I edge a little closer, or maybe I just do it subconsciously. I’m not sure if my buttcheeks actually move off the spot where I’m parked. Perhaps I just feel closer. I look at her now, somehow feeling braver. She’s not saying anything, but I focus on her lips. Her lips are beautiful. Symmetrical and perfect. Full without being too full, they’re easily natural and not boosted by injections or whatever procedure is popular right now. They look soft, and I know they’re soft because I’ve had the opportunity to experience it. I’m surprised at how badly I want to kiss her right now.
Suddenly, she inhales softly, and I know she knows. She’s very perceptive, and she’s good at reading me. Unsettlingly good.
I finally gaze into her eyes and find them deep enough to fall into, dark and heavy lidden. Every time she blinks, it’s like she’s trying to blink away what she really wants.
I get it.
I feel jumpy because this feels sudden. Too sudden. I’m not a spontaneous person, and I don’t get out of control. Well, minus the Christmas whisky incident.
I haven’t read many manuscripts at work lately since I’m on top of things, and with success, I was able to hire other people to do that a long time ago, but when I used to sit there and read, I was always surprised at the pure trash that came across my desk: garbage romance, almost all of it. Sometimes I’d burst out laughing at how ridiculous it all was. I guess by then, I’d forgotten what it was like to want a person so badly and so wildly that your whole body feels like it no longer belongs to you because it doesn’t follow any of your commands.
I’ve been worn down now for so long—worn into this thin, lifeless thing, worn into a rut and smushed and crushed down with all the passing tires like an old western wagon train analogy—that I’ve forgotten what it feels like to be alive, to get goosebumps.
Britt and I were together for a long time, and I guess some of those sharper needs and hard impulses softened into a much more gentle passion based on familiarity and trust.
Right now, I don’t feel familiar, I have goosebumps, and my dick is slowly taking over my brain. The fucker might not have hands, but he’s the one driving. I’m shocked that I feel like one of those characters in the trash romances I’d always toss in the trash and send out a rejection letter to.
Right now, I’m all sharp edges and red hot emotion.
Maybe Feeney is too because she leans forward just a fraction, which does it. I move, she moves, and we crush together, our arms frantically wrapping around each other. Her hands pull me in, claw at my scalp, and tug at my hair. My lips crush hers as I devour her. She’s definitely sharp edges and red hot emotion. I feel like she could burn me up. She burns through me as her nails scrape over my scalp, and her teeth move over my bottom lip as her tongue thrusts against mine.
This could ruin everything, or it could fix everything. I have no way of knowing how it’s going to go.
CHAPTER 17
Feeney
Oh my chicken nuggets, this is a good kiss. Luke is beautiful. He’s huge—the typical larger than life. He’d steal anyone’s breath just by showing up, but this isn’t just showing up. This is him, pressed up against me until my nipples feel like they’re going to go full-on paper shredder mode against my bra and shirt. This is him leaning into me, giving me zero doubt that he’s just as turned on and ready as I am. His panties might not be soaked because he’s not wearing panties, but there is a definite bulge in his jeans that throbs against my stomach where it’s pressed against. All of a sudden, his tongue probes past my lips and enters me. My mouth, I mean, but even that is hot enough to set my body on edge.
“W-wait,” I stammer. I pull back an inch and nearly miss getting my lip ripped off as Luke goes in to nip me.
His hand is at my shoulder, the other splayed warmly and protectively against my back, making me feel so tiny next to the massiveness of him.
“Did you change your mind about the agreement?” he evenly asks since I did just participate in basically attacking him, mouth first.
“N-no. Did you?” Good god, this is a humiliating conversation.
“Yes, which is stupid and thoughtless. I’ve gotten so good at growing a thick skin and a rock for a heart to keep it safe that it’s second nature to be an asshole.”
Gulp. I can’t believe he just said that as it makes me warm and tingly on top of the already warm and tingly sensations coursing through my body. “That’s not why I said to wait.” I swallow thickly. “I just…I don’t want to do anything that could hurt Shade.”
“You could never do that.”
“I don’t want to just disappear out of his life like all the other nannies because you end up pissed off that we got this wrong. I don’t want to go.” Now that I’m saying it, I know it’s true. Maybe because I just started, maybe not, but perhaps it could be that some things you don’t need years and years to figure out.
“I know you could never hurt him. That would never happen—me being pissed off, or us getting it wrong.”
“But…but…”
“It wouldn’t. It wouldn’t because we decided it wouldn’t, and we’d go with that.”
“You can’t just decide on your feelings.” Clearly not, because we’re both sitting here right now, like this, with all the throbbing and pounding and raging hormones.
“We won’t get it wrong.” He repeats it with finality, like a benediction, but his jaw ticks after.
I don’t know what that tick means.
Maybe it means he knows like I do, that this could wreck us. I know we’re two flawed, lonely people coming together under some fucked up circumstances. But then, what’s wrong with being flawed? Isn’t everyone? I mean, there are sets and sets of flawed people all over the world who make things work. I know there are tons who don’t too, but that’s life and choice, and it can go either way. Tonight, I’m choosing this. I’m choosing to make it go a good way, a beautiful way.
Call it a sixth sense—a pervy sixth sense maybe—but I already know our bodies will fit perfectly. It took no time at all for us to bury under each other’s skin like a sliver and not want to leave. A god sliver, if that kind of thing even exists. Maybe it’s more like a piercing you’ve been longing to get, but your parents won’t let you get it, and when you finally do get it in secret, it’s so freaking satisfying and beautiful that you never want to stop looking at it because you’re so proud of it. Your body doesn’t even try and reject it because it’s that great. Yeah. Not implying my belly button piercing went down like that or anything.
Luke was all gruff and hard like stone. He needed to keep himself safe so he could heal, but maybe what he needs now is connection. He was probably waiting for it all along, waiting for a lighthouse to guide his lost ship back home in the dark. Argh, it’s a lot of pressure, and I can’t think like that. I just have to promise myself that because he dropped his guard, and we both just sense we need each other for no apparent reason at all other than we’d somehow be a perfect fit, I need to get it right.
Maybe the sixth sense is actually an impending sense of something glorious and right.