I stared at him.
I needed him too. Maybe too much. Maybe more than I should, but he was sitting right in front of me, and … maybe I needed a bit of life in me too.
Maybe I needed a little bit of him.
Maybe all of him, if he would actually give it.
“Maybe we just need to get this out of our systems. Maybe that is all this is. Then we can move on.”
He nodded, still staring at me, as if he couldn’t pry his eyes away. “Yeah, that could be it. But Brielle…”
“What?” I asked, waiting for him to finish what he was about to say.
He just smiled, shook his head. “Nothing.”
I kissed him like I meant it. He kissed me like he did too.
twenty-one
He pulledme onto his lap in one smooth motion, and I followed his lead. Like a dance. Already, I could tell we’d be great partners.
I spread my legs over his thighs. I held the sides of his face, feeling the slight prickle of stubble along his jawline as I tilted his chin and turned his head up to meet me. Kiss after kiss, his tongue swept in to completely whisk me away to an entirely different world.
I didn’t feel like I was sitting on an old couch in the middle of a living room turned bedroom, where the honks of cars and the buzz of the television behind us were our constant companion.
I was only with Josh.
I could only see Josh through each peek I took through my eyelashes to watch him kiss me.
I would only smell Josh and his earthy musk and sweet eucalyptus body wash.
I could only hear the small sounds that Josh made—from tiny, humming moans to the hitch of his breath when I swooped in for an even deeper kiss, deeper touch.
All I could feel was Josh.
I fell into the feeling of his hands and, dear Lord, his mouth. Each kiss deepened, and our bodies pressed together. Every touch, every caress sent shivers through me, igniting a heat that I had long ago tamped down when I believed once and for all that Josh would never like me and that my crush as a teenager—and even after that—was just a crush.
But this? This proved that theory wrong. It blew it completely out of the water.
I gasped against his mouth.
Josh’s hands roamed my body with a hunger that matched my own, his touch setting my skin ablaze with need. My teeth grazed over his bottom lip, and he groaned.
I pulled away slightly, breathless and flushed, my eyes locking with his in a silent exchange of raw desire. Without a word, we both knew what was about to happen between us. It was inevitable, unstoppable.
His hands slid up over my arms to my shoulders, brushing the collar of my cardigan aside. He kissed over my collarbone until I reached up to help him the rest of the way, unbuttoning the top.
He chuckled. “Buttons.”
I giggled with him as if it were some kind of joke we were both in on as he worked on the second one. “Buttons.”
He placed a kiss wherever his fingertips grazed my bare skin. My chest was exposed where my cami lay, though the touch of lace pressed against the swell of my breasts.
“More layers,” he growled. I arched into his touch, breath hitching to hold me back from begging for more. I ran my hands down his chest, pulling his shirt out from where it had gotten caught in his belt.
His abs twitched against my hands. “God.”
“Sorry,” I whispered into his neck. He nipped at mine. “My hands are cold.”
