Page 9 of The Turning of the Tables

“Clean?” Elliot asked, on button three.

“Yeah.” I sucked in a breath as he undid the fourth button. “You?”

“Also clean,” he replied. “As of last week.”

“Great,” I said, feeling very stupid. “I, uh?—”

“Condoms and lube are in my bag,” he said, finishing with the buttons on my shirt and pulling it open to revealmy white undershirt. “You mind being on the receiving end?”

I didn’t. “No. That’s great.”

God, one-night stands were awkward.

In movies and tv shows, they’re passionate affairs in the backs of bathrooms or up against walls. While three—or four if you counted Devin, or five, now, with Elliot—wasn’t that long of an experience list, every single one I’d been involved in was almost unbearably awkward. Still fun, once things got going, but just so weird and clinical.

Or maybe it was me that was the reason they were all awkward. I was the only common denominator in them, after all.

And then Elliot pulled my undershirt out of my khakis and his hands were on my skin. His callouses were rough, but not unpleasantly so, and the feel of them—so not what I was used to from the guys I’d slept with before—sent little shivers through me.

The urge to grab his face and kiss him rushed through me, but I forced it down. Rule One, no kissing. I wasn’t going to wreck this by breaking the rules, especially not right out of the gate.

Well, okay. That rule. I was already well on my way to breaking Rule Two. My brain couldn’t help but think about anus, even though I tried telling it that such a thing was impossible. First, he lived a thousand miles away, and, second and more importantly, Elliot didn’t want there to be anus.

My brain would figure that out sooner or later. Probably when Elliot got on a plane and went back to Wisconsin. Maybe after.

Those rough hands pushed my shirt upward, then foundthe waistband of my khakis, pausing just a moment to give me time to protest before undoing them.

I didn’t.

The button slipped through its hole, the zipper made that soft tic-tic-tic-ticking sound that only zippers make. My heart pounded in my chest, the breath in my lungs shallow. I wanted to cup his face in my hands, to claim his lips.

I settled for grabbing the hem of his long-sleeved t-shirt, tugging it upward.

Leaving my fly open, he responded to my unspoken request by stripping off the shirt, exposing broad shoulders and a chest made wider by muscle. One bulging arm was covered in tattoos, lines of black and color I couldn’t quite make out swirling over his copper skin. I swallowed, knowing my eyes must have widened. Under clothes, he’d looked to be in decent shape, but without them it became very clear that the man didn’t have an ounce more fat on his body than was strictly necessary. Unlike yours truly.

“Question about Rule One,” I managed.

His eyebrows rose.

“Does that apply toanykissing, or just on the lips?”

His lips quirked. “What else were you planning on kissing?”

It wasn’t a no. Feeling bolder, I traced a finger across the ridge of his collarbone, tracing a line toward his tattooed shoulder. “I’d start here,” I told him.

The fine hairs on his skin rose under the gentle trace of my fingertip. “I could make an exception for that,” he breathed, his gaze so intense it seemed like the chips of green and gold in his irises burned.

“Yeah?”

“Mmhmm.”

So I stepped closer and bent down to press my lipsagainst the heat of his skin, flicking my tongue to taste salt and slight musk, breathing in a rich, earthy scent that reminded me of soil after the rain.

God, I could get drunk on the scent of his skin alone.

My hands tightened on the taut muscle and skin of his waist. His pushed inside my khakis, his hands warm against my hips and thighs, the thick fabric catching a little on the erection that was growing inside my shorts.

I let my lips work their way up from his collarbone to the side of his neck, running my tongue up the column of his throat, then sucking under his ear, where a line of scar tissue curved around the side of his jaw. I remembered that he’d been attacked while Hart was back in Wisconsin, and this had likely been the result. I kissed the underside of his jaw again, tonging the scar and feeling muscle and tendon shift as he let out a soft sound of want. It went straight to my groin, tightening my balls against my body in a good way.