So did he. He stood.
“At least you’re already used to jerking off with your parents listening. No big change there. I think you might even like it.”
She ducked out the door, and Brady charged after her.
“I’m gonna kill you, Lay!”
I would have laughed at their antics—a slice of normalcy, no matter how over the top—but his statement hit a little too close to my already sensitive nerves.
Hunt pushed his mattress against one wall and stalked out without a word, closing the door behind him.
Then it was just Griffin and me.
Suddenly, every place where his skin touched mine tingled like an electric shock was racing through it. His chest, his thighs, his arms, his hands, they pressed against me. Only the thin fabric of our underwear separated our extra-fun, saucy bits. The room, the bed, they simultaneously became too big and too small. He was everywhere, his body wrapped around mine, and yet not touching me enough.
He kissed my bare shoulder, drawing out the lingering press of his lips before flopping back onto the bed with an exasperated sigh. “Well …” he announced.
When nothing more arrived, I turned onto my other side to face him. “Well, what?”
He gazed up at the ceiling. “Given that we slept with Layla, and it’sLaylawe’re talking about, that wasn’ttoobad.”
“It wasn’t great.”
He dropped his gaze down to me, a smile stretching those plump lips of his, the ones I wanted to spend the rest of the day kissing. Now that I knew what they felt like pressed against mine, exploring my mouth, I wanted so much more of them.
“With Lay, it could’ve been loads worse though,” he said.
“That’s very true,” I answered, staring at his lips and not bothering to hide the fact.
He turned back onto his side but this time didn’t touch me, as if the temptation to keep going would be too great if he did. “I’m about to die I want so much more of you.”
I grimaced. “I think we’re gonna have to re-examine a lot of our usual expressions after everything that’s happened.”
“Nah. Lay might say someshit, and boy does she ever, but she was right about that. We don’t have to change who we are. We shouldn’t.”
“It’s gonna change us. All of this, everything, it will. But go on. With what you were saying.”
He chuckled and stared into my eyes, holding there. “If we’d been able to keep going last night … fuck, I have no doubt it would’ve been beyond amazing and I would’ve loved every single fucking moment of it. But since last night went down the way it did, I think I’m glad now.”
I arched my brow. “You’re glad.”
“Yeah. ’Cause I don’t want to rush a thing with you. I’ve waited this long to have you. I literally had to die and watch you die to get where I believed it’d be okay to take that risk with the friendship between us and with the others. Now that we’re here, now that we both know where we’re at, I want to savor every tiny little bit of it. Of you.”
I chuffed and smiled, probably a bit dreamily. “Nice idea and all, Griff. But not sure how that’s gonna end up working out with the two of us. I’m not particularly patient once I get going, you know that.”
He blinked, then grinned. “Yeah, I do. So we’ll see how it goes. I’m already having to force myself not to touch you ’cause I don’t know if I could get myself to stop even with fucking Fanny counting down out there.”
So I was right.
Excited flutters drifted through my chest.
He inched only his head forward and pressed the gentlest of kisses against my lips. Not chaste. No, not a chance. But one that felt like a tender promise. Of what, I wasn’t sure, but I liked it, whatever it meant.
Against my lips, he murmured, “You’re my dream girl, Joss. I’m never letting you go.”
And then, long before I was ready for him to leave, he climbed out of the bed and grabbed his shirt. I watched him as he tugged it on and arranged it to conceal the partial tent he was still pitching.
“Dream girl,” he emphasized, beaming the happiest grin I’d seen from him in years, then he slipped out the door.
