Page 83 of Flirting with Forever

She shivered each time their mouths connected, and on the last one, she chased him forward, spoke against his lips. “Let’s be naked now.”

“Yeah,” he agreed immediately, rising up with her in his arms.

She squeaked and gripped at his shoulders. “John!”

“I’ve got you.” And he did. He felt the same way he had when he’d lifted her against her door the night before. The weight of her was reassuring, comforting, thrilling all at once. Something about holding Mary’s body up with his body made John feel more a part of the human race than any other thing he’d done in his life.

The light was full now, but it still had that pre–7:00 a.m. magic that shadowed certain things and made other things glow. John wanted to collapse onto the bed in a pile, but more than anything, he knew that seeing was believing and he needed to see Mary on his bed. He set her down and stood back.

Mary immediately flopped backward, stretching her arms above her head, mussing the covers and making anmmmsound like she’d just tasted something delicious.

John took one step back and then another, until he was far enough away to get the whole frame crammed into his memory. The image of those red shorts on his boring, blue bedspread. Yow. That was so freaking hot.

Someday, he’d like to watch her strip out of her clothes while she lay on his bed, but then she looked up at him, reaching her hand out for him, and the distance part of the morning was officially over.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

JOHNSTOODFIVEfeet away with one hand tugging down the bottom half of his face. Mary took a mental snapshot of the man who was looking at her like she was literally everything he’d ever wanted.

Mary knew that insecurities ran deep, and they weren’t anyone’s duty to dispel but her own. But still, the look on John’s face right now certainly helped. He wasn’t wishing her to be anything different than the person she was.

She reached her hand out to him, for him, needing him. And as she’d known he would be, he was there immediately. Palm to palm, fingers threaded and then, yes, his mouth on hers. John put one knee on the edge of the bed and leaned over her, taking deep draughts of her mouth. He tasted her fully, slowly, as if they had all the time in the universe, as if the light weren’t changing that very moment, as if the world weren’t marching on all around them, as if the two of them weren’t changing and growing and aging even as they clutched at one another, as if this moment had its own set of orbiting planets, its own gravitational force, its own history.

He shifted his weight and sheltered her, the bed dipping as he planted a hand and took even more from her mouth. His tongue was both soft and overbearing at once and Mary reveled in it, how perfectly John that combination was. Sweet and obliviously intense. He tasted delicious, like toothpaste and fresh coffee and how much he wanted her. She felt his breath fan out over her cheek and it wasn’t steady.

She thought of how he looked from afar, broad shoulders, hands in pockets, black and white. Steady. Substantial. Unshakable. But his hand was trembling as he laid it over her hip and stomach. His fingers shook, just slightly, as he slid them down and then back up, catching under the bottom hem of her shirt, under fabric, to touch her bare skin. His fingers flexed at the dip of her waist, pressing into her softness, testing the line between her body and the rest of the world. The edges of her.

He leaned back, one knee on the bed, one foot on the floor, and his eyes were bleary as his pupils grew and shrank. He gripped the bottom of her shirt in both hands and determinedly pulled it up. She’d thought he’d yank it right off, but halfway there, he made a strangled noise and fell down on her again, his mouth opening against her hip bone, his stubble rubbing at her navel, his forehead planting at the V of her ribs.

She let out a half laugh, half groan because joy was rising in her as fast as her arousal was. She grabbed her own shirt and yanked it off, and John looked dazed when he tipped his head and saw her nothing-special bra. Beige colored, because her shirt was white and she’d wanted it to be invisible. Even so, his nostrils flared like she’d just revealed the finest lingerie. He gripped her ribs with one hand and yanked at her bra strap with his teeth.

She laughed fully now. “What is it with you and bra straps?”

“They’ve never lost their mystique,” he told her in a gravelly voice. “Ever since I was a kid, it’s never failed to amaze me that sometimes, depending on what a woman is wearing, you can just casually see part of her underwear. Bra straps are freaking hot.”

“I’m sorry I robbed you of bra straps with my strapless bra last night.”

“Don’t be. That was hot too, a little mystery. Bras are girl-magic. So hot.”

As if to prove it, John’s hands were suddenly everywhere. Cupping her breasts over top of her bra, gliding and pressing, in almost-chaste second-base action. But then, in the blink of an eye, he tipped her to one side, flashed his hand behind her back and unhooked her bra smoothly. He didn’t pull it away yet, though.

“Wow,” she commented. “Most men fumble the clasp a little bit.”

He smirked at her. “I’m a bra expert, Mare.” Then he promptly tipped his head to one side, somewhat sheepishly. “My high school girlfriend held me at second base for about a year and a half. There was nothing to do but learn how to remove a bra really well.”

Mary did that laugh-groan-gasp thing again. Because she loved learning about his dorky past. And he’d called her Mare, the way only those closest to her did.

She craned up, needing to kiss him, and he obliged instantly. His lips were firm, his sweeping tongue soft and reverent. He groaned into her mouth, and Mary felt it down to her lungs. She deepened the kiss, their teeth clacked lightly and Mary grabbed at his hair. His hand slipped under the loosened cup of her bra, and they both made a sound akin to pain. When she opened her eyes, it was to see John’s clamped closed, the fringe of his black eyelashes almost disappearing. He pulled away from the kiss, his eyes coming open as his thumb strummed across her nipple, and Mary arched for him.

He sat back on his knees and tugged the bra away.

“Mary,” he whispered. “Jesus Christ, you’re gorgeous.”

She lay topless on his bed, her body burning under his bright gaze. She dropped her eyes and saw that he was tenting his basketball shorts indecently. She lifted one leg and planted the flat of her foot against his thigh. Her knee fell to the side and his nostrils flared as she opened herself to him.

He briefly covered his eyes with one hand. “You trying to get me to fuck you with your shorts still on?”

Mary went tight and liquid between her thighs all at once. “Is that an option?”

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