Deep End(41)

Pick his list up, I tell myself. And read it. Even out the playing field. But I can’t. It’s the same brand of bloodcurdling, muscle-freezing paralysis that seizes me when I attempt an inward dive.

What if—it doesn’t work.

What if—I mess up again.

What if—I’m being given a chance, and I squander it.

What if I’m not good enough.

“I haven’t—” I fidget with my hair. “I experimented a bit with my ex, but haven’t done much of this stuff.” He knows. There is a column on the sheet dedicated to that, which I filled. I completed my assignment. Yet I power through. “There are a couple of things that . . . They’d depend on how you want to approach them. I put asterisks next to them.” He lowers the paper and stares at me from over it, unsettlingly undecipherable. I shift on my feet. “And I couldn’t understand what—”

I don’t get to finish that sentence. Because Lukas Blomqvist takes a long step, pushes me into the wall, and kisses me.





CHAPTER 23


IFIRST FEEL IT IN MY SHOULDER BLADES, SUDDENLY PRESSED against the wall with too much strength. The back of my head could have suffered the same fate, but Lukas’s hand cushioned the impact, one palm wrapped against my nape as the other curls around my jaw.

It starts simple enough—lips crushed together, his chest as flush to me as it can physically be, given the differences in our heights. When his tongue brushes against mine, there’s an explosion at the base of my spine. Tentative, testing, gentle.

Then, instantly, not at all.

All at once it’s filthy. Deep. Sharp. Lukas’s lips are hot. His tongue is hot. His fingers, framing my face, are hot.

My entire body is on fire.

He hears the catch of my breath and takes advantage of it, tilting my head farther, an impossible angle that allows him to control the kiss, to lick inside my mouth and leave no place untouched.

It’s all-consuming. My mind whites out. I loop my arms around his neck, fuzzy brained and blurry edged, and he finds a way to pull me even closer. He rumbles something, but it’s not in English. So I focus on his hand traveling down my backbone, palm wide, like he wants to use all of it to feel me, won’t miss a single inch of flesh. It reaches the place where the hem of my shirt brushes against my lower back, gently lifts it, and his skin finally—finally—touches mine.

I fist my nails in his shoulder.

A whiny sound crawls up my throat. A needy grunt punches out of his.

We breathe fast and loud in each other’s mouths, and his grip shifts to my hip, rough and demanding, slipping under the waistband of my joggers—until noise seeps in from the outside.

A cart being pulled. Stacks of books falling. Hushed apologies. We both freeze, coil-muscled, long enough to regain some common sense.

Or at least, for me to do that. I unwind my arms from his shoulders, inching back against the wall to put space between us. Lukas seems to have a harder time letting go. Even after his hands leave my waist and my cheeks, he’s still unwilling to pull away. He remains there, hulking into me, a cage of bone and muscles and hungry eyes, fists white-knuckled against the wall, on either side of my head. His tattoos clench and release.

He’s trying to get himself under control, but he’s not quite there.

I reach up to touch the freckles that fill the hollow under his cheekbone, and he exhales a slow laugh, no more than a puff of breath against my temple, stymied and hot. A smile builds inside me in response, and I lift my chin to kiss him again. This time it’s a slow thing, even as his heart races against my skin. His lips slip against mine, quiet, almost sweet, and my hand closes in the fabric of his shirt, a silent, reassuring I’m here, I’ve got you.

I savor his face buried in my neck, the tickle of his stubble, the rough, throaty groan as he inhales my skin. His warmth and scent and sheer size, pressing into me. Odd, how this started out frenzied and wild, but evolved into something languid. Just easy.

“We need to stop,” I say evenly, running a hand through the short hair at the back of his head. When he draws away, his eyes are open and earnest.

He pulls a chair back, hair a little tousled. It’s an invitation to sit down and give him space.

“You okay?” I ask when we’re both at the table.

His nod is quick. When I smile, he smiles back. Tense, maybe, but sincere.

“Do I have to read your list?” I ask, eyeing the still-folded sheet. “Can we just . . . skip that part?”

His eyebrows knit. “No.”

“No, I don’t have to read it—?”

“No, you cannot skip it.”

“Says who?”

“The rules.”

I tilt my head. “Who made the rules?”

“Me.”

Tilt it more.

“I think you’re okay with that, Scarlett,” he says.

Tilt it more.

“Hard for me to buy that you don’t like me taking charge, given what I just read.” His words are calm, but my cheeks glow. He’s right. In a sense, he might know me better than anyone in the entire world.

I’m not sure how to deal with that.

“You know I’m not some kind of pushover, right? This is about sex. I’m not looking for some kind of twenty-four seven arrangement.”

His eyes harden. “Scarlett, you need to read my list, because the only way we can do this in a healthy and sane way is if we both know what to expect.” His stare is measuring. “What are you afraid of? That there will be things I want and you don’t want, and I’ll ask you to do them anyway? ”