Page 65 of If Not for My Baby
“The best yet.”
I make a beeline for Tom’s suite, then chicken out right before his closed door because I’m a little coward. I duck into the bathroom instead, wash my hands, and borrow someone’s mouthwash without letting my lips touch the rim lest it be Conor’s or Grayson’s. I enjoy my life STD-free, thank you very much.
I choose not to study my skin in the mirror at the risk of self-judgment weakening my resolve, but I do kick off my shoes and leave them in the junk bunk. I take a breath as I leave the bathroom and rap my fist against Tom’s door.
“Come in,” he calls.
Tom’s suite is smaller than I expected. Shadowy save for the pool of light from a reading lamp attached to the wall, with only a double bed, window, television, some built-in drawers, and a door leading to what I assume is his bathroom. He’s lying on top of the covers, feet crossed at the ankles, though they’re nearly hanging off, reading Homer. He squints up at me, the stark light from the front lounge slipping into his cozy, low-lit enclave. “Am I glad to see you,” he breathes. “Jesus Christ.”
I close the door behind me with aclick.We are submerged in flickering darkness. It’s a good thing he’s lying down, as it allows me to climb directly on top of him without overthinking it. His eyes widen for a snap of a second, as if he can’t believe his luck. But then he tosses his book to the floor and his hands find the curve of my waist. He settles me atop him, thumbs curling over the length of my hip bones. He sighs and it sails over my parted lips. Shimmering tension thickens the air. His heart thumps under my palms.
“Will you greet me like this after every show?”
I have no reason to freeze. We’ve made out. We’re going on a date soon. He’s seen me puke my body weight in vodka. It’s fine.
Except that it’s not, because there’s a guarded hope hidden in his husky bedroom voice, and it does something brand-new to my heart. He’s hoping this will continue for who knows how long. Though I’m straddling him in his bed—a bed I havedreamedabout—awash in his astounding beauty, all I can think of is crawling off him and bolting until I hit Fenway Park.
He sits up a little, bringing us even closer. “Don’t get skittish on me now, Clem.”
“Too late,” I whisper, eyes casting down.
“Hey.” His voice is edged with concern. “Look at me. Let’s just hang out?”
“And do what?”
His brows knit with something like pity. “We could read. In here, together. I saw your nose in that mystery novel. Or…playMario Kart?”
“You?PlayMario Kart?”
“I am a human male. I play video games.” His thumb traces over the skin of my arm. “We don’t have to do any—”
When I press my mouth into his, our sighs harmonize. It’s so fitting for us. His low and a little tortured. Mine a near squeak of both pleasure and surprise. There’s no trading of pecks, no waltz of barely there tongue. The minute my hands move up to his jaw, we combust.
Lapping and toying, clumsy and teasing. Nothing has ever felt as good as being kissed with reckless abandon by Tom Halloran. His kisses are like his music: passionate, thoughtful, devastating.
There’s a new quality to this kiss, too, though. As if we both know we’re on the precipice of something. Higher than a cliff or bridge. This kiss feels like falling at warp speed through the stratosphere.
Tom’s exhale is guttural as I push his T-shirt up. It’s hard to do while I balance myself atop him, and our faces press together, my hair falling like a shield around us both. He sits us up with ease and I’m reintroduced to our height difference. My belly flips. He is sohuge.
Tom pulls his shirt overhead in one swift movement. It’s the backward, haphazard way men do and it makes my mouth water. What he reveals underneath is better than I remember it from all those weeks ago in that Raleigh hallway. Long, lean torso and sculpted arms. Nothing superhero-y or over-the-top. No abs on abs on abs. I’m startled every time I remember he’s a real person. That he’s tangible. He’s here. And those corded arms and flat stomach are strong and warm and caged around me as if I’m precious cargo.
Tom brings his mouth to my neck, sucking hot kisses into the sensitive skin beneath my ear and at the center of my throat. I tangle my hands in his hair and the soft thickness between my fingers is mind-bending.
He must not be able to get a good enough angle like this—me in his lap, hands against his scalp, him bending to mouth my shoulder—so he lays me down across his bed in such a simple, swift movement I feel like a dinner napkin. Folded and spread however he pleases.
“You’re strong,” I babble. I’m nervous and I know he knows it.
Tom only chuckles into my shoulder, his lips working down, down…
His mouth finds my breast, and he doesn’t even stop to pull my tank top up. He circles my tight nipple with his tongue and the warmth of his breath makes my core throb. The hum that slips from my mouth is obscene—I sound like a wounded animal. But Tom isn’t deterred. He sucks me through the cotton until I feel like a balloon about to pop, and then brushes his thumb across the aching point. I writhe from the pleasure, desperate for some kind of hard contact.
When he pinches me there I moan in earnest, and the sound seems to purge a similar noise from him. He doesn’t stop, groping at my chest, worshipping my small tits over my shirt until I’m dizzy with need. I’m rubbing myself against his upper thigh without shame, but the friction isn’t nearly enough.
“I think you just got my tank top pregnant,” I whine.
Tom stops his ministrations long enough to bury his facein my neck and laugh. “Shite, Clem,” he says, coming up for air. “You can’t just say things like that.”
“I need more,” I tell him, as serious as I’ve ever been. “Please. It hurts.”
