Thick Love (Thin Love, #2)(78)

My third attempt was slower, but obvious. Squinting, not focused on how Ransom pulled away from my body, how he only stared at me as I moved my fingers in his hair and down his temple, I met that hard gaze of his, accepting the challenge.

One small brush, my thumb over his cheek and Ransom went still, immediately reaching for my wrist again. “Don’t,” he said, grabbing my fingers before he kissed them. “Let…let me make you feel good.”

It was his line. I’d heard it from some of the girls at the studio, the ones who were at CPU, had heard the rumors of the team’s parties and the girls who’d returned from Ransom’s room smiling and sated.

He damn well wasn’t going to use that line on me. Maybe he saw the irritation in my expression, maybe he knew I wouldn’t let him treat me like the other girls he’d serviced, whatever Ransom caught in my eyes, in that small frown on my face, had him trying to keep me on that bed. He tugged on my hips, gaze locked onto mine and he lowered again, his intention clear.

“Stop,” I told him, sliding from underneath him, avoiding his reach when he grabbed after me.

“Aly, please.”

“No,” I said, covering my bare chest with my arms. I wanted back on that bed, back underneath him, but I’d have Ransom my way. I’d have my dream. “Not like that.”

“What…”

“I don’t share, Ransom.” When he shook his head and that frown made his mouth look stiff and defensive, I leaned against the mattress on my knee, coming close to him. “You want in my bed, it’s the two of us and no one else.”

I got closer then, adding my left leg to the right on the mattress in front of him. He was still dressed and sweat beaded along his forehead. When I reached up to wipe his face dry, he again caught my hand. “What do you…want do you want?”

Pushing him wouldn’t work. I’d been around Ransom enough to know no one bullied him into anything he didn’t want. But I also knew that he wanted me. If he hadn’t lied about me turning him on when no one else could, then I’d use the leverage I had—my body, my limited moves—to touch him.

He reminded me of a cop, testing to see if a jumpy suspect was going to reach for his gun—Ransom held his hands flat on his thighs and tilted his head, watching me as I scooted closer. But I didn’t touch his face, just moved my fingernails over his knuckles.

“You want me, Ransom?” He didn’t say anything, but I still caught the answer in the way his gaze moved down my body, in how he licked his lips. I stretched my fingers, letting my thumb slip inside the sleeve of his shirt as I leaned in, placing one kiss under his ear. “You remember what it felt like, that first night at Summerland’s?” Ransom closed his eyes, groaned once when I took his ear between my teeth. “I came just rubbing against you, wishing…wishing I could touch you everywhere, with my fingers, my tongue…” another growl and Ransom didn’t stop my hand as I moved it underneath his hoodie and raked my nails over his stomach, “my mouth.”

“Aly…God…what, shit what do you want me to do?” His large palm was flat against my ass and Ransom used his fingers to curl into my skin like he needed to hold onto me. “I need to touch you. Please…”

“Because you want me?”

He groaned again, sinking his mouth onto my neck, his fingers in my hair. “Yes…I want you. Don’t f*cking tease me.”

“Never,” I said, pulling away from him. He reached out once, a little desperate and didn’t fight me when I tugged up his hoodie. It was the small loosening of his tension, the slacked way his arms fell to his side that I used to shift control. Ransom went down easy enough, laying against the mattress as I straddled him.

He was so beautiful. So long, so wide that he took up most of my mattress. His dark skin against my white sheets, his large hands skimming over my legs, it was striking, all of it, and I wanted to kiss him, I wanted to keep kissing him until we were both weak from the effort. But I needed him to feel me, all of me.

I lowered over him slowly, locked my gaze on to his, ignoring how his hands trembled as he rested them on my hips. “I want you too,” I said, kissing his stomach, pushing up his t-shirt as I rubbed my lips against each dip of his muscles. “I’ve wanted you for a long, long time.”

“Aly,” he warned, his fingers digging into my thighs.

“You haven’t felt this, have you?” An open-mouthed kiss over his chest, a flick of my tongue on his nipple and his breathing quickened. “Only this, right?” I asked, stretching on top of him so that my center rubbed against his dick. Ransom squeezed his eyes tight and blinked quickly when I kissed him, when I rubbed my fingers over his forehead and across his cheek.

We were stomach to stomach, our mouths almost touching and as I continued to touch him, that distant glint in his eyes began to fade. “I want to touch you everywhere.” Again he closed his eyes when I smoothed my thumb over his face but this time his eyelids did not squeeze tight and his breathing had slowed. “Will you let me do that for you?”

He had a large Adam’s apple that bobbed when he swallowed and the only answer I got was a small dip of his chin giving me all the permission I needed. And for the first time since I’d known him, Ransom followed.

“Sit up,” I said, eager to get that shirt off him, happy when he obeyed, when he fell back again against the pillow, just as I wanted. But he wasn’t being docile; his reaction to how I touched him—those low, delicious grunts, the possessive grips on my hair, my hips, had me doubling my efforts, tasting his skin, licking and kissing across that beautiful chest, across the tattoo on his left pec. I knew who the angel there was, but didn’t think about it. Tonight Emily couldn’t have him.