AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“After yoga? The night you killed the spider?”
He laid his palms against my throat as he massaged the nape of my neck, but I wasn’t to be deterred. I shrugged him off. “When?”
He didn’t answer, but his eyes told the truth, and I gaped. “The night we met? You drove me home. We fought the whole time, and then you took this?”
He nodded and twisted back to the stove, his face redder than I’d ever seen. Behind his back, I stared at the frame in my hands. “I thought you couldn’t stand me.”
One then two and three seconds passed.
“Hey. Make me understand,” I said, and he suddenly circled around, trapping me in his arms, burying his face in my neck.
“I wanted you the moment I saw you. But you were—are—so...goddamn frustrating. I just needed a piece of you.”
“So, you stole a picture of me? Like some creep.”
“Yeah.” He laughed. “I’m an awful creep. Forgive me for stealing it?”
“I didn’t even realize it was gone until now.”
“So you don’t mind?”
I shook my head, and he picked me up in a bear hug, tilting his head back for a kiss. “Hungry?”
“Starving.”
Setting me down, he pushed me against the counter, my spine arching over the cool marble, a contrast to the skin of my stomach growing warm when his hands moved underneath my shirt. I moaned when he traced the shell of my ear with his tongue, and I found his belt loops, tugging his hips closer to my own. Which was exactly when the pot of water boiled over with a noisy hiss. Steam swamped the kitchen.
I brushed my bangs back from my damp forehead, the heat from dinner nothing compared to this near-constant fever. No matter how many times he kissed me, how often he had his hands on me, it was never enough.
I was full of want and need and wasn’t ready for the fever to break yet. I hoped it never would.
Jason opened up a window, waving away the last of the steam. He still hadn’t changed out of his work clothes, making the show of him finishing dinner all that much more enticing. He wore dark, fitted pants that showcased his long legs and tapered waist. His white shirt flaunted the muscles in his broad shoulders, and when he emptied the pot into a colander in the sink, his forearms flexed from under sleeves that were rolled up to his elbow.
“It’s ready,” he told me, dipping his head toward my chair. I loved that move, the tiny head nod directing me where he wanted, always right next to him.
I didn’t have a whole lot of experience with boyfriends, but this one seemed to be pretty perfect.
After dinner, I stood to take the dishes to the sink, but he snatched hold of my waist. “Leave ’em. Let’s go upstairs.”
“I can’t. I need to go home.” When he attempted to sit me on his lap, I dug my heels in and he put on a pained face. “I’m opening the store tomorrow,” I told him, drawing my finger across his narrowed eyebrows. “What do you want me to do? I don’t have any clothes here.” He didn’t move, so I yanked him up out of his chair. “Give me a ride home?”
He looked none too pleased but grabbed his keys from the counter to drive me home anyway. Like the perfect boyfriend he was. He carried my bike upstairs to my apartment, where George Clooney lunged at him from behind the sofa. “Jesus!”
“What are you, six-three, six-four and you’re afraid of a cat?” He ignored me, setting down the bike, and I suppressed my giggle, placing my hands on his chest. “You’re funny.”
“And you’re not.” He kissed my nose. “Can’t I sleep over?”
“No.”
He dropped his forehead to my shoulder petulantly, so I stumbled under his weight. “Why not?”
“Because,” I said, forcing his head up. It weighed fifty pounds. All that ego. “You need to go to work tomorrow. You left all the lights on in your house. You have to—”
He stifled my words with his mouth, his fingers weaving into my hair, holding me in place. Little by little, my body unconsciously gave in to him, first with my arms around his middle, then my tongue tangling with his, then arching against him as he stepped me backward to the couch. The flames that rose in my veins had become so much a part of me when he touched me that I almost didn’t feel it anymore.
Almost.
In one quick motion, I was out of his arms, my hands moving up in defense.
