Page 25 of The Irresistible Distraction

I can feel his smile as he leans forward to kiss my bare shoulder, the whisper of his chuckle before he moves his head away.

“Not quite the circumstances someone usually says that.” His voice is husky with what I’d normally classify as desire, but because I can’t imagine a world in which massaging me is exciting him, I dismiss the thought. Sexy Tourist dutifully increases the pressure until my knots start to give way, smoothing away the pain that comes with muscles that have been wound too tightly and for too long.

Only after I’ve reached some predetermined level of mush does he adjust my body so that I’m now leaning against him, cradled between his spread legs. He unzips my skirt but doesn’t remove it, loosening it for easier access, so that I still feel and appear clothed.

“It’s a beautiful night,” he observes casually, his breath tickling my skin as he trails his hands down my arms.

Despite the layers of clothing between us, I can now feel the erection that’s pressing against my ass, and it’s difficult for me to focus on his words, to understand why we’re still moving at such a leisurely, languid pace. One of his hands travels from my navel past the loosened waistband of my skirt to rest against my underwear, and it’s difficult to not clench my legs together against a rush of wetness that is so unexpected it’s borderline embarrassing. His fingers tap me gently there, brushing against my sensitized clit through the cloth as my head falls against his chest, my mouth opening on a wordless sigh. Then, his hand stills.

His lips come to my neck, where in one smooth, certainly practiced motion, his other hand pushes down my tank top and bra straps, so that one shoulder is bare, one side of me exposed. He lifts one of my arms to wrap it around his neck, which inevitably opens me further, leaving me more exposed to his ministrations. One of his hands kneads my breast as the other continues to cup me, the touch far too light given my state of arousal.

“Isn’t it a beautiful night?” Clark’s voice is amused, gently remonstrative, because it’s an observation he’s already made, one I was incapable of responding to with actual words.

“Yes, lovely,” I manage, even though all I really want to do is grind against his hand, ask him to dip his fingers inside me and a host of other things I’ve rarely thought and never spoken. My own hand joins his under my skirt, covering his as I silently urge him on. My cheeks flame as he finally slips a hand inside my panties and my legs slide open wider to grant him easier access, my hand resting on his wrist as he trails a finger up and down my slit, his pace torturously slow, my thighs almost shaking with need. My breath is fast and it’s an effort to formulate the words, but after an eternity of teasing later, I find myself asking, “Can you⁠—”

I bite back the words, feeling disgraceful at how readily I’m responding, my eyes closing against the pleasure that’s rising too quickly and yet also, simultaneously, not nearly fast enough.

I feel a light pinch of my nipple. “You were saying?”

His voice is amused even as he nibbles along my neck, but I shake my head, too unused to the emotions and too incapable of focusing on more than his hands on my body. “It’s nice, isn’t it? To not have enough energy for logic or overthinking?” His hand leaves my breast long enough to adjust my leg, hooking it on the outside of his, exposing me in a way that ought to feel shameful, given just how public this is, spread as I am on the grassy half hill on the other side of an observatory I’ve visited as a student and parent.

“Yes,” I say finally, remembering the question with a struggle when he nudges my neck, impatient for an answer. “It’s nice.” My voice is half strangled on the last word as he finally slips a long finger inside me. I am so wet there is almost no friction as he slides in, my body leaning forward, desperate to get closer.

It’s a struggle to think clearly, but I remind myself that I have to be an adult about this. “I wanted to ask if you had condoms.” Because I brought one, but like my makeup, it might be past its expiration date. And because there’s no reason to pay for birth control when there’s nothing to control again.

“I have condoms.” He breathes again my neck, his finger still inside me, curling and uncurling, moving in and out tantalizingly slowly, a mere suggestion of what’s to come. “What else is worrying you?”

I bite my lip, grateful for the darkening night, the fact that my face is turned away from his. Breathing feels difficult, much less wrangling my thoughts into complete sentences. My hips arch into his hand until he removes his fingers, resting them gently against my core.

“Tell me what’s worrying you.”

“How do you know there’s anything else?”

“Your body is . . . easy to read. You tense up when you’re thinking—get this adorable little wrinkle in your forehead when you’re calculating percentages, scrunch your entire face up when someone returns an order.” He smiles against my cheek, the broadening grin one that makes me want to curl my toes. “I can’t tell you the restraint it took not to kiss those tiny frowns away.”

“You got all of that from one day?”

“We’re on at least a day and a half now.” Another kiss and nip along my neck. “So, besides your name, what else aren’t you telling me?”

“Remind me to never play poker against you.”

There’s a small pause this time and a chuckle I don’t quite understand. “I can’t read everyone . . . just you.” He pushes two fingers inside me as he says this, his thumb resting on my clit, pressing so gently I might be imagining it. The pleasure builds so quickly that I’m unprepared for it. His voice is gravelly, sexual tension transmitted to me via decibels, and he says something like, “You should tell me quickly, though, my restraint has limits,” but then, as his fingers pump in and out of me in a rhythm that ought to be too slow, as his thumb and the heel of his hand provide a measure of friction that really shouldn’t be enough, the release overtakes me in a violent climax I have no defense against.

My scream is only half bitten off as my body arches, my eyes closing as a tidal wave of bliss consumes me and he curses against my throat.

“Well, that was hot.”

My cheeks are burning as I come down from my high, my entire body feeling like a quivering, oversensitized mass of nerves. He drops kisses along my arm, his fingers staying near my center, playing more gently now, soothing and resensitizing me.

When I can finally speak again, he nudges at my neck. “You were going to tell me your other concern.”

I lick my lips, feeling his erection against my ass, wondering at the way my body is already reawakening. “It might be moot now, but I was going to request that you not ask whether I’ve, uh, come.”

This gets his attention. His fingers leave me, and I’m pretty sure my whimper is audible as he turns the both of us enough to peer into my face.

“I’m sorry, what?”

It’s not a conversation I’ve ever had with anyone, not even Maggie, who’s always been almost too comfortable talking about her bedroom antics with Tyler.