a feeling from the look in his eyes that, although the TV was on, we would not be watching it.

It was a feeling that made me happy.

When I was on my back in the couch and he was pressed the length of my side, I looked into his eyes, feeling the pulse beat hard in my neck.

“Hey,” he whispered.

Oh.

Wow.

“Hey,” I whispered back.

He curled his fingers around the side of my neck and slid them up to my jaw.

“You good?” he asked.

I swallowed. Then I nodded.

“Wanna be better?”

My belly did a somersault.

Oh yes. I definitely wanted to be better.

I pressed a hand to his chest and breathed, “Yes.”

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.