Page 150 of A Love Letter to Whiskey
She closed her eyes, and I realized then how hard that time of her life had been — not just because of her dad, but because of us, too. I sighed, turning my hand so I could take hers in my grasp.
“I was fucked up,” she whispered after a moment. “And I needed time.”
The light turned green, and I moved my eyes to the road once more, but B kept her hand over mine as I shifted gears.
“And now?” I asked.
B was silent a moment more.
“Now, I’m sitting in your Jeep, and nothing has changed, yet everything has.”
I nodded, frowning, not knowing what that meant. Everything had changed. Three years had turned both of us into entirely new people.
And yet…
B sucked in a breath before continuing. “And I’m wondering how much longer you’ll fight the urge to kiss me before you finally give in.
My eyes snapped to hers then, not sure I heard her correctly.
“Because I leave in less than forty-eight hours, Jamie,” she whispered, her shoulders deflating with desperation and longing. “And I need you to kiss me before I board that plane.”
I didn’t expect it.
I didn’t expect her to tell me out right, without playing games or making me read into what she wasn’t saying.
She wanted me.
She needed me.
I took a sharp turn, cracking my neck as my heart thudded hard in my ribcage.
“I’m taking you to my place. Now,” I said. “If you didn’t mean even a word of what you just said, you have roughly seven minutes to take it back. After that, you’re not allowed to say another word, not even my name, because I’m going to fuck you speechless.”
I turned, waiting for her to argue, for her to tell me we shouldn’t. I was testing her, challenging her, daring her to fight. Because that was the last warning I would give before I took her.
And this time, I would take a bigger piece of her when I did, and I wouldn’t give it back — no matter what happened after tonight.
B only licked her lips and uttered two words that were my undoing.
“Drive faster.”
• • •
Warning bells sounded loud in my ears as I slammed my front door closed behind B, immediately pinning her against it and tossing my keys when I did. She wrapped her legs around me, her high heels digging into my ass as I crushed my mouth to hers.
That first kiss, that first taste of her after so long was enough to make me come right then and there. Just her lips on mine, her tongue, her whimper at the touch set my soul on fire.
Someone could have pushed me off her in that moment and told me the heartbreak that would come later, and I still would have shoved them aside and taken her, anyway.
There was no walking away. Not then, not ever.
I stripped her top off like the scrap of fabric it was, groaning when I realized she didn’t have a bra on underneath. Her dark nipples pebbled, peaks rising, and I would have sucked each one between my teeth had she not moaned my name next.
“Jamie,” she begged.
“Shh,” I warned, meaning what I said in the Jeep.
I didn’t want her to say a fucking word — not until she was coming and screaming my name.
There was a little hate flowing between us as I carried her into my kitchen, but it was the kind of hate that was just across the thin line between it and all-consuming love. I hated her for what she’d done to me, for how she’d left me, for the time she’d denied us. But I also loved her so fiercely that it didn’t matter what she did to me — I’d still want her.
How fucking sick it was, and yet, how perfectly right it felt.
I dropped her to the ground in front of my kitchen counter. “Take these off,” I rasped, tugging at her jeans before my hands were on my own pants, making quick work of the button and zipper. My eyes snapped to her heels next. “Leave those on.”
The side of B’s mouth curled up into an impressed smile, like she was about to devour the man I’d grown into in her absence. She took her sweet ass time with her jeans, her breasts bobbing, nipples teasing me with every move she made until her jeans were around her ankles. She stepped out of her heels long enough to shake them off, and then she stepped right back in.
And there she stood, her perfect body illuminated by the light in my kitchen, wearing nothing but a scrap of black lace around her hips and those tall ass high heels.
“Good girl,” I mused, stripping out of my boxers next. I palmed my aching erection as my eyes trailed over her, and I could have pumped myself three times right then and come on that beautiful canvas she was presenting me with.
