Page 45 of Night Shift

“Oh, absolutely not,” I say, trying to look stern despite the fact that I’m still grinning. “This bodysuit belongs to my roommate. It’s her favorite, and I’m just borrowing it, so I’m going to need you to please refrain from dramatically tearing it off me.”

Vincent puts his hands up in surrender. “Well, now I don’t trust myself. Could you do the honors?”

I make a show of sighing, like this is a huge inconvenience, and reach down between my legs. Vincent’s eyes track my every move as I gently pop open the snaps of my bodysuit. It takes me a few tries, because I’m trembling, but eventually I get them undone. Now I’m glad I wore nice underwear tonight—plain, inoffensive, forgiving black cotton.

It’s fitting that I’ve worn black for, as Nina would probably put it, the funeral of my virginity.

“There,” I say, stacking my hands one over the other on my stomach. “Please proceed.”

Vincent’s eyes rake up and down my body, leaving trails of heat wherever they’ve been. Down my neck; the valley of my breasts; between my hip bones.

“God, I’m in trouble,” he whispers, so softly that I’m not entirely sure he means for me to hear him. He reaches out and strokes his fingers against the cotton of my underwear where it’s stretched taut over my cunt—and it’s the first time in my life I’ve thought of it as that. My cunt. I’ve only ever encountered that terminology in erotic novels, and it’s never seemed to fit into my everyday vocabulary. It’s too blunt a word. Too harsh. But the gentle press of Vincent’s fingertips and knuckles has me thinking all kind of blunt, harsh words.

I let out a heavy breath.

“Let’s get these off of you too,” Vincent murmurs.

I don’t wait for him to help. I hook my fingers under the waistband at my hips, press my heels into the bed, and arch up off the mattress. With a few tugs and a bit of pulling my knees up to my chest, I’ve got my underwear off and in one hand. I chuck it indiscriminately across the room. I don’t even watch to see where it lands.

And then it’s done. I’m half naked in front of someone else for the first time.

Vincent won’t stop staring.

“What?” I snap.

“Nothing,” he says. Then, softly: “You look good in my bed.”

My heart clenches. I try to deflect the feeling, because it’s too much. “I’d better look good. It took me half an hour to do my makeup. You have no idea how hard it is to get your eyeliner even.”

Vincent’s lips twitch. “You’re right. I have no idea.”

He leans down to kiss me. I’m glad for the momentary break from being viewed. This all feels a lot easier when my eyes are closed and Vincent’s mouth is on mine—or sliding along my jaw, down my neck, into the valley between my breasts.

His eyes land on the place where Nina’s bodysuit stretches over the curve of my right tit. The flicker of heat in his expression leaves me winded. Vincent looks like he’s suddenly thinking of a hundred ways to ruin me. And I’d let him. I want him to slide a hand under the fabric and do whatever the hell he wants with my phenomenal tits. I don’t care if he brushes a thumb over my nipple, featherlight and tender, while I squirm and giggle. I don’t care if he takes an entire tit in his hand and squeezes it, like he’s rock climbing and needs to find purchase. I don’t care if he twists and sucks at my nipple until I’m screaming and sobbing and begging him to do terrible things to me.

I just want to see what he wants to do. I want the surprise of his desire.

But then Vincent inhales hard, like he’s pulling himself together, and settles back on his knees between my legs.

“I think I should warm you up,” he says.

“Warm me up?” I croak.

And my liquefied little brain is too slow to catch on—because even when Vincent crouches low and wraps his arms around my thighs, I don’t understand what he means. Not until he ducks his head and licks one long, slow stripe right up the seam of me, from opening to clit. His mouth is so hot and wet, and the sight of his dark hair between my legs and his eyelashes against his cheeks is so utterly erotic, that I gasp in shock.

When Vincent lifts his head, there’s a proud gleam in his eyes.

“Like that.”

I don’t have it in me to make a witty comment—or to rocket launch myself into self-consciousness about how I must look at this angle or what I taste like. The world has narrowed into one small point of light. My whole face is hot. Even my neck and chest are on fire.

“It’s your birthday,” I say, a weak attempt at a joke. “Shouldn’t I be giving you a gift?”

“Believe me, Holiday. You are.”

And then he ducks his head and seals his mouth over me. I let out a shuddering breath and grab one fistful of the duvet beneath me. My other hand knots into Vincent’s hair while he works his jaw like he’s kissing me. Or like he’s trying to devour me. It’s hard to tell. His tongue traces laps up and down, swiping inside and then flicking at the bundle of nerves that makes my right hamstring tremble.

Vincent moves his tongue and slips one finger inside me. It goes in so fucking easily. If I weren’t halfway out of my mind right now, I might blush at the soft, slick pop of him sliding in right to the second knuckle. But it’s not enough—not even close—so I rock my hips up, seeking more friction, more pressure, more anything.

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