And there it is — the thing he’s most afraid of laid right down next to the thing I’m most afraid of, the leaving, the distance, the year from now. Except he’s the one trembling now, and for once I’m the one who gets to be steady.
“I’ve heard about the Hawthorne House rules,” I say.
“Yeah?” His breath is warm against my collarbone.
“So just follow number one.”
No falling in love before the draft.The one rule he built the whole house around, the one he swore by, the one he held over all of them.
He huffs a laugh into my skin. “Bit late for that, Linwood.”
It takes a second to land. When it does, my heart trips over itself. “What?”
His mouth moves lower, and the rest of whatever I meant to ask dissolves when he kisses me. “Little late to be bringing up rule one with me,” he murmurs. “Don’t you think?”
I don’t think.
“Fuck,” he breathes, taking the sight of me in. “You’re perfect, Aspen.”
He kisses down my throat and my chest. I let my head drop back and let myself feel every press of his mouth, and the want builds in me until it finds a voice.
“I want you to touch me.”
His hand skims down over my hip, my thigh, the denim still on me, and finds the heat of me through it. I arch up into the pressure before I can think to be shy about it.
“Keep telling me what you want.” His voice has gone dark and rough against my breastbone. “It’s hot.”
“Really?”
“It’s the hottest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”
I swallow. I’m rusty in this department. It’s been years since I’ve been touched. I don’t want anything crazy, I just want him. “Okay.” I breathe. “Kiss me lower.”
He does, and every kiss lands like a strike of heat down my stomach.
I whisper, “Unbutton my jeans.”
He does that too, watching my face the whole time.
“Take them off.”
He tugs them down and away. I’m down to almost nothing, and I have never in my life felt like this.
“Take off your pants,” I tell him.
He stands and drops them. I glance at his body. His legs are long and strong, so are his shoulders and his chest. I glance down at the tent he’s pitching.
I mutter, “Your boxers too.”
He hesitates, and there he is again, the nervous boy from the restaurant, the one who hides behind the jokes because being looked at scares him more than anything in the world.
“Are you sure?”
I nod. No hesitation. “Very.”
He hesitates one more second, then he’s bare in the city light, and for a heartbeat, his hand moves like he wants to cover himself, like he’s the one exposed here, and something about that, Stanley Ermington gone shy, makes me ache.
“Eyes,” he says.
