Page 62 of Hold on Tight

“Yeah,” she said, because it was all the language she could manage, and because she knew what he meant, had felt the flush come into her face, had felt her lids grow heavy and her jaw go slack.

“I’m really fucking hard right now.”

“I can help you with that.”

She watched the color rise inhisface now. She leaned in and kissed his lower lip, suckled it, and the growl that came out of him felt as direct and explicit as if he’d set his hand between her legs.

“Can I make a suggestion?” she asked him.

He was breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling, the rhythm calling her. “Yeah.”

“Let’s go upstairs. I have a queen-size bed. Your knee won’t get stuck.”

He hesitated.

“What?”

She could tell he didn’t want to answer her.

“Are you worried about Sam? Don’t. He’s sound asleep and there’s a lock on the door.”

“No.”

“Just. Tell. Me.”

“I don’t want to screw it up again.”

She put her hand out, ran her thumb over the stubble on his jaw, touched the pad to the softness of his mouth. His mouth opened, involuntarily, and she watched his eyes darken.

“Dude,” she said. “I already think you suck at sex. What’s the worst that could happen—you can’t get it up?”

She got to see him laugh this time, got to see how it softened him and made him bright.

Chapter 20

He followed her up the stairs. She’d wrapped the little throw from the sofa around herself. It covered her, but only barely, and he wanted to flip it up and investigate the shadowy space where her thighs met. Or tug it off entirely. He was not, however, confident of his ability to take her on the stairs. That would have to wait until he’d mastered the simpler things.

She’d been …

She’d been perfect. There weren’t a lot of women who could have carried off what had gone down between them without making him feel either like a failure or a eunuch. She’d managed it, though. She hadn’t tried to strip him bare and read his thoughts. She hadn’t reassured and she hadn’t panicked. She’d been herself¸ the girl he’d let himself feel too much for all those years ago, the woman he could find himself caring too much for now. The sort of person it was worth doing something crazy for, worth taking risks for.

She dropped her clothes by the side of the bed, let the blanket fall. He wondered if the impact of her naked body would fade with familiarity. He wasn’t used to it yet. Her voluptuousness, emerging from under the fleece, hit him like a ton of bricks, as it had downstairs when she pulled off her T-shirt.

He reached for her, his mouth finding one breast, his fingers the other, one nipple between his fingers, the other hard against his tongue.Hell, yeah. She whimpered, and he felt her knees buckle. “Too much?”

She shook her head.

“Do you want more?”

She nodded.

His palm slid down her belly, warm and soft, and he parted her curls and cupped her. Her clit was swollen, and his finger slipped easily over it. He paused there, watching a flush mottle her chest and face.

“Mmmph,” she said, or something like that, and she pushed her face into his chest and rocked against his hand.

“Lie down,” he said, and followed her down. He loved the slick feel of her clit, the reckless expression on her face, the red of her lips and cheeks.

“Unh.”

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