Page 62 of Racing Hearts

“How long?”

He takes my mouth in his and then moves his lips to my ear. “You thought you were tortured by my shirt? I’ve been tortured by that damn porch.”

Adrian runs a hand along my inner thigh, pushing my legs open wider.

“You were like this,” he murmurs as he moves closer, slotting into the space between my knees. Flattened together, I can feel he’s hard through his jeans. “And I was like this,” he adds and runs a hand up my spine, cupping the back of my head.

Heat gathers in all the places he’s touching, sending waves jackknifing through my fingertips.

“And then I almost fell,” I say.

Adrian’s arm tightens around my waist. “Nowhere to fall this time.”

Then his lips are on my skin again, traveling across my neck, running up the crease of my jawline, finding the sliver behind my ear. And, oh, it’s heaven. Every one of his touches sends a cascade of tingles over my skin, a rush down my spine.

Still. We can’t just do it out here. Beds exist for a reason.

“Adrian,” I say again. I tug at his elbow. “This isn’t the place.”

His lips loosen from my throat and he pulls back enough that I can see the smile in his eyes. “You have a pre-approved list of acceptable places for sex?”

“No. Well. I mean. I guess, like, a rough list.”

Adrian’s chuckle is low.

“What?” I ask.

He smooths his hands down the backs of my bare arms and there’s this thing in his eyes—like I’m something precious that can’t be broken. “That is just so perfectly you.”

And for the first time in a long time, it is as I said. Right now: It’s just me. I’ve never felt so exposed or so seen. I’m neither whole nor unbroken, but Adrian makes me feel like my cracks and splinters are something to admire. Like they are battle wounds that prove my worth. I’m dizzy with this feeling, head untethered and floating.

My need for him deepens. It’s a cliff. An abyss. Something I can sink inside. A place I can lose myself. I’m desperate to feel his skin against mine and the gloss of our bodies moving together. I curl my fingers under the hem of my racerback and tug it off.

Adrian’s eyes skim over the surface of my torso and I try to keep my head high. I don’t want to be surprised when I see the inevitable disappointment in his eyes. I know what I am—a body built for racing and lifting and sprinting. I’m hard where other women are soft; my body resists where it should give.

But Adrian’s fingers notch into the phantom edges of my waist, draw across the contours of my back muscles. And when he tugs the edge of my sports bra down, freeing one of my nipples from the tight fabric, he lets out a moan so guttural that I can practically feel it reverberate between my legs.

His mouth finds my nipple and his tongue flicks over the surface until it hardens. The sensation draws an involuntary sigh from my lips.

“Adrian,” I say desperately.

With his mouth still pressed to my aching skin, he pries the other side of my sports bra down, too. It’s tight, so tight that I nearly think he won’t manage it. But with a pop, both of my breasts come free—two swells rising above the line of neon blue that was once my sports bra.

Adrian pulls himself back and his eyes trace over every inch of me, working from my backside on his counter, up my exposed chest, and then settling on my eyes. His pupils are so blown out that his eyes are practically black. His teeth sink into his bottom lip.

“Tell me the places on the list,” he says.

“What?”

“Tell me.” He presses each of his hands to my waist and my heart kicks up a scattered rhythm. He hasn’t issued a command like this since the days I was first training with him. Back when he wrenched those dumbbells out of my hands and caged me out of the squat rack. “Give me a list of places where I’m allowed to make you come.”

Everything is tingling, shivers racing and melding and multiplying so fast I’m not sure I even know what a list is anymore. I’ve probably never made a single list in my whole life.

Only one word loosens from my lips. “Bed,” I say. “The bed.”

Adrian traces a finger across the skin of my collarbone, dipping until he hits the crease between my breasts, and then traveling up my throat. He anchors the finger to the edge of my lips and kisses the place it’s touching.

“And?”