AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Even though I’m not looking at him, I can feel the heat from his body. Or maybe I’m just imagining it. I have the insane urge to close the distance between us and press myself against him.
I thought he was attractive even when he needed a clean shirt and a shower, but now I know him, and I’ve gone from admiring him to desiring him.
“I guess I could make breakfast,” he says as he walks around the counter, putting much needed space between us. “I’ve never cooked for you.”
He pulls open the fridge. His shorts are hanging low, perched right above his tight ass.
“What would you like?” he asks.
I’d like to see him without his shorts. I squeeze my eyes closed, trying to erase that image from my mind, but my filter seems to be broken.
What is wrong with me?
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I pry my eyes open to find him staring at me curiously.
“You look flushed.”
“Maybe you should put on a shirt.” I’m more than flushed. I’m on fire. Kelsey and Amber put thoughts of sex and dating in my head, and I can’t get them out.
He rolls his eyes. “You sound like Celeste.”
If only my feelings toward Slater were brotherly. “You’re practically naked.” I try to make a joke, but I sound one hundred percent serious.
He freezes. “Do you like it?”
He’s joking. He must be joking. “I just think it’d be more appropriate if you wore a shirt. It is winter, after all. But if you want to walk around your home practically naked, that’s up to you. I won’t judge.” Why do I keep saying naked? I’m rambling and making no sense. Two seconds ago, I told him to put on a shirt. Now I’m telling him to do the opposite.
I must be losing my mind.
He gives me a devastating smile that tells me he knows exactly what’s wrong with me. He walks around the counter. I should move but I can’t make myself.
He stops when he’s about a foot away. “You can touch if you want.”
Touch. Is he fricking kidding?
I want to touch his glittering chest so much.
I’d be playing with fire, but I’m smart enough to avoid getting burned. Right?
It’s the same logic that’s been leading women to ruin for hundreds of years.
He waits, hands hanging loosely by his sides, as if he could take or leave my touch, but the rapid rise and fall of his chest suggests he’s not unaffected by me.
Attraction simmers between us. It’s been here all along, at least for me, but I never thought he’d feel it, too. And I didn’t imagine we’d find ourselves here.
My skin flushes a deeper shade of red.
The desire to touch him is overwhelming. Suddenly, and without any more deliberation, my hand is flat against the ridges of his stomach. He inhales sharply at the unexpected contact. My fingers are cool against his heated skin. They move, feather-light, across his torso. He’s sweaty, but I don’t care.
I move my hands up his chest, following a path I’ve charted in my dreams. He shudders as I brush his nipple with my thumb. The seconds stretch as my fingers dance back down toward the arrow of hair on his abdomen. I trace the line, stopping at his waistband. For a moment, I wish I were free to continue down the path, but I can’t cross that line.
Abruptly, he moves, pressing forward through the open space. The air rushes from my lungs—time seems to halt—as his lips collide with mine.
I barely have the time to taste him before my sense of self-preservation kicks in. What on earth am I doing?
I push him back with both hands. He stumbles, knocking over one of the kitchen stools. It catches his leg as it falls. For a second, it looks like he’s going to topple, too. Instead, with the grace of a true athlete, he finds his center and heaves a deep breath. The stool hits the floor with a loud crash.
