“Do you want me to go camping with you?”
He looked at me and didn’t answer.
“Well?”
“Not sure how to answer that.”
“It was a yes or no question,” I pointed out.
“Well, I’m pretty sure if I say yes and do it, it would be one sure way to get my dick chopped off.”
I burst out laughing.
“What? You think it’s funny? Me with no dick… Jesus.”
“Oh my God, just stop talking.” I gasped trying to contain my laughter. Once I had I swallowed hard. “What on earth would make you think that?”
“Well your Pa isn’t exactly St. Peter so I’m gonna have to go with a no on the camping, or anything overnight related.”
We were joking around but it wasn’t exactly a joke, and a little bubble of disappointment fluttered into the pit of my stomach at the confirmation that there would be no camping or anything overnight related.
I looked at him and gave him a pointed stare. “I’m not a child you know. I don’t have to get my father’s approval for everything.”
“And there’s that fiery personality of yours again that could get you in trouble.” His eyes in the flicker of the flames looked darker but I could sense the desire. It reminded me of that night at the club.
“What now?” he prodded. “You tend to stare at me a lot and I don’t know what you’re thinking.”
“I’m thinking of the massive coincidence of seeing you at the club. It’s the only thing that doesn’t fit.”
“Why doesn’t it fit?”
“Everything so far has been about my father, but not that. He wasn’t at the club.”
“No, he was not.”
“So, are you going to tell me it was a coincidence. Seeing me there?”
He gazed at me and gave me that sexy half smile that made my nerves scatter.
“No, it wasn’t.”
“Did you follow me?” I asked because that was the obvious question.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe again? Why would you follow me? It wasn’t me you were working for.”
“Curiosity.”
My focus went straight to his lips as he leaned closer and said that.
“You watched me that night.” The same way he was watching me now.
“You weren’t exactly hard to miss. Is that the way you dance for all the guys you flirt with?”
I shook my head. “Nope, just the ones I like.”
My inner desire had made a return despite the shit from this morning. It was him. He brought it out of me no matter how forward I sounded.
He shook his head. “No Jia, you shouldn’t like me.”
“Because you don’t like me?” I wouldn’t ask a question like that if I didn’t already know the answer and I wouldn’t ask it if I thought he might tell me he didn’t.
“Never said that.”
“You seemed to like me well enough when you watched me dance. Unless you got in trouble with your girlfriend later for the obviously sexual way you stared at me.”
He chuckled and focused on me, his eyes seemed sharper. “Wow, I’m not sure if I should be impressed with your over confidence or thrown.”
“It’s not confidence, it’s truth. Except the girlfriend part. I don’t know if that’s true yet.”
“No, I don’t have a girlfriend, Jia,” he stated in a matter of fact tone. “That’s the question isn’t it?”
I nodded. “I can’t be blamed for my creativity.”
“No you cannot.”
I straightened up and stared at him. In the spirit of forgetting the shit from today I homed in on my inner self. Who knew what tomorrow would bring or what I’d be going home to? The way things looked it could be a human girl sized cage just for me.
Maybe Pa would lock me inside and I’d never see anyone again.
So right now I didn’t care if I was forward.
“What were you thinking when you looked at me? Back at the club I mean. It was the only time over the space of days that you’ve seen me when I was me.”
Unlike the camping question he seemed to be thinking a lot more carefully about his answer.
“I thought a lot that night,” he replied.
“Tell me one thing.”
Again he stared, holding my gaze and capturing my attention. “I …wanted to touch you.”
The declaration stilled my heart and drew me in to the allure of him even more. It was the first sign he’d given away of any sort of interest in me.
“You can… touch me,” I told him.
We just stared at each other.
He was the first guy I’d been around that didn’t hit on me. The first guy I’d been around that I wanted to hit on me and hadn’t.
“I shouldn’t touch you Jia.” He sounded like he was saying that more to himself than to me.
“Why not? You said you wanted to.”
“I want to, but that doesn’t mean I should.”
“Because you’re off limits.” I thought I’d lighten the tension that had filtered into the space between us.
“No… because you’re off limits.”
It was good to hear that because I figured the only person who made me off limits was me.
We were sitting close, but I moved closer until I was right next to him.
Right next to him so that the bare skin of my thigh brushed his jeans.
His eyes practically drank me up as I did so. His gaze raked boldly over my body from my eyes, then down to my breasts, my hips and down my legs.
Since he wasn’t off limits and I wanted to touch him too, I decided I’d make the first move.
I pressed my hand to the hard muscle of his chest. Hard like rock, and solid like it too. The skin never even gave under the weight of my palms.
Guiding my hand over his t-shirt, I felt the rigid planes, peaks and valleys.
When I touched the trace of his bare skin in the deep v of the shirt, he cupped my face and I smiled.
I met his gaze and saw the longing in his eyes. I was moving to kiss him even before he moved to me.
When our lips met in the middle, a blast of heat washed over my skin, sweeping through my soul. It started with the brush of his lips and flushed over my body in a full sweep that made all my nerves tingle from the inside out.
I moaned into the hot, wet kiss he gave me and he took advantage of the moment to sweep his delicious tongue into my mouth and smooth his hand to the back of my head, angling me so he could kiss me harder.
Harder and deeper, giving me a taste of him and luring me to accept the invitation to get lost in him. I took it. I took the lure and the invite and rode the flames of emotion that coursed through my body into my soul.
I’d never felt such want and desire, not from anyone. It beckoned me to take more so when the kiss turned hungry, I found myself tugging on his shirt in a desperate need for him to take me.
Claim me the way he claimed my mouth. I wanted to feel it all over my body. Everywhere.
His hand moved down my neck, down my shoulder and cupped my right breast. The touch made me wet instantly and intensified the ache for him to touch me everywhere.
Through the silk fabric of my camisole top he ran his finger over the taut peak of my nipple while he caressed my breast with his palm.