This Summer Will Be Different(39)

Would it really be so wrong if I crept downstairs and slipped into bed with Felix? It’s not like Bridget had told me explicitly not to sleep with him. The rule that we had agreed on was that I wouldn’t fall in love with him. I had no interest in falling in love with Felix. Having his mouth and hands all over me, however, I was very much in favor of.

I walked to the door but hesitated, wondering whether I should turn around.

“Fuck it,” I whispered to myself. I deserved an orgasm or seven.

I flung open the door, tiptoed downstairs, quiet and quick. I knocked the way he’d shown me two years earlier. Tap, tap, pause, tap.

Felix was pulling a shirt over his head when the door opened. He wore pajama pants and a surprised expression. For a second, neither of us spoke.

Now that I was standing here, I wasn’t sure what my move was. “I used our knock,” I whispered.

Felix grinned. “I’d forgotten about the knock. Something on your mind, Lucy?”

“Yes.” I cleared my throat. “You.”

We stared at each other for a slice of a second before Felix wrapped his arm around my waist and brought his mouth to mine, his lips urgent. It was exactly what I wanted, but I was still so shocked by the suddenness of the kiss that my knees began to buckle. His arm tightened around my middle, holding me firm. I moaned.

He pulled back an inch, breathing heavily, a smile slinking across his lips. “Should we take this inside?”

It was only then that I realized we were standing in the doorway. I looked into the TV room over his shoulder. “I’ve never been able to say no to a pull-out couch.”

Felix laughed, tugging me into the room. He shut the door and drew me closer. I melted into his chest as we kissed again, my hands compassing his shoulder blades. His found the back of my head, confident, angling my face, his tongue hot on mine. There was no space between us, only layers of fabric and him, already hard. It felt like sex, the way he devoured me, the way I squirmed against him, my body seeking friction, seeking him. I’d been kissed by Felix, but never like this.

Felix ran his fingers along one of my braids, then set it behind my shoulder. He worked at the lace at my throat, untying the thin satin ribbon, moving much slower than he had seconds ago; then he lowered his mouth to my collarbone.

“We’re terrible. We said we wouldn’t,” I said, shuddering at the graze of teeth and then the soft sweep of lips coasting up my neck. My pulse thudded under his mouth.

“We can stop,” Felix said, his lips moving back to mine. But he didn’t kiss me. He waited.

“No,” I told him. “I want more.”

His thumb swept across my bottom lip, and I sucked it into my mouth. He groaned.

“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. How you look when you’re naked. How you sound when you come. I’ve had a hard-on like a fucking fourteen-year-old since I walked in the door.” His nose slid along mine. “You’re a goddamn wonder.”

His words were gas on a flame. Felix opened his mouth to speak again, but I put my lips on his, smothering the sentence. Hours of pretending I didn’t want every inch of his body pressed against mine vanished. The kiss was frantic. Greedy mouths and desperate tongues. Hands cuffed around backsides. Hips rocking.

I scrambled to get his T-shirt off, my nails scraping over his skin. I ran my fingers through the soft dusting of hair on his chest, over his strong shoulders, then pressed my mouth to his neck. I shivered at the drag of his rough palm along my rib cage, over my hip, to the top of my thigh.

“Can you do me a favor?” Felix asked.

“Pretty sure there’s nothing I wouldn’t agree to right now.”

He inched up my nightgown, then led my fingers to the hem. “Hold this for me?”

“I can take it off.”

“I like it,” he said, kneeling. “I like imagining everything that’s hidden underneath.”

I laughed, but then he traced a line on my inner thigh with his mouth, and every muscle I owned clenched. Felix nipped at the flesh, his beard tickling and scratching. He held me open, pushing aside the lace of my underwear, flicking his tongue until I started to wobble.

“If you think my core strength is good enough for me to stay standing for this, you have seriously overestimated my fitness level,” I whispered, and felt his chuckle roll through me.

“I’m serious,” I said, pulling on his elbows. “I have the exercise routine of a starfish.”

He stood, grinning. “Shush.”

Felix planted messy kisses to my temple, cheek, the corner of my mouth, as we lifted off the nightgown and stumbled to the mattress. We collapsed onto the pull-out together, and the springs let out a loud eeeeerrrrrch. We froze, Felix on top of me, smiles smooshed together.

Felix stayed still for another few breaths. His hand coasted over my thigh, and as if he could feel how tense I was, he said, “The door’s locked, Lucy. The worst that could happen is someone will knock.”

“That would be extremely bad.” But Felix’s fingers moved between my legs to where my every nerve was screaming to be disrupted, and then his mouth followed. When he pulled my underwear off, lifted my leg over his shoulder, and told me he loved how I tasted, I forgot where we were. I put my hand over my mouth when I came, but Felix stayed where he was, sucking and kissing, until I reached for him. He stood with a satisfied grin, digging a condom out from his backpack. I wondered how many he’d used on his trip.