His upper lip quirks up for half a second as he pours, quietly pleased. “You just spent several days risking life and limb trudging through mud with me. You’ve shared a tent with me. How could I be making you nervous now?”
“I wasn’t about to sleep with you any of those times.”
His eyes darken in a way that makes me shiver. Feral, dangerous, certain eyes. “And you’re about to now?”
“We could play Monopoly if you prefer.”
“Monopoly is a stupid fucking game,” he says, stepping between my legs. He’s decided something. I shiver again.
“Sounds like someone’s not very good at Monopoly.”
He pulls the champagne flute from my hand. “I could kick your ass at Monopoly. Grab St. James Place and you’ve won the game.”
He pulls my hips to his, his gaze trailing over my face before he leans down and kisses me. A light kiss made of whispers. A brush, a graze, his breath offering nearly as much pressure as his mouth.
“I haven’t really done this before,” I whisper. “Been present for it, I mean. I'm always drunk or high or half-asleep or just…zoning out.”
He stops for a moment and studies me. “Why?”
I shrug. I know it makes no sense. Half my songs are about sex and the truth is I find it terrifying. “It was too…intimate. And I’ve always tried to bypass that feeling, but I don’t want it to be that way with you.”
He pushes the hair away from my face. “I want the real you, bad or good. Don’t pretend things are fine if they’re not, okay?”
I nod and pull him back to me. When he kisses me again, my nerves disappear, because he’s so damned good at this. I’ve been kissed a thousand times by men who treated it like an annoying pitstop before the journey could begin. Josh kisses like this is the journey right here, as if this alone is enough.
It feels as if I’m made of warm air and little else. As if, without the weight of his hands, I might float away entirely or melt into a puddle at his feet.
His hands slide up to the silk tank and run beneath it, gliding over my skin, calloused thumbs grazing my rib cage, the underside of my breasts. Just the barest brush of his thumb but I feel it everywhere.
A man has never made me gasp simply by touching my breasts, but I’m not sure I’ve ever been seduced in precisely this way before either. As if I’m something precious and fragile, something to be savored.
“You okay?” he asks. He is hard as steel now, wedged between us, pressing against me.
“It was a good gasp,” I reply breathlessly.
His fingers slide to my back and undo my strapless bra, removing it from beneath the shirt with practiced ease.
He pulls his head back just enough to glance down. My nipples poke the confines of the silk aggressively now, rubbing against the smooth fabric with every breath I take.
He shakes his head. “You tortured me on that goddamned trip.” Over the tank, he runs a palm over one nipple before brushing it with his thumb, flicking it with his forefinger. I arch into his touch and my thighs tighten around him in response. I feel it everywhere. “I tried so fucking hard not to look,” he groans. He bends to take one of my nipples between his teeth, tank and all. There’s something strangely erotic in his refusal to undress me, in the feel of the now-wet silk against sensitive skin.
My legs lock around his waist, trying to pull him closer. I rock my hips, desperate for friction. If it takes him ten seconds to get inside me, that will be ten seconds too long. I reach for the button on his shorts.
His mouth is still on my breast. He raises a brow, stays my hand. “In a rush?”
“I’m ready,” I tell him in lieu of the much cruder words I might normally use. I have no idea why I’m suddenly so timid. Maybe it’s simply that I don’t want to be Drew Wilson today. I don’t want to be the brazen pop star who sings about sex without a hint of embarrassment. With Josh, I just want to be me, the real me. And that person is uncertain and even a little scared by this whole thing.
His hand slides up my thigh and presses between my legs. I see it in his face the moment he notes that my thong is soaked. It’s like an electric charge.
“So you are,” he says, removing his hand. He lifts me up and starts moving us toward the bedroom. “But I have thought about this for an extremely long time, and I want to savor it.”
I snort, wrapping my legs around his waist. He carries me as if I weigh nothing at all. “You didn’t even like me until a week ago.”
“Wrong,” he says, laying me on the bed. “And I’d have given up everything I own for this even if I didn’t like you.”
“That would be more flattering if you owned anything.”
He laughs, kneeling between my legs to remove my tank at last, his eyes traveling over the exposed skin. I’ve never seen someone observe me the way he is now, like I’m some lost artifact no one thought was real.
“I’m feeling a little naked here,” I tell him. “And if you turn that into a joke about the fucking song, I will kill you. I’ll probably kill you and then have sex with your corpse, if that’s anatomically possible, but the part where you die is the certainty.”
He gives a low laugh and then starts to unbutton his shirt, tossing it behind him when he’s done. “Better?” he asks.
All I can do is nod my approval, my eyes glued to his perfect chest. I’ve seen him without a shirt, of course, many times. But never like this…never above me, so much larger, so…mine. It’s too much and not enough all at once. I’ll never be able to get my fill of him. “Come here,” I say, reaching up. His bare chest presses to mine. Skin to skin. The sensation is heady and intoxicating. I wish I could keep him like this forever, but this is probably only happening because I can’t. That’s what makes him safe.
His mouth moves to my neck as his hand slides inside my panties at last. I can’t hold in the moan that escapes me.
“Jesus,” he whispers, his strong fingers slipping in me and over me and making conscious thought difficult. He tugs the panties down my thighs and I kick them off as I reach for him. The button on his shorts releases easily, and I slide his boxers down just enough to see that tattoo I once glimpsed—a snake climbing a pole, inside this weird star.
“I wondered what was here,” I tell him, my voice throaty with desire.
He glances down at my fingers, pressing against it. His nostrils flare as if even this much contact is too much. “It’s the Star of Life,” he says. “Symbol of emergency medicine. I lost a bet and that’s what my friends picked.”
They chose well. “What will I find if I keep exploring?” I ask, and my hand ventures further into his boxers until I grip him, hot and firm in my hand.
He stills for a moment, his eyelids fluttering closed. “Fuck,” he groans as my hand wraps around him. “Drew…it’s been a really long time.” He sounds like he’s choking.
“Good,” I whisper. “Then you’ll be able to go more than once.”
He gives a pained laugh as my palm slides over him. He’s thick in my hand, long and smooth as I stroke him from base to tip. His hand wraps around my wrist to stop me. “I don’t think that’s anything you’ll have to worry about.”