Page 89 of Branded
My palms were on his chest, and I dragged my nails lightly down, trailing them over the faint notches of his abdomen. “So, you’d go?”
“Fuck no,” he said.
I started, brows raising.
“I’d be teaching the fucking master class,” he told me, voice going rough, hand lifting to cup my breast.
“Just for the record”—my breath caught when he brushed his thumb over my nipple—“that’s not a vibrator.”
A chuckle. He rolled it between thumb and forefinger. “I thought this was the On switch.”
“It is.” Laughter in my chest. “It definitely is.”
That laughter cut off when he flipped us, and I suddenly found my back pressed into the mattress, the warm, heavy weight of him on top of me. Before I could protest or make another joke or redirect our conversation back to what he’d been debating, he kissed me.
And then I wasn’t on mental tangents or worried about jokes or redirecting conversations.
I was focused on Smitty.
Because he made it impossible to do anything else.
A faint noise prickled at the edge of my consciousness, just as he was sliding down, his beard tickling me between my thighs, and I barely processed that it was my cell ringing before his tongue flicked out.
The rest of the world faded.
Just me.
Just him, and what he made me feel.
Which was so, so much.
“This isn’t exactly what I had in mind,” I said, as I looked up.
“Well, we missed the brunch reservations I made,” he said, fingers laced through mine, “along with the movie I’d planned.” A kiss to the tip of my nose. “And the dinner reservations. So”—he nodded at the dark trail ahead—“this is what we have left.”
“A scary trail that should be on that creepy true crime documentary we watched earlier?”
A flash of white, his beard twitching in the way I loved.
Because I’d been the one to make him smile. I was the one who brought him joy. I?—
An arm weaving around my waist, drawing me against him in a quick movement that stole my breath, bringing my flush against him. He pressed his mouth to the corner of mine. “Love this,” he murmured, releasing me, and weaving our fingers together, drawing me forward again, tugging me along the manicured path.
“And I think the only thing we should continue to think about is how much better true crime is to baking shows to make love to.”
I shook my head. “There’s something seriously wrong with you.”
A tap of his finger to his lips. “Or maybe it’s the reality TV part and less about the actual content.”
The man had a point.
The man also wasn’t listening to me.
“Smitty.” I dragged my feet. “I don’t?—”
His reaction was instantaneous, his big body stopping in a fraction of a second. He turned, releasing my hand, and crouched enough so that our faces were aligned. “Shit, little bird,” he said, cupping my cheeks in those warm, calloused palms. “Is this too much? Do you need to stop? Are you feeling overwhelmed and?—”
My heart squeezed so hard that for a moment I was unable to find words.
