“So . . . kind of like this?” He drops my hand, burning with the memory of his fingertips, and stretches forward. He skates his thumb along my jaw, draws my face closer so he can kiss me across the table.
Except—he doesn’t. Not right away. For a few seconds, he simply lingers there, lips a whisper from mine. Waiting. Finally, when I’m a moment away from leaping across the booth and crushing myself into his lap, he brushes his lips against mine so slowly. Sweetly, though he has to know how evil he is right now.
Before he pulls away, he teases his teeth along my bottom lip.
There. Evil.
“Yes,” I breathe, already missing the press of his mouth as he settles back into the booth. “And if the date is going really well, I might invite him over. It also depends.”
“On?”
“How badly I want him to touch me.”
His eyes are laser-focused on me, the silence between us electrically charged. Every ounce of my attention is focused on the hardening of his jaw and the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows. I lied—it isn’t that I want him to touch me. I need him to.
“Well. What’s the verdict?” His voice is a low, lovely scrape.
“Russ,” I say, placing my hand on his knee beneath the table. “Do you want to come over?”
We can’t get out of there fast enough.
19
FORECAST:
Record-breaking heat gives way to a satisfying downpour, putting an end to a five-year drought
BY THE TIME we get to my apartment, it’s dusk, the Seattle sunshine lingering only at the edge of the horizon.
“It’s very you.” Russell motions to a framed piece of art on my wall, a star-dotted black background with SWEATER WEATHER scrawled in white cursive.
I shrug out of my jean jacket, careful not to let the brooch’s sharp edges catch my dress as I hang it up. “A college graduation gift from my brother. You must have seen it before when you dropped me off.”
“True,” he says. “But I was too focused on making sure you were okay and trying my best not to let on that I was extremely attracted to you. It was a tricky balance.”
I bite back a grin. “Good to know you were suffering, too.”
He unlaces his shoes without asking if he needs to, setting them neatly at my door. Then he moves into the living room, eyes landing on my table of jewelry projects.
“This is where you make those earrings and necklaces?” he asks. “And brooches that you’re determined to bring back into style?”
“Yep,” I say, trying not to think about how long ago it was I mentioned the brooches, and whether it means he simply has a memory to rival Joanna’s or something else entirely. It was probably just that I was wearing one today. I lift my sling. “Though not a ton is happening right now.”
I head into the tiny kitchen, wondering what says I asked you here to get you into bed and the beverage is merely a formality at this point.
“Can I get you anything to drink?” I ask. “I have beer, wine, some hard cider.”
He lets out a rough laugh. “Honestly? No.”
“Oh, thank god. Because I really just want to skip to the part where we make out again.”
This seems to flip a switch in him. He strides forward, pinning me in the entrance of the kitchen, tilting my head upward so he can capture my mouth with his. I sink into the kiss, so eager to get my fingerprints on every inch of him that I’m not sure where to put my one good hand first. His chest, where his heart hammers against it. The back of his neck, where it’s easiest to pull myself closer. Into his hair, soft and lush and perfect.
When he parts my lips, he still tastes like cinnamon sugar.
I tug him out of his light spring jacket and drape it on the back of a chair, leading him the three steps from the kitchen to my room. Studio apartments have their advantages. A few more seconds and I’ve got him on my bed, my legs at his hips as I press my need against his, inhaling his exhales and swallowing every hungry sound he makes. He gives it all right back, trailing kisses along my jaw and down my neck, gripping my waist before his hands move up my sides, skimming my breasts. Just like in the Dugout, I’m stunned by how it can feel this good with most of our clothes still on.
And that fact makes me draw back for a moment, unable to catch my breath.
“I have to tell you something,” I say. He secures his hands at the base of my spine. “I—I’m nervous.”
He gives me a very serious look, compounded by the fact that he’s still wearing his glasses. “You should be. I haven’t done this in five years.”
When he cracks a smile, it breaks some of the tension between us, though my heart still drums a frantic beat against my ribcage. Because somehow I haven’t done this in five years turns me on even more.
There’s something undeniably hot about being the one to break his dry spell. In this moment, it feels like a privilege, and I’m honored he’s giving it to me.
“If you’re not comfortable,” he says, fingers stroking up my spine, “we can stop. We don’t have to do anything.”
“I want to.”
The nerves aren’t gone as I grab for him again—first for his glasses, which I place on the nightstand next to us—but the desire is stronger. Wilder. Still, I don’t have as much range of motion as I’d like.
“Have you ever seen anything sexier?” I ask as I slowly, dramatically remove my sling, dropping it onto the pale blue comforter with a flourish of my uninjured arm.
“How did you figure out my exact kink?”
I feel like I never stop laughing when I’m with him. It’s a little concerning, given my reluctance to jump into anything serious, but god, I want this. We’ve been on the edge of a cliff, and I might actually die if we don’t tumble off together tonight.
Gently, he tugs off my dress, his mouth exploring each new piece of me. A kiss to my navel. A bite at my hip. A stroke of his tongue in between my breasts and along the lace of my bra.
One-handed, I fumble with his belt, my hand skimming the curve of his stomach.
He recoils. “Sorry.”
“No—it’s okay,” I say, even as he’s reaching down to help me with the buckle. I want to tell him he has nothing to apologize for, but he seems ready to blaze past this, lips meeting mine again in desperate, open-mouthed kisses.
If I’m the one ending his drought, I want this to be the best fucking sex he’s ever had.
My hand is too impatient as it dives inside his jeans, finding him warm and stiff and already straining against his boxer briefs. God. He reacts instantly—a sharp intake of breath. A low moan that sets my nerve endings on fire. Slowly, I rub back and forth as his head drops to my neck.
“That night on the retreat. In your room,” he murmurs, pressing kisses along my collarbone. His cock pulses in his boxers against my hand. I’m dying to see what he looks like without all this cotton and denim in the way. “I was hiding the most painful hard-on of my life. When you hugged me, I thought I was going to pass out.”
“You were such a gentleman, though.”
“On the outside, yes. You’d just fractured your elbow. No way in hell was I going to initiate anything. But my mind . . . was fucking filthy.”