Page 55 of Bedding Rose
Pure ice sears my senses. “You bastar—”
I stop cursing the moment his tongue drags over my pulse, lapping up the ice cream. The warm, wet heat makes me nearly go limp in his arms and my desire to win this battle starts to retreat.
He shifts the hand pinning me to him and then drags his cone across my shirt, the chill seeping right through to my skin. I hiss through my teeth, but one second later, he’s in front of me, mouth over one of my breasts, sucking until my shirt is soaked, the wet patch sinking all the way down to my nipple, which has hardened under the chill and his ministrations.
He yanks up my shirt and draws a thick line of ice cream across my low belly before kneeling on the ground. He laps at my stomach, until I whimper, “But someone could see.”
“No one’s here,” he counters.
A quick glance around proves him right. It’s midwinter and midweek and a few crows hopping through the dead grass are the only creatures nearby. My stomach is fluttering with nerves, but also with a naughty, flickering heat.
Angelo snakes my yoga pants down an inch, drawing another line of ice cream. His eyes flash up to mine for a second, before his tongue snakes out and he licks a slow, warm path across my skin. The warmth of his mouth is nothing compared to the burst of fire between my thighs.
My yoga pants are tugged down another inch, panties with them. At this point, I’m panting. My own ice cream drops to the ground, forgotten, when he draws a sticky new line to lick.
And when he commands, “Reach up and hold the ladder rungs,” that’s exactly what I do.
* * *
Wednesday
We take a very,very needed day off, one that I regret by the time eight o’clock rolls around. People say meth is addictive? They haven’t tried Angelo’s orgasms. I think my brain might be permanently rewired to desire his touch.
I text him.
And the raunchiest FaceTime phone sex conversation ensues until Quique gets home and pounds on my door.
“What the hell are you watching in there? Porn?”
My brother chuckles at his own joke as my hands slide out of my panties, orgasm completely ruined. My heart thumps painfully against my ribs as I stare at my phone, giving his best friend panicked eyes.
What are we doing?
What if Quique had opened the door? What if we’d gotten caught?
* * *
Friday
After our scare on Wednesday,and because I have a paper due, we really do take Thursday off.
But now? Now he’s on his way over.
And we’re going to go out.
Or try to.
I grab my purse, trying to ignore the fact that my hands are clammy, and my heart is racing. My body does this every time I’m about to see Angelo, some strange amalgamation of excitement and nervousness spiking and making me quake. I would have thought I’d have gotten used to it by now—it’s been almost two weeks—but I’m not. I adjust my emerald sweater dress and the knee-high boots that I’m wearing before checking my lipstick in a mirror in the entryway.
Too nervous to stand inside, I lock the front door and make my way out to the driveway just as I see his black truck turn the corner. Is it pathetic how my heart jumps up just at the sight of him?
Maybe.
A tiny part of me twists in guilt that we still haven’t told Quique anything. But I don’t know how he’ll take it—if he’ll get territorial about me stealing his best friend, or worse, hurt. And if he finds out, then Mom will end up finding out and she’s still off the deep end. Her campaign has lost some momentum and she still—unreasonably—blames Angelo.
The Wild Flowers know … kind of. They know we’ve been hooking up, but I haven’t told anyone the way that Angelo makes me feel like I’ve discovered fire or invented the world’s first plane. He changes the darkness from an enemy into something conquerable; he transforms the sky from the place of dreams to the place where I can soar and see the world in an entirely new light.
I think Daisy might know, based on the looks she gives me, but I haven’t said anything aloud. Not yet.
