“I wasn’t—okay, yes, I was worried.” He runs a hand through his hair, ruffling out the last bits of dampness from his post-race shower and disturbing the curls. Clarke’s eyes catch on the stretch of fabric across his chest, over his biceps. He notices her noticing, and smirks. “Just came to congratulate me, huh?”
Heat starts gathering at the base of Clarke’s spine. “Yeah.”
His eyes roam over her face, searching. Hungry. Some distant part of Clarke’s brain whispers that it was probably a bad idea, coming to him this soon after a race, particularly a win. His blood will be up, adrenaline still coursing through him. When they were younger, a lot of their near-misses happened immediately after races. “You’ve done that. The congratulating. What next?”
Clarke’s laugh sounds nervous. Clarkeisnervous, in that gut-twisting, delicious, anticipatory way. “I didn’t have an elaborate five-step plan, I was just—”
He takes a step toward her.
Clarke steps back. “Julian.”
“Clarke.” He steps in again.
Clarke backs away again. Her calves bump into the couch. “Stop.”
He stops, instantly. Air rushes back into the room. “No?”
“You—I—” Clarke drags a hand over her face as a brief wave of frustration sweeps over her. “This isyourboundary I’m trying to protect. You’re the one who said we can’t just hook up.”
“This isn’t a hookup. This is a reward.” The atmosphere starts getting heavy again, the temporary reprieve over now that Julian knows Clarke’s not evading his advances because shedoesn’t want him. “You kissed me, the last time I won a race. It’s a very effective system. Very incentivizing. But for two wins in a row, I’m thinking I should get something else. Something more.”
Clarke’s eyes drop to the front of his pants, imagined sensation blazing through her. The weight of him on her tongue, his fingers in her hair, how he’d groan and tense and shake for her—
He makes an amused noise in the back of his throat when he sees where she’s looking. “Not quite what I had in mind.”
He takes another step forward. Clarke tries to maintain some breathing room, somesanitybetween them, but forgets that she doesn’t have anywhere to go. She sits down hard on the couch.
He drops to his knees.
40
Clarke blushes and tries toeel away. “Julian, you—I—”
He hooks his hands behind her calves and tugs, bringing her ass to the edge of the cushion and spreading her thighs to either side of his shoulders. She’s wearing a skirt (Elemental-branded, of course); it rucks up around her legs, exposing a lot of skin to Julian’s heated gaze.
“I want this,” he says plainly. “I want to put my mouth on you. I want to feel you come on my tongue, and I want to hear my name on yours when you do. Do you want that?”
Holy shit. His words, so bold and unselfconscious, stoke the fire in her spine. It flares through the rest of her body, bringing every nerve ending to life. She digs her fingers into the couch cushion so she won’t reach for him, clinging to rational thought. “We’re in yourprep room, Julian. Your team is in the garage!”
He skates his fingertips up the outsides of her legs, pushing the hem of her skirt a fraction higher on her thighs. “Only a few of them. We’re at home; we don’t pack up until tomorrow. And you can be quiet, can’t you? For me?”
This is how Clarke dies. With Julian Casperi on his knees infront of her, touching her, saying things straight out of the fantasies she’s been having for longer than she’d like to admit.
His palms glide away. Clarke’s hips buck without her permission when the touch retreats, chasing the contact, lifting off the cushion. His hands return in a flash, slipping under her skirt, tracing all the way up until he can hook his fingers in the waistband of her panties.
He looks up at her, pupils blown wide. “Yes or no, Maddie?”
Clarke’s going to pop out of her skin. There are reasons not to do this, but none of them seem to matter much at the moment. Not enough to outweigh the sheerwantthat’s burning her up from the inside out, at least.
She looks him in the eye. “Yes.”
He pulls her panties down. Props her feet on his thigh to get them off her legs. Discards them somewhere on the floor. Gets his palms on the insides of her knees and presses gently, spreading her out so he can get close again.
Clarke doesn’t dopassive. Not once she’s made up her mind. Not when there’s something she wants. She reaches down and lifts her skirt out of the way, flipping it up to her waist.
Julian stares for a long second, barely breathing, then glances up at her face. “Tell me if I do something you don’t like.”
He lowers his head and presses an open-mouthed kiss to her clit.
