His hand slid from my waist slowly up my back, the other cupping my neck. Our lips came together tentatively, slowly. He tasted like scotch and sugar as his tongue brushed across my lips before gliding over my tongue. My pulse quickened as his hold tightened. I was breathless and thoughtless; the only thing in the world I craved was more of him.
When we broke apart, the sounds of the city swirled around us—cars honking, music playing from some street performer, and a distant siren wailing. I pulled in a ragged breath.
“Check,” he said in a low voice that overtook the din as we stood, wrapped in each other’s arms.
My heart thumped, and a coiling need urged me forward. An unexpected fountain of confidence bubbled up. “Do you want to go back to your hotel?”
Jake’s gaze was intent, flashing to my mouth. “More than you can imagine.”
A bolt of desire surged through my body when he looked at my lips that way, eyelids hooded. A breeze picked up again, and a shiver ran up my spine, but not from the chill. This was the boldest thing I’d done in years, and I was exposed. “Let’s go.”
He nodded, blew out a slow breath, and laced his fingers with mine.
* * *
In the back of the Uber, he traced circles over my hand and stroked my knee, inching up my thigh. The driver was two feet away, but when Jake leaned down to brush his lips to mine, I kissed him back, sweeping my tongue across his bottom lip. I hadn’t been touched in that slow, erotic way in so long. I wanted more.
Despite the hour, the hotel lobby was busy, and several other people climbed onto the elevator with us. They pressed me up against Jake, and he wrapped an arm behind me, his palm resting on my hip. “Are you sure?”
I leaned back on his hard chest. “Yes.”
His body tensed against mine. The sparks of electricity that had been coursing through me since he’d first grazed my skin now popped and flashed. Three people stepped off the elevator on floor sixteen, and we no longer needed to be so close, but we didn’t move until the ding of the elevator signaled his floor.
I’m really going to do this.
We stepped into the hall, and I held on to his arm as panic settled low in my body. I was following him to his room the night I’d met him, after drinking. Did he expect me to take charge or . . . what did he expect? I wanted him to move the action forward, so I didn’t have to. Feminist card: Revoked.
“I’m so glad I went into that bar tonight,” he said, his voice hoarse. He glanced down, a slow, admiring sweep of my body, and the heat of his gaze left me tingling.
“Me, too.”
He inserted the card twice to unlock the door, fumbling with the plastic. I smiled at his nervous movements, hoping it belied my own anxiety.
Does he have protection?
Will he care that my bra and panties don’t match?
Do you cuddle after a one-night stand?
Thank God I shaved my legs this morning.
Wait, did I?
The green light finally flashed, and he opened the door, something fluttering in my chest as we stepped inside and he flicked on the light.
What now?
Looking at my feet and tugging at my dress as we stood awkwardly inside his room, I wobbled, head light with alcohol. My breath quickened as Jake reached for me. His hand drifted over my shoulder, and his fingers wove into the strands of hair at the base of my neck.
“Hi,” I murmured, looking up at his face and inhaling his clean scent. My mind, normally racing with worst-case scenarios, was focused solely on the touch of his lips.
Our kisses grew hungrier, more demanding, and his fingers tangled in my hair, with just enough force to make me want to kiss him harder. I met his intensity, heat radiating between us, and I clung to him.
His fingers slipped from the back of my head down the side of my neck, and I shivered with the wave of pleasure that brief, gentle movement aroused in me. He planted three lingering kisses at my throat. The pace was so slow, I worried he was regretting the decisions and maybe thinking of a way out.
My heart thumped as the words fell from my mouth. “Do you still want . . . ?”
His wordless reaction to my question was immediate. He slanted his lips against mine, and the wet tip of his tongue swept over me with a slow, controlled pace, seeking entry. And his erection—Goddamn, his erection—imposing and wedged against my hip, twitched.
I was breathless by the time we pulled apart, his mouth pressing to the delicate skin by my ear, and I changed my mind about the slow kisses. Every time he shifted to a new spot, my body lit up.
“Yes, I still definitely want to. I’m just a little drunk,” he said into my neck. The vibrations of his voice rumbled against my skin.