Thatcher stares at me like the clouds have parted and I’ve descended from the sky.
I blush under his heated stare. “What?”
“You’re the hottest woman I’ve ever been with,” he says like a fact. Point-blank, as he sometimes adds.
I pulse. “I’m learning new things about you every day.” My lips rise. “Thatcher Moretti finds whiskey-drinking hot.” I take another sip.
“You drinking whiskey from a bottle is hot,” he clarifies. “And you just existing is fucking hot.”
“Likewise,” I murmur, sweating beneath my blanket. “Did you know arousal increases body temperature?” I blurt out like a helpful but embarrassing factoid. “Of course you do,” I quickly add and roast thinking about our nightlong sex in the car. “It’s an obvious…” I watch his eyes dip down the length of me. “…fact.”
I stop breathing.
He stands.
“Thatcher—” I cut myself off as he grips the opened laptop. Not letting go of his orders, his duty. But he locks the door to the laundry room. His strides are confident and purposeful, and I’m like a cat clawing onto every inch he moves.
He comes up to the washer/dyer and grabs the whiskey bottle from my hand. And he sets the laptop on a pile of folded bath towels. In distance to refresh the webpage.
He swigs the whiskey, then places the bottle aside.
Now he’s so near. I clutch his muscular shoulders while his arms wrap around my waist.
His scent dizzies me: wood smoke and cinnamon. He usually doesn’t smell like the latter, and I take a deep sniff of his white tee.
Our eyes suddenly meet mid-sniff, and it’s not the first time I’ve been caught inhaling his scent. Still, I flush like I’m baking under the sun.
“You smell different—not in a bad way,” I clarify quickly. “Just different. You have notes of cinnamon, which isn’t your typical scent. I don’t think…is it?”
Thatcher doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, he’s quiet as he leans past me, his arm brushing my shoulder as he flicks on the washer/dryer.
It rumbles to life beneath my ass.
Dear God.
My body shakes with the vibration.
Arousal builds, and I inhale another lungful of his scent. “It’s more of a feminine fragrance than what you wear…” I freeze.
All rational thinking vacates my brain. Because rationally, I trust Thatcher and know he’d never cheat on me. Rationally, there are only three other girls in this house, and two are my cousins.
There has to be another reason.
Yet, my mind places him in this moment with other girls. Where he’s loving, sexy, and assured, all for them. My stomach overturns and clenches.
I could never share him with another woman, I realize.
“Luna was spraying her body mist in the living room.” He seizes my gaze with a look of unadulterated fealty. He must know what I was concluding, and instead of being hurt at the unwarranted assumption, he just wants to reassure me.
I love him.
I expect fear to be exterminated at the thought of love and Thatcher, but a bit lingers. Like a thorny vine ensnared around my heart, one my head refuses to snip.
Give yourself to him.
He can’t promise that I won’t lose my agency. It’s something that I have to work through on my own, and what if it takes years?
At least I understand the fear. I suppose that’s the first step in learning to let go and move forward. I just hope I can.
I nod, easing some. “It does smell like Luna.”
“She said she was winterizing the house, and I got hit with it.” He grips the back of his white tee, pulling the fabric off over his head. His sculpted abs come into view, dog tags lying against natural hair on his chest.
He spreads my thighs in one swift movement, my dangling legs no longer obstructing the washer door. My lungs expand and contract in heavy waves.
His hand brushes away my blanket and tulle skirt—to plant on my bare thigh like it has found a home, a resting place, a heaven and hell and will not move unless some exorcist performs a ritual.
If eyes could be lip-locked, ours are attached in desirous, soul-bound fashion, and I’m not ready to look to the left or right.
I just want him.
His fingers press into my soft flesh as he tosses the shirt in the washer/dryer, and then he knees the door shut. “I don’t want to smell like Luna’s body mist.”
“Fair point,” I breathe.
My eyes glide down his chest, and a thousand animalistic thoughts stampede in my head. There are risks involved with having sex in the laundry room with Thatcher who’s pretending to be Banks.
Yet…
“Thatcher.” His name is throaty and desperate off my lips, and my arms swoop back around his neck. He shoves into the embrace. Until our lips unite in a blistering, soul-bodied kiss. His fingers on top of my panties, massaging me above the fabric.
A moan strangles our kiss.
My moan.
His free hand cups the back of my head, strong and controlled. He deepens the intensity of the kiss like he can put my noises to bed.
The muscles in my belly tighten. Nerves firing in too many places to make sense. The friction on my clit, the vibration under my bottom, the taste of him on my lips—it’s a full-body sensation and I’m being submerged under it all.
Between our kisses, I remind him, “Your laptop.”
He reaches out and sightlessly refreshes the page.
I scoot closer into his hand between my legs. But also so I can clutch his ass. I dive my hands beneath his sweatpants and bite his bicep.
“Fuck,” he grunts and his eyes make love to me a thousand different ways.
He tears off my peach-hued blouse, then pulls up my bra to my collarbones. In one swoop, my breasts are exposed to the chilly air, and I’m grinding into his hand. “Please.”
He holds the back of my head like I’m his to protect. And to love and to supply many earth-shattering orgasms.
He curls the crotch of my panties aside, his large fingers pulsing in me, and I let out a whimper, my limbs trembling. His other thumb feels feather-light over my hardened nipple.
“Jane.” He says my name like he’s already fucking it.
Wetness pools between my thighs, and I see the sheer length of his hardness against his sweatpants.
Oh…
My.
His lips crash against mine again. Hands begin exploring. I move away from his ass to take hold of his cock, his waistband falling low past his muscular hips.
I rub him in deep long strokes. He curses under his breath, and I want him in me too fiercely. Our bodies are reacting in hungered need for closer contact. In me.
Please.
I pull his fingers out.
Scooting forward, my ass is near the edge of the washer, and with my other hand around his shaft, I begin to lead his tip into me.
Thatcher takes hold of his cock, quickly stopping me. His strict eyes bear down on me. “Jane.” He grinds down his teeth, forcing back arousal. He takes a giant breath through his nose. “I’m not wearing a condom.”
My lower abdomen contracts. “Merde.”
We’ve never had sex without a condom, and I’m not buying into the theory that it’ll feel miraculously better without one. I’d rather be safe, most especially since I’m not on birth control.