Page 75 of Night Shift

“I’m very aware,” he says through gritted teeth. “Forget foreplay, all right? I’m already so hard it hurts. You can just . . .”

He gestures meaningfully at his erection.

Because I sort of enjoy watching him squirm, I ask, “Just what?”

His eyes flash.

“Get it wet.”

There’s a slight edge to the command—a hint of snapped patience—that makes me clench down on nothing. But I’m not about to let Vincent see just how much I liked that, because I know it’ll go straight to his head. I’m trying to humble him here. So, I lean forward and lick one quick, gentle stripe up the length of him, from the root to the head. Above me, Vincent lets out a soft grunt but holds perfectly still. I lick another stripe, a little slower and with a little more pressure this time, cataloguing the feel of his hot skin against my tongue and praying my long-term memory stores this one safely.

And then, at last, I build up the nerve to wrap my hand around his shaft.

Immediately, I feel like a kid at a petting zoo. It’s an utterly absurd metaphor that I will not think about right now, because the last thing I want to do to this sweet boy is laugh into his crotch while I’m holding his dick. Vincent covers my hand with his. I’m convinced he’s read my mind and decided playtime is over, but then I realize he’s not trying to stop me. He’s showing me exactly how tight he wants me to grip him. It’s tight. Really tight. And when he uses my hand to pump up and down his spit-slicked shaft in one slow stroke, it’s rougher than I would’ve dared to.

I look up at him, wide-eyed. “Really?”

His lips twitch. “You won’t break it, Holiday.”

He says my last name like it’s a term of endearment, and there—in the eaves of my favorite bookstore, with Vincent Knight’s dick in my hand—I have a major life revelation.

I’m done being afraid of asking dumb questions or making a fool of myself. I refuse to let my fear of embarrassment cause me to miss out on something I really want to do, like getting white girl wasted with Nina and Harper, or writing my own romance novel, or giving the boy I’m completely obsessed with a blow job. This is me letting go of my nerves. This is me learning to put my pride aside, for both our sakes, and reminding myself that this is Vincent. He’s frustratingly good at calling me out on my shit and pressing my buttons, but he’s not going to purposefully make me feel ashamed for doing anything weird or wrong.

So, I grip him tight and pump my hand once, like he showed me.

Vincent’s chest rumbles with a hum of approval.

“Attagirl.”

When I cast a glance up, I find him watching me through heavy lashes with desire-drunk eyes. The unabashed appreciation on his face hits me like a shot of Nina’s top-shelf tequila sliding down my throat and pooling low in my belly—all heat.

“I’ve thought about this a lot,” I admit in a whisper. “About you.”

“I think about you all the fucking time,” Vincent says. “I had a chem exam yesterday, Kendall. I didn’t even study. I couldn’t. I kept thinking about how your voice gets all serious when you read poetry and how your nose scrunches up when you’re mad at me and how you taste.”

Something tightens in my chest.

It makes me bolder. I let my hand wander to the solid muscle of his thighs; to the tensed muscles of his abdominals; to the delicate trail of dark hair that starts just below his belly button and becomes a soft thicket around the base of his cock. He inhales sharply when my knuckles brush his balls. I’m briefly mortified that I’ve hurt him—because all I know about testicles is that you’re not supposed to go around smacking them—but Vincent reaches out to stroke my hair.

“You’re fine,” he says. “Sorry. Just surprised me.”

There’s a vaguely pleading look in his eyes that compels me to reach my hand up again and, very gingerly, cup his balls in my palm. I roll them a little, testing their weight, and the muscles in Vincent’s thighs and belly tighten up.

I didn’t realize how responsive male anatomy could be. It’s really feeding my ego.

“Is this okay?” I ask.

“It’s so fucking good,” Vincent says hoarsely. I think he realizes that I wasn’t kidding about wanting some directions, because he adds, “Keep touching them just like that, or you can—you can put your mouth on them—”

“Like this?”

I lean in and swipe my tongue over his hot skin.

Vincent sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth.

“Okay, that’s—that’s a little too good.”

He takes himself in one enormous hand, all golden tan and flushed pink skin and veins, and reaches out with the other to catch a piece of hair that’s fallen out of my bun. He tucks it safely behind the shell of my ear, fingertips lingering for a moment. He’s just . . . staring at me.

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