Page 34

I want more. I want all of it. I want her so bad my hands are shaking in her hair, and I'm supposed to be the one of us who's sober.

Every fantasy I've built in the dark of my house was a cheap imitation and I know it now, know it for a fact, because not one of them ever made this sound against my lips or pulled my shirt loose from my belt looking for skin, delicate warm fingers finding my stomach, curling just enough for her nails to dig into my flesh and I'm one flight of stairs from everything I've wanted since she stepped out of that truck. My cock aches, leaking against the denim, heavy and insistent, and her thigh keeps shifting against it like she knows.

"Come upstairs with me," she whispers into my mouth.

Good God.

Everything in me says yes. Says it loud enough to drown out the whole street. She's soft and willing and asking, and all I have to do is follow her up those stairs and I could have her under me by the time the door clicks.

And tomorrow she could blame every second of it on the drinking.

Tearing my mouth off hers is the hardest thing I've done since the storm year. I plant my forearm on the frame above her head and press my forehead down against it, dragging air like I've hauled a boat out by hand, her breath still coming quick and warm against my throat.

"You've been drinking," I manage.

"I know exactly what I'm asking you." Steady. Sure. Which makes it worse.

"Ask me sober."

She's quiet a moment. Her hands are still inside my shirt, resting warm on my stomach, slowly inching up toward my chest. I feel bereft when they go still.

"Oh," she says. Small. Then, softer, with her chin coming up, "Fine. I'll ask you sober."

She has no idea what those five words do to me. Or maybe she does, because she slides out from under my arm looking a lot steadier than I feel, unlocks the door on the first try this time, and pauses on the threshold.

"Good night, Aiden."

"Lock the door."

I stand there in the street like a fool until her light comes on upstairs, then a while longer after it goes out, and the whole walk back to my truck she's still on my mouth, sweet and eager, and I already know exactly what I'm going to do about it the second I'm through my own door.

The house is dark and dead quiet when I let myself in, and for once the quiet has competition, because I just drove two miles with her taste in my mouth and every thought in my head arrived home louder than the truck.

Boots off. Keys in the bowl. A completely normal end to a completely normal night.

The haul's at first light and I need sleep, so a shower is the practical thing. Hot water, loosen up the shoulders, bed. That's the whole plan, and it's got nothing to do with being so hard I had to adjust myself in my jeans both times I caught the traffic lights this town barely needs.

Besides. Come Monday I'm probably letting her go. Have to, after tonight. A man can't run a yard around what happened on that doorstep, so she’ll be going, and there's no rule against wanting a woman who doesn't work for you anymore.

Airtight logic. I'm already pulling my shirt over my head.

Steam crawls up the mirror while I strip, and under the spray the heat pours down my neck and shoulders and does nothing whatsoever for the part of me that's been aching since her door, standing heavy and thick against my abdomen, so hard the water hitting it is almost too much.

I can still taste her. The sweetness of her sitting on my tongue like she left it there on purpose, and every time I run my tongue over my bottom lip, I get another hit of it and my cock jerks like she touched me.

Soap slicks my palm. One hand goes flat against the tile, braced, head bowed under the spray, and the first slow pull of my fist wrenches a sound out of me that sounds almost like a sob.

Her door closed ten minutes ago and here I am. That's what I've been reduced to, and God help me, I can't even pretend to care, because behind my closed eyes, I'm already back on that doorstep saying yes instead.

In my head she takes my hand and pulls me through the door, up the dark stairs, both of us trying to be quiet and failing, her laughing against my mouth every time we stop to kiss on the way up, which is every second step.

In my head, I press her up against the front door the moment we get inside, my hands full of her, her arms around my neck, and she goes up on her toes the way she did earlier, except this time there's nothing stopping me, nowhere to be, nobody's drinking to use as an excuse.

"I know exactly what I'm asking you," she says in my head, same words, same steady voice, and my fist tightens and speeds up before I've voted on it.

I slow it down. Make myself. Long, slick, deliberate strokes, thumb rolling over the head on every pass, hips already wanting to push into my own grip, because if this is all I get of her tonight then I'm not rushing it, even if my thighs are already drawn tight and my balls are heavy and high and aching like they've been waiting two weeks for permission.

They have.