Page 43 of All the Promises We Break

“My words should be enough.”

They should but my actions aren’t speaking the volume she needs. She’s sexy, sensual, complex, and amazing. Hayley doesn’t realize I’m trying to protect her, but also allow us time without being under a microscope, which we would surely be, or have too many opinions about us. I just want it to be her and me. No one else.

“I don’t know what to do anymore, Wes.”

Her eyes fall toward her feet. I don’t like that I’m making her feel insecure. I don’t want her to be anything less than ferocious. “I do.”

I quickly scoop her into my arms. Her body bounces in them then her cap falls from her head before I settle us on the bench. Hayley’s arms are tense around my neck. Her elbows dig deep into my collarbone as her fingers play mercilessly in my hair. Every time I hold her, I don’t want it to stop. I don’t want to stop, period.

I cup her cheek roughly in my hand and with the born instincts of an animal, kiss her in a way I never have before. The stubble on my face is creating burn patterns on her upper lip. My teeth are nibbling at her lower lip. I can feel my left hand making imprints on her rib cage with my right hand over her hip.

She squirms lightly in my lap. At first I think she may be trying to get away until she arches into my hands, which rolls her perfect ass over my cock. She repeats that movement over and over at different paces. Sometimes it’s a slow draw back and forth. Other times, it’s tiny circles that I know she’s using for herself.

Without thinking, I lower the zipper on her sweatshirt to reach my hand inside. I forgot about the buttons on her top. Dammit. As cold as my hands are and as clumsy as I feel, I need the warmth of her actual skin against mine.

She gasps as I work the first button. I freeze and open my eyes. Her eyes are wide but there’s no fear in them. It’s the thrill of anticipation that’s consuming her. Hayley holds my face in her hands as she slides off my lap in her current position and reappears there straddling across me.

Holy fuck. This went from fire to inferno with that one simple move.

She inches in as close as possible and unzips her sweatshirt all the way. She’s not letting up, which drives me more insane. Hayley takes my hands from the task of opening the buttons on her shirt to the inside of her thighs. My hands cup across the entire top with my thumbs rotated strategically in.

Every inhale has a stop and start to it. As she slowly rolls, I do a bit of rolling of my own. The spot at the base of her button fly is the target. Her soft groans are music to my ears. I’ve had dreams about it ever since that first heated kiss in her parents’ driveway. Then even more so after our make-out session on the wall in my apartment.

This is louder. The octave is different. She’s different. I open my eyes to find her staring at me, along with the lace of her zip-front bralette. The color of it is so pale it nearly looks like it’s her skin. Hayley sighs, “I want to know what it feels like to have you touch me.”

I slide my nose along hers. “I’ve touched you before.”

“Not like this. Don’t think. Just do it. Please.”

I wish I had more than two hands. The moonlight shines down on her pale skin as I expose it. I start with a line across the top of the lace near her shoulder. My finger follows it as slow as I can down to the swell of her breast. Hayley inhales deeper anddeeper with each breath. Her chest is rising and falling faster the farther down I go. I reach the zipper and pause. While my lips above my fingers give her something else to focus on, I lower the zipper to slide my hands inside.

I don’t ever remember touching something so delicate and perfect. It’s like she was made for my hands. I’m an idiot for not seeing how beautiful she is sooner. Her head drops back as I massage her. My lips want to continue to explore her. My thumbs pay special attention to the most perfect color on her body as my lips alternate from right to left across her.

Hayley digs her fingers beneath my jacket, scratching her way up to my shoulders. I groan in appreciation for so many things. My tongue sneaks out and leaves a damp trail over the darkest color of her chest. She hisses as she pulls my head in tight.

My thumbs dance over her nipples slowly. I can feel her body tremble. I don’t know if it’s from the cold, us, or both. “Oh, Hayley,” I whisper, “we have to stop.” I suckle one last time on her skin. “We have to stop.”

She punches my shoulder with the force of the sting of leaving things unfinished. “I wouldn’t have.”

“I know. That’s one of the reasons why we have to. If and when we get that far, it’s not going to be out in the woods while you’re shivering in the cold.”

“I’m starting to crave you. I can’t decide how I feel about it. It scares me a little.”

“You’re not alone in those statements. God, Hayley.” I rest my cheek against her soft skin. “Just know I stopped us because of my promise and for no other reason.”

“Will you run while you’re up here?”

“I’d planned on it. I’ll need to for sure now.”

“Then sleep with me. Set your alarm for early then run. They won’t know. I don’t want to be without you. I don’t.”

A kiss between her breasts, a kiss on her nose, then a kiss on her forehead precedes a daring decision. “As long as I get to hold you, six in the morning will come too soon.”

Chapter Seventeen

Dylan

I’d like to say I didn’t realize how tired Eli and I both were, but I’d be lying big time. His payback led to my own, then an encore we could both be proud of. We fell asleep around three in the morning. Now it’s noon and I have zero shame about being this lazy.

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