Page 57 of Hold on Tight

Chapter 18

She did him one better. She set her beer on a coaster on the coffee table and crawled across the couch to kiss him. He put his arms around her and groaned into her mouth, and his hands were grabby, picking at her clothes as if he couldn’t wait to get them off her. She had seen in his face that he couldn’t talk about what had happened any more, and she understood that now he needed a way to lose himself. She wanted to be that way for him. She wouldn’t have thought she had any kind of savior complex, any need to drown someone’s pain, but the thought of him unburdening himself in that particular, visceral way, inside her, lit her up. She could feel lines of heat moving through her limbs, radiating from her core.

He stretched out under her and she luxuriated over him, settling herself into the warmth of his body, finding that place where she could grind against him. Aaron had been a good size but she’d remembered Jake being bigger, and he was. There was enough of him that she figured that had probably been a factor in why they hadn’t been able to go through with it at the lake. Even now, well past virginity, she’d have a tough time handling him. She’d be at that thin line between full and too much, and she knew—knew—it would take her someplace she’d never been.

She concentrated on his erection for a moment, rubbing, and he made a harsh, desperate sound that kicked her own arousal up a notch.

His body under hers was lean and hard. Something about the way they moved against each other, something straining and ample, had gotten deep into her brain, deep into that well of mind-body where sex happened, where emotion met sensation, where the glow of physical arousal met longing, and she was tumbling down into it, faster than she’d intended.

She lost the sense of where she left off and he began, a losing of boundaries that began at her mouth but spread all over her body, got in her arms and legs and her teeth. In her toes. She wanted even less definition, wanted the sense of her excitement building to get mixed up in the feeling of melting into him. There was all thisbodybetween them, all this technical stuff, the way he rubbed his erection against her, the building heat between her legs, the way their mouths fit—and sometimes didn’t fit—perfectly, the way their teeth clicked, the way their tongues battled over who was the boss. She liked the battle; it matched the way the rest of her body felt against his, one of them and then the other taking control of the encounter, trading off.

Things were familiar and unfamiliar. No smell of the lake—algae, clean mountain water, whatever that strange recipe had been. But the smell of his sweat, distinctly male, salt and effort and drive, was so like that night. And the skin beyond the sweat, something human, vulnerable, superheated, and so personal, the scent of every pheromone, every strand of DNA that made him who he was. She wondered if the message of him was hidden, somehow, in Sam. As if she were reclaiming something she knew belonged to her because the fresh sunshine-on-warm-kiddo scent of Sam had been preparing her for this moment for years.

Jake wove his fingers through hers the way he had in the kitchen, but more explicitly now, slipping them in and out, a parody, a tease, a delight. A small echo of their legs intertwined, the warm, real feel of him between her thighs, the prosthesis cool but its own kind of intimacy, part of who he was, part of where he’d been, part of what she’d missed knowing about him. If he had asked her right then if she wanted him to take it off, she would have said no. And not because of some nonsense fetish-y thing. Because it washim.

Him. Rough. Not as polished as Aaron, not as nice. She’d been pleased by Aaron, by the fit of their bodies together, by his attentiveness. But this was different and better, partly because it had a messier feel, sandpaper edges, not only the scrape of his stubble against her face but the rough way he was kissing her now, like there was anger under his desire. He wasn’t hurting her, but he wasn’t treating her like she was delicate, either.

She had a feeling he would not always wait for her to come first. But by the same token, that he would be right there with her. Not hovering some distance above, wondering if he’d gotten it all right, analyzing and calculating. He’d be down in his body, in her body, in the moment.

“Can I get you out of some of these?” He had a fistful of her silk top. Against her bare arms, the couch had a velvety softness. Sex made your brain wake up and take notice of things. At the same time it made you forget things that should have been important, like the fact that you were taking off your clothes in the living room while your seven-year-old drowsed upstairs.

“I’m going to run upstairs. Make sure—”

“Go,” he agreed.

On wobbly legs, she climbed the stairs to where Sam slumbered. “Good night, buddy,” she said, and kissed him on the forehead. He sighed and settled deeper into sleep.

She stopped in her bedroom and grabbed a chain of condom packets, sticking them in her pocket. This time, she knew Jake would be on the sofa when she went downstairs. And she knew how she’d feel …

Though not, she realized, when she stepped back into the living room and saw him sitting on the couch, staring into a middle distance, seeing God knows what, how deep in her gut she’d feel it.

“He’s asleep.”

She said it like a challenge, hands on hip, eyes full of suggestion. The provocation went straight to his dick, riling up some part of him that desperately wanted to run this show. That had been cowering under her because he didn’t know how to use his new body to flip her over, the way he would have before. The littlest things tripped him up, literally and figuratively. Sex was all new, complex, and so different from the regular motion of foot against the ground, different even from the various complicated things he’d learned to do in the meantime: go up and down stairs, lunge for something that was falling, catch his balance when he was the thing falling. But now he had a fresh chance, and he would get her under him on this sofa so he could pin her there with the weight of his body and pantomime the way he’d thrust when he was inside her.

First, he wanted her naked.

“Take your clothes off.”

He’d been trying for suggestion, but his brain knew what it wanted, and the words came out a command. He had a split second to wonder how she’d feel about that before she crossed her arms and pulled her blouse over her head. Underneath, she was softer and rounder than she’d been at eighteen. Her bra was all lace, and through it, he could see her nipples clearly, the areolae larger and darker than he remembered. His brain was shorting out, seeing all the curves, the softness he wanted under his palms—he hoped his hands weren’t offensively rough, and then he realized he hoped they were, hoped she’d feel calluses against her skin, hoped it would turn her on the way it was turning him on right now thinking about it, the contrasts he craved.

“Unzip your pants.”

She made a small sound in the back of her throat, and her hand went to her fly.

“You like it when I tell you what to do?”

“Yeah.”

“Take them off.”

She pushed them down, a slow tease of revealed flesh. Her legs were pale and smooth, and he wanted to pinch the soft skin on her vulnerable inner thighs. Better yet, bite it.

“Step out of them.”

She did. Her panties matched the nude lace of her bra, and through them, he could see the dark triangle of her curls. He wanted her to stand there and let him look. Let the pressure build in his groin, at the base of his spine, the demand expanding and unfolding in him, ancient and familiar, but brand new, too, as much a relief as a torment.Hello, old friend. He’d had no idea how much he’d missed the garden-variety experience of wanting to bang a woman into next week until he’d gone months without it.

She took a step toward him.

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