Page 70 of Pinkie Promise

“I wanna have you so bad,” he murmurs, gripping his hands around my hips so that he can pull my behind up against his straining length.

“Really?” I tease. “I never would have guessed.”

He grins and bites his perfect teeth into the side of my neck, making my whole body drop limply into the soft sheets of his bed. He groans into my throat and shoves my thighs further apart.

“Move in with me,” he rasps, making me smother another giggle into his pillow. His gravelly morning voice is making my stomach pound dangerously. I try to push myself up from the bed but he keeps me firmly in place without needing to flex one damn muscle.

“I need to go, I have things to do,” I tell him, wriggling.

He grips his fingers into my ass and murmurs, “Squirming like that ain’t helping me wanna let you leave.” I fall still against the mattress and he mumbles, “Actually, that ain’t helping either.”

I try to roll onto my back and he lifts his torso so that I can. Then he settles his bodyweight back down on top of me and strokes gently at my cheek.

“I don’t want you to go,” he tells me simply, looking straight into my eyes.

“I need my laptop so that I can stress-email every other member of the English department, and you literally have work to go to, Mechanic,” I remind him, although, really, I don’t want to go either.

The real problem here? I’m terrified that I’m about to fall in love with him.

I’ve only known him for two months but he’s treating me so good that it feels like I’ve known him for two years. Because of that, I need to put as much distance between us as possible right now.

But first I give myself a little treat, by roaming my palms over his beautiful chest.

“The shop’ll be closed if the roads haven’t been cleared. And I won’t drive you back to the condo if they haven’t been, either.”

I grin, loving the way that his deep voice reverberates through my body. “You can carry me piggy-back style,” I say teasingly.

He laughs down at me and shakes his head. “Fine. You got more essays left to submit this semester or something?”

“Yeah, although technically they’re all done. I just need to proof-read them. And then I have thesis revisions but I’m so ahead on that I literally don’t have to look at it until January. I meant what I said yesterday by the way, about you going to your parents’ for Christmas. Like, no way am I going to be the thing that prevents that from happening. I don’t want you to think I’m depending on you for company. Dependency…” I trail off, shaking my head. I’m pretty sure that I’ve mentioned it to him before, about how I hate being at the mercy of other people. Everything that I told him yesterday explains why I’d rather not be in that kind of situation again.

When I look up at him he’s frowning slightly, his jaw ticking and his eyes aflame. Then he looks quickly away from me, as if he was going to say something but thought better of it.

He settles himself heavily onto his back and I can’t decipher the hard look on his face. Without glancing down at me he wraps his arms around my waist and drags me up so that I’m lying on top of him.

I prod at the stubble on his tan jaw and he gives me a lazy smirk.

God darn it. Why are country boys so damn cute?

“I’m going out tonight by the way,” I tell him, flipping my hair subtly over my shoulder.

His smirk instantly drops and he sits us bolt upright.

“I’m sorry, what?” he asks, his voice deadly calm.

“It’s a cheer thing, end of term and all,” I say absently, moving to get off of him and being secretly thrilled when he shoves me right back down. His arousal practically impales me as he forces my lap on top of his.

“Where are you going?” he demands.

“One of the sorority houses, seeing as half of the team can’t get into the bars.”

He watches me long and hard before gently easing me off his lap and getting up to rip open his curtains. Whatever he sees makes the large muscles in his back tense up. He curses roughly as he shoves them closed again.

“Have the roads been cleared?” I ask, overflowing with this golden sunshine feeling at the knowledge that Hunter wanted to keep me here for the rest of the day. That Hunter wants to keep me, period.

He climbs on top of me, his jaw working hard. “Yeah,” he grunts. “Still don’t want you goin’ over there in any neck-breaker heels or anything,” he mumbles against my throat.

I stroke my fingers into his hair and he releases a rumbling exhale.

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