Jacob
Becoming a doctor took discipline. Studying. Long hours. Sacrifice. But none of it required more discipline than not touching Sutton for the twenty minutes she and I spent in a cab on the way back to her place.
I knew that once I touched her, it would take an earthquake to stop us both. The sexual tension had been slowly simmering all night and was now threatening to boil over. The feeling was so thick, you could almost gather it up and tie it into bows.
The cab pulled to a stop and I tapped my phone against the card machine.
I’d been so focused on not touching Sutton that I hadn’t realized we were heading to Hampstead. At least I wouldn’t have a long trip home, whenever that might be.
“This is me,” she said as she took steps down to a basement flat. “It was the only thing I could afford where I didn’t have to share.”
Thank fuck we didn’t have to worry about waking her roommates. I was determined to make her scream.
She unlocked the door and we stepped inside.
We were alone. Finally.
Her heavy breaths hypnotized me as her breasts pushed up against the fabric of the blue top that had fascinated me all evening. I stepped toward her and she stepped back.
“Can I get you a drink?”
I shook my head.
“You look like you’re about to devour me. It’s both completely unnerving and surprisingly hot.” She backed down the corridor into her bedroom and I followed her.
I laughed, and it relieved a little of the tightness in my shoulders and chest. “I am about to devour you. I hope you’re ready for it.”
She stopped and nodded. “I’m ready.”
I wet my lips, holding her gaze, wondering where to start. She tilted her head, displaying her long, graceful neck, and I stepped closer, forked my fingers into her hair, and pressed a chaste kiss to her jaw.
I took in her warm scent of summer flowers, delicate like sweet peas and something feminine I couldn’t quite place but fit her perfectly. Three seconds ago, I was wound so tight I was about to snap. Now it was just the two of us in the dim light of her flat, feeling her breaths against my skin, finally able to touch her. It was as if I’d dived into a pool of feathers. Time had lost all meaning. The urgency had abated. I might have snapped, but she’d broken my fall.
I held her head up so our eyes met. “Hey,” I whispered.
The corners of her mouth lifted and she parted her full lips. My stomach lilted like her half-smile had me in free fall.
“Hey,” she replied, a rasp in her voice. I wasn’t sure if it was lust caught in her throat or the knowledge that this was where she was supposed to be had relaxed her to the point of being sleepy.
I wasn’t meant to have taken this woman to dinner tonight, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow the universe had arranged itself to put me in this exact spot at this exact moment. I was sure she felt it too.
Her palm slid up my chest, and her fingers found the edge of my jaw. I closed my eyes, drinking in her touch. We were both fully clothed. We both knew what was going to happen next, but there was this part before that, that I wanted to string out and make last like the glow of embers before they burst into flame. It was the simmer before the boil, the hazy glow just before sunrise—the moment before The Moment that I didn’t want to rush through.
“Undress.” I took a step back and sat on the bed behind me. “I want to watch.” I want to savor every second with you.
She hesitated at first, as if deciding whether she was going to comply. Thankfully, she moved her hands to her waist and undid her jeans. She paused again and glanced up from under her eyelashes at me.
I nodded, encouraging her to take the next step.
Slowly, like she was trying to torture me, she peeled her jeans off her legs, revealing nude lace underwear that tortured me with what lay beneath. She straightened, transferring her weight from foot to foot as I stared between her legs.
“More,” I said, my voice taking on a deeper, darker tone.
She paused then shifted, her hands skimming her stomach, and pulling her blue top up and over her head. Discarding her clothes, she ran her thumb under the strap of her nude lace bra as if she were trying to make sure it was positioned correctly.
It was—I knew like I could feel it, like my thumb was where hers was, like I was feeling the fabric and her flesh. I had to suppress a groan.
My attention was caught by the dusky pink of her taut nipples pressing through the lace of the bra.