He kisses me like he’s been starving. Not like last night on the porch—that was careful and intentional. This is need, hot and graceless, as his tongue slides against mine, and I make sounds into his mouth that I didn’t know I could make. His hand slides into my hair, fisting it, tilting my head back so his mouth can drag down my jaw, my throat, his teeth scraping the tendon there.
I feel iteverywhere. A current runs straight down my spine to pool between my thighs, and my hips roll against him without my permission, seeking friction, seekinghim.
“Jenna.” I’ve never heard him say my name that way, scraped raw. He sounds like someone who’s been holding back for so long that the release is tearing through him. “God, Jenna.”
I pull at his shirt, yanking it from his waistband, desperate because I need to feel him. My fingers find his bare stomach. He’s warm. So warm. Hard muscle flinches under my touch as I follow the trail of hair leading down from his navel. The skin there is softer than I expected, softer than his hands, which are rough and calloused and currently sliding under my shirt.
His palm flattens against my bare back, and I arch into him. My body craves more, craves proof this is real, that he’s real, that he ishereandtouching me.
His forehead drops against mine, his eyes dark and close, the blue almost swallowed by black as his chest heaves.
“Six months I’ve been lying in the dark imagining—” He swallows audibly. “You have no idea what your voice did to me.”
“Tell me.”
“This.” His hand slides higher under my shirt, palm gliding up my ribs, thumb brushing the underside of my breast through my bra. My spine arches off the door, and a whimper escapes my throat. “My hands on you. Whether you’d arch into me like that or pull away.” His thumb traces the curve again, slow and deliberate. “Whether you’d make those sounds.”
“Ethan—”
“Whether you’d say my name like that.” His voice is gravel against my ear, his stubble scraping my cheek. “Like it’s the only word you remember.”
I fist the open flannel and pull him closer, our hips grinding together, the friction making us both groan. “I want you closer. I want?—”
His mouth crashes into mine again, and whatever thread of control he was clinging to snaps.
He lifts me with one arm, as if I weigh nothing, as if throwing around hundred-pound hay bales has made this effortless. I gasp against his mouth as I wrap my legs around his waist. The new angle presses him directly against my center, hard and thick through two layers of denim, and my head falls back against the door.
“Fuck.” His hips roll, grinding against me, the friction hitting exactly where I need it. His hand braces against the door beside my head, forearm flexed, veins standing out beneath his tanned skin. “You feel—I can’t?—”
“Ethan.” I grip his shoulders, nails digging in through the flannel.
He keeps moving, his hips setting a rhythm that has me climbing toward something terrifying. The seam of my jeans presses in exactly the right place, and I should be embarrassed by the desperate moans spilling from my lips, but I can’t find it in me to care.
His mouth finds my throat, opening hot against my pulse point. His teeth graze, his tongue soothes, and his stubble drags like a brand. I’m going to come just from this, from grinding against him fully clothed against a door.
“I need—” My voice breaks. “Ethan, I need?—”
He pulls back to look at me, his eyes wild, his hair tousled. “I know what you need.”
His hand moves to the button of my jeans.
He stops, eyes locked on mine. A question lingers, even now, even with both of us shaking, even with the evidence of his arousal pressed hard against my thigh.
I grab his wrist and push his hand lower.
The button gives. Then the zipper. Cool air brushes my hip where my shirt has ridden up, and then his hand slips inside against my bare stomach. His fingers trail down… and I stop breathing.
“Tell me.” His voice is barely recognizable, scraped down to bedrock. “Tell me you want this.”
“I do.” I cup his face, forcing him to look at me. “I wantyou, Ethan. I’ve wanted you since you talked me through a panic attack about a spreadsheet and didn’t hang up until I laughed.”
His expression cracks open, becoming raw and vulnerable, a man who doesn’t know how to be wanted, finally letting himself believe it.
His fingers slip beneath the waistband of my underwear, finding me slick, swollen, and aching. The sound that tears from him is the most devastating thing I’ve ever heard.Ruined. Like he’s been handed something holy and doesn’t know what he did to deserve it.
“Christ, Jenna.” His words vibrate against my throat. “You’re so wet. You’re so?—”
He doesn't finish. His fingers slide through the slickness, exploring me, and when he circles the spot that makes my vision go white, my entire body jerks in his arms.
