He twists a lock of hair around his pointer finger. “All I could see was the way you twined these waves around your fingers while you watched me from the corner of your eye.” His finger glides across my collarbone, dragging the strap of my dress off my shoulder, touching his lips to the freckles that live there. “The way the light from the screen danced along these shoulders.” With two fingers, he lifts my chin. “The way the moon shone in these eyes every damn time you smiled at me, like you were as happy to be there with me as I was with you. Fuck, I love these fucking eyes.”
His name leaves my lips on a whimper, and he wastes no time swallowing it, hands on my ass as he lifts me to him, my legs winding around his waist as he carries me around the truck. There’s a lowthud, and my heartbeat trips when he drops me on his tailgate.
Adam’s hands land on either side of me, bracketing me in as he leans over me. “So you’re gonna need to tell me what that movie was about, because I sure as fuck don’t know. All I know is you, Rosie. And I think that’s all I want to know.”
I lick my lips, the look in his eyes heady and starved. “I don’t know,” I admit.
“No?”
“No. I wasn’t…I wasn’t watching either.”
“Mmm…” His gaze drops to my thighs, and they spread for him, inviting him in, closer. I see the pleased smile he tries to hide before he steps between them, hands gliding up my legs, fingertips dipping below my dress, grabbing my hips. “So then what were you doing?”
“I was…” Fire brews in my belly and dries my throat as he shifts my dress higher and higher. “Distracted.”
“Distracted by what?”
“Your hand—you were doing—you kept—” His warm palm slides down my thigh, thumb skimming the hem of my dress. A shuddering breath escapes my throat, and I sigh as my skin dots with goose bumps. “Yeah. That.”
He chuckles lowly, warm breath skittering across my bare shoulder as he presses his lips there, trailing his mouth toward my neck, along the slope, finding its way to my ear. “I’m sorry I’m a distraction. But it’s only fair, isn’t it? If I’m not watching, neither are you.”
“Yeah, but I wasn’t…” My head drops between my shoulders as Adam pushes me back just a touch, one hand on my chest, the other wrapped around my bare hip as he opens his warm mouth against my neck. “I wasn’t making you…wild…by touching you.”
“Wild?”
“It was too much…and not enough. I wanted…” I gasp as he tugs the strap off my shoulder, slides his mouth along it, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin before his tongue soothes the faint bite. “More. God, I wanted more.”
“Is that right?” he murmurs. “You wanted to be touched where anyone could’ve seen you?”
“I…I don’t know.” Is that what I wanted? Out in the open, under the fake security that blanketed us beneath the dark sky? Would I have let him?
I know as soon as the question skates across my mind that the answer is yes. Not just yes, buthell yes. I’ve never been bold. I’m used to blending in; disappearing, really. I’ve spent so many years unseen. With Adam, for the first time in so long, I feel seen. But it’s more than that. I don’t just feel seen; I feel like I’m the only person in his world when I’m with him.
So would I have cared about anyone else if he’d dared touch me tonight? No, I wouldn’t have.
“I just wanted to be touched by you.”
A rough growl rumbles from his chest, a hum of approval that vibrates so deep, I feel it in my belly and right down to my toes. His palms drag up my thighs, his touch so feral, like he’s bordering on unhinged. “Like this?”
My chest rises and falls sharply. “Yes.”
“And what about this?” Fingers slip beneath my panties, grabbing two handfuls of my ass, squeezing me closer.
“Yes.”
“And this, Rosie? Did you want me to touch you like this?” His hands glide over my hips, bracketing the juncture of my thighs, holding them open for him as his thumbs graze along the edge of my panties, over ultra-sensitive skin, making me squirm. He hooks a finger under my chin, forcing my gaze to his as the pad of his thumb skims over my clit, making it ache more than it already is.
“Adam,” I cry quietly, my head falling backward. His mouth finds my throat, and I feel his smile there, his pleasure.
“Yes, Rosie?”
“Please,” I whimper. “Touch me, please.”
It’s that six-letter word, I think, that pushes him over the edge. He wastes no time flipping my dress up, revealing my panties, the soaked spot decorating the center of the pink silk.
“Jesus,” he rumbles, a shuddering breath leaving his lips before he takes my mouth with a kiss that leaves us both breathless and hot.
With a punishing grip, he digs his fingers into my hips, hooks his thumbs into the waist of my panties, and guides them down my legs, slipping my sandals off in the process. He crushes the silk in his fist, eyes hooded and hooked on the action before he stuffs them in his pocket and comes right back, hands on mine as he nudges my nose with his and claims a kiss that belongs only to him.