Page 91 of A Certain Step
She couldn’t help the grin quirking against her lips. “Good. I chose it with you in mind. This was the surprise for your patience.”
A low, elongated curse ascended from somewhere deep in his throat.
Willa reached down against his impatient hands and lips to the bottom of his T-shirt and removed it.
Ethan cupped her face, looking at her with entrenched worship glowing in his expression. She could feel his desire against her thigh, the want and fervor present in the restraint he’d consistently shown her.
Something about the moment emboldened her, the intimacy of their friendship, perhaps—the realization of both their longing on full display, so she pushed him against his bed and straddled him.
She’d let him take control again, chase their needs together, but she wanted to see him like this, flushed with yearning underneath her. “What part of ‘Forbidden Corridors’ pulls you over the edge?” she asked.
He strained against her, and she relished in the feel of it.
“Willa—” he choked out.
She placed a kiss along the jut of his throat, biting down gently and licking the spot in rapid succession. “Tell me,” she whispered. Trailing kisses lower against the broad expanse of his chest, she watched him shut his eyes in response.
Ethan’s hands slid to her ass, directing her hips up against the hard length of him.
The friction sent an arresting tremor through her. But, no, not yet. She wanted to know the answer to her question first—to see what undid his self-control.
“Is it the way I thrust up the ladder?” she watched his breath catch again. “Or is it when I’m lying on the floor, drawing my hands lower and lower between my thighs? Maybe it’s how I lunge my hips three times before the other dancers join?”
He laid his head back farther and groaned. Willa giggled in a comeback.Oh, this was going to be fun.“Tell me,” she whispered in his ear.
“It’s all of it. The entire damn thing kills me,” he avowed.
Her hands skated across his abs, moving lower to the top of his sweatpants, where she stopped and stared at his heated expression. “Lucky for you, you’ll get to experience everything the dance is meant to showcase.”
Some sort of a growl, low and delicious, escaped him, and then he was flipping them over, her body now beneath his.
Hastily, he undid the bow on top of her jogger shorts, pulled them off her legs, threw them across the room, and then gawked at her matching emerald green knickers.
Embers caught fire in his eyes, blazing with urges she was confident matched her own.
“Fuck, Wills. Did you wake up this morning and contemplate how you were going to wreck me to a point of no return?”
“My exact thoughts, yes,” she proclaimed.
He slithered his hand to the back of her bra and unclasped it effortlessly, detaching it with care and folding it atop his bedside table.
“Did my shirt and shorts not deserve the same attention?” she examined with a laugh.
A massive grin formed along his lips. “This is special,” he said, then lowered his mouth to her breast, prompting a whimper from the pit of her stomach.
He noted the sounds she’d make, repeating whatever he did to her other breast to elicit the same audible reaction.
“What did I do right in the world to be trusted with you?” he declared, his head burrowed in her chest.
Lowering himself then, his lips grazed her abs with purposeful concentration until he reached her legs. He circled his fingers along the inside of her thighs, and he held her in place, kissing every inch of her exposed skin with agonizing slowness. Willa knew her body was conventionally attractive. It’s what years of dance and physical training shaped, but as much as people had wanted her before, she knew with utmost certainty that they wouldn’t appreciate her the way Ethan could. Obsessed with her thighs to a hilarious degree, sure, but it was beyond that. It was the bruises and scars, too—the dips and curves he found meaning in.
His mouth climbed back up to her lips. They kissed heartily for a few beats, and then Ethan’s lips roamed lower again. He kissed her greedily, fervently, and thoroughly, showing every bit of attention to her thighs again.
And then, he touched her atop her knickers, moving his fingers delicately across where she wanted him most. She shuddered slightly at the contact. She needed more of him, his hands—his lips, whatever he’d give.
Ethan drew his mouth back along the height of her thigh, biting faintly and taking a bit of lace in his teeth. His fingers moved reverentially to the top of the fabric.
She lifted her hips with the same motion as during “Forbidden Corridors,” forcing his eyes to dart toward her face in understanding.
