Page 102 of The Spider & the Storm

“I really hope you plan to show me your room. Like … now.”

My brow furrowed as my brain struggled to compute what exactly she was saying. “My room?”

She lifted her eyes back to mine, strong determination and lustful need coalescing in the sea of green. “And I swear, if you end up only having a twin-size bed or some weird bachelor shit like that, I'm dragging your ass back to my hotel room.”

I laughed while my entire face heated with the understanding of what she was alluding to. “I haven't slept on a twin-size bed since I was, like, seventeen.”

“Thank God.” Stormy's eyes held mine as she moved around the chairs and across the room. Her palms pressed to my bearded cheeks, and I touched my forehead to hers, struggling to find my confidence and breath. “Lead the way, Chuck.”

My eyes squeezed shut, and I shook my head with my groan.

“Just one thing,” I grumbled.

Stormy giggled, already steering me without an idea of where she was going. “What's that?” Her voice was flirtatious and eager, like she couldn’t imagine being anywhere else than here with me.

Shewantsme, I realized, driving it home with a certainty I hadn’t known or understood since the early days of my relationship with Jersey. And, Lord,Iwantedher.

My eyes opened with new confidence, new purpose, and I stared into hers, moving her backward toward the hall, toward my waiting bedroom. Her breath hitched, and the green in her gaze popped with excitement and carnal anticipation as she bit her lip.

“Don't ever—and I mean,ever—call me Chuck again.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

MASSACHUSETTS, PRESENT DAY

It had been a long time since I'd done this. Not as long ago as my relationship with Jersey. There'd been others in between then and now. The number of women I'd slept with couldn't begin to rival Luke's, and I had never developed a taste for casual sex the way he had. And now, I was here, miles away from where I'd started, heading to my bedroom with a woman I couldn't believe was still here.

God, I had tried and tried to scare her away. But she'd only seen my resistance as a challenge, and now, I was grateful for it. Because as she crossed the threshold of my bedroom, I realized with heart-stopping magnitude how badly I needed this. Notthis—sex, I mean. If I was being honest, sex had been the furthest thing from my mind in the years since leaving Connecticut, when all I'd been trying to do was survive without being discovered. But it washerthat I had needed—Stormy—and my soul exhaled with relief the moment I finally made my peace with that.

I had no intention of turning on the light as we entered the bedroom. Somehow, I always felt like light had a way of making a moment like this feel less sacred, like it was its own a separate entity, watching and prying and capable of revealing our secrets to others.

But Stormy spun around to loop her arms around my neck and said, “I want to see you.”

A lump formed in my throat as I held her around her waist. “I thought you already did.”

“You know what I mean.”

I did, and I considered saying no. The truth was revealed to me then that it wasn't that I was so much afraid of the light itself, but scared of her and what she might find. That she would leave, and right now, in this moment, all I wanted was for her tostay. But whether I turned on the light now or the sun did it for me in the morning, she would eventually, inevitably, see. She'd see it all, and I had to believe it was better to do it now and get it over with when I was drunk on lust and the excitement of allowing myself towantagain than when the sobering daylight arrived.

So, I reached out for the floor lamp between the door and my dresser. With a yank of the chain, the room was blanketed in a warm glow. Stormy's arms remained around my neck as she turned her head, taking in my small but comfortable bedroom. To avoid watching her perusal of my choice in interior design, I dipped my head to bury my face in her neck, to breathe in the lavender she held in her hair and the cinnamon and black pepper she wore on her skin.

I inhaled so deeply that I almost believed I could get high on her scent. She was the embodiment of warmth, and in my haze, I pressed my lips to her neck, desperate to hear her moan in the quiet of my room.

When my lips didn't work, I tried with my tongue. Tasting her skin, working my hands over the small of her back. But she was too distracted, too entangled in what I'd originally thought was a mundane corner of my world, and I still didn't have her attention.

I pulled my lips from her neck as one hand lifted from her back to glide over the swell of her breast, concealed by her oversize sweatshirt. Moving upward over the long, smooth column of her slender throat to her defined jaw, where my grip firmed and guided her eyes back to mine, hooded and greedy. Jealous of her interest in my space and not in me.

I was met with a mirrored desire, her lust alive and thriving. There wasn't enough time to appreciate it before my mouth pressed hard against hers, my hand still gripping her jaw. Guiding the tilt of her head, thrusting my tongue against hers, deepening the kiss and fueling the fire I needed to move her backward toward my bed.

Stormy moaned into my mouth, tangling her fingers into the hair at the back of my head and loosening my ponytail as she pulled. I responded with a moan of my own, removing my hand from her jaw to grab her ass and lift her up against me. She wrapped her legs around my waist, and my pulsing, aching erection pressed firmly between her open thighs, pulling desperate groans from both of our open, slack mouths.

“Oh my God,” she gasped against my lips. “I hope you fuck as good as you kiss.”

I grunted a strangled chuckle as we tumbled together to the mattress in a knotted heap of limbs. “Not making any promises, but I'll try my best.”

She pressed another kiss to my mouth as her lips twitched into a smile, and then she scooted back, untangling her legs from my hips and her arms from my neck. I settled on my side, propping my cheek in my palm as she sat up, pulling the sweatshirt off in one fluid motion without a second of hesitation. She'd worn nothing underneath, and my lips parted, my mouth drying in an instant, at the sight of her topless form.

“What?” Stormy smirked, reaching out to nudge my chin, closing my mouth. “Never seen a pair of tits before?”

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