I let out a startled little gasp at the touch of it. His words kissed me as his eyes devoured me. Even though zero parts of us were touching, I could feel him all over, including deep down inside of me, where all kinds of feelings were starting to boil and pop under my skin. I couldn’t hold back the urge to touch him anymore, so I lifted my shaking hands and put them on the center of his chest. Rock-hard muscle tensed at the light touch; my knees went a little weak at the contrasting texture of his soft cotton T-shirt and the cold brush from the unbending material of his leather jacket. He wrapped the hand that wasn’t braced over my head around one of my wrists, and for a second I thought he was going to pull my hands off of him. Instead, his thumb found the soft spot on the inside of my wrist, where my pulse was racing, and started to brush back and forth.
“You don’t want to hear my story. Remember?” The words squeaked out as he lowered his head a tiny bit, his pale blue eyes raging like a winter storm as we watched each other unblinkingly.
It was a story I never told to anyone, completely. My story was the opposite of a fairy tale, and I knew there was no way a happy ending was lurking somewhere beyond the ever present dead end. I was shocked that I wanted to tell him, wanted to explain to him, why I did the things I did. I wanted him to understand.
His chin dipped down and suddenly that gap that was separating us was gone. The tips of his boots were touching my bare toes. He dropped my wrist so that his hand could fit its way in the large gap at the side of the overalls and sit on my hip. That was a lot of naked skin his palm landed on and I could see the awareness flare to life in his gaze. Considering my small stature and the size of his hands, if he spread his fingers out he would be both under the edge of my tank top and at the top of my underwear at the same time. God, did I want him to put his hands all over me.
“I find myself wanting a lot of things I shouldn’t want where you’re concerned, Avett.” His head lowered until his lips were separated from mine by nothing more than a whisper. “Like that kiss you tried to give me the other day. I wanted it so bad, which is why I couldn’t take it. I don’t have anything to give back if I take what you’re offering. But I haven’t been able to stop thinking about how it would feel, or about how you would taste.” He exhaled and it made my lips part and my tongue dart out to try and capture his flavor and essence on the tip of it. I wanted to know how he tasted just as badly as he wanted to know how I tasted. His tone dropped lower, his voice rasping across sharp and pointy things deep inside of him as he told me, “I want the story and the kiss, Avett.” His lips touched mine in a featherlight caress that made time stand still. Made me wonder if I had been born for no other reason than to kiss this man. “You can decide what order they come in.” There was husky humor in his tone, but before he could close the final millimeter of space between us, I pushed on his chest.
“This is a bad idea.” I knew it. I could feel it deep in my bones and the allure of letting go, of doing what I always did, and falling headfirst into disaster, was pulling at me hard. But I was supposed to be changing. I was supposed to actually be sorry, not just saying it and turning around into the next catastrophe. I knew kissing Quaid Jackson was going to lead to all kinds of sorry and sorrow. I knew it as much as I knew I didn’t care and that I was going to kiss him and chase this bad idea until it crashed and burned, like they always did.
“You made a lot of them lately. What’s one more?”
He was right. What was one more? Especially when it looked like him, when it smelled sleepy and expensive like he did, when it felt hot and hard pressed up against me. What was one more awful choice when it came with lips that were firm and demanding as they landed against mine? What was one more impending disaster, when it was attached to rough hands that brushed along my exposed rib cage and paused under the achy swell of my breast? What was one more bad decision on top of all of the other ones that had led this particular mammoth-sized bad decision to my door?
I had plenty of time, tomorrow, to do the right thing, but now I was going to enjoy the hell out of the wrong thing as he pressed his mouth more insistently into mine, taking the choice of which came first—the kiss or the story—out of my hands. Maybe that was why I was so drawn to him, so attracted to everything there was about him. He didn’t give me the room or the chance to make any kind of choice, good or bad. He decided and I followed his lead towards victory or towards ruin … and this kiss felt like it had both of those things threaded throughout it.
It was the first time in my life that a bad idea felt like the best idea I had ever had.
CHAPTER 8
Quaid
I shouldn’t have my mouth on her.
I shouldn’t have my hands on her.
My dick definitely shouldn’t be hard and pressing painfully against my zipper as she whimpered into my mouth, as her tongue curled around mine.
None of this should be happening, but neither my brain nor my libido seemed inclined to put a stop to it. As my hand wandered even farther up her side and under the hem of her tiny top only to encounter softer¸ naked skin and the heavy swell of a plump breast, I couldn’t be happier that my common sense decided to take the night off. She felt like a dream. Like a dirty, sexy dream that woke me up in the middle of the night hard and hurting. She felt like a dream that made me sweat and shake as I chased down something I couldn’t describe, and that I was sure I had never felt before. She felt like the dream that I was lost in and aching from right before she called me and woke me up.