Page 13 of Stuck

My pulse pounds. “You circled my wrist with your fingers. It was—I mean, maybe you were just dragging me off the dance floor, but there was something about how you held my arm. It felt good.”

He groans as the elevator comes to a stop. “And remembering that makes you blush?”

Heat swarms through me. “Yes. Definitely.”

He cups my face and kisses me softly. “Good. Let’s play with that.”

I’m not any kind of innocent. I’ve spent the last ten years doing my best to navigate the dating swamp, but too often sex is a mediocre experience.

The good sex I’ve had has been amazing.

The bad sex, though—to call it off-putting would be a kindness. So I’ve learned to be straight up with my desires. Some guys get weird about that.

Not Sam. NotthisSam, anyway. Grown-up, owning his mistakes, and—as he opens the door to his apartment—coming out the other side of that with averynice loft.

I whistle as I step over the threshold. It’s ruthlessly empty, but not cold. There’s an obscenely large couch in the middle of the space, covered in pillows and a generous throw blanket. Soft, touchable. But the dark plank floors between us and the sofa are completely bare. Beyond it, there’s a television on the wall and a low, wide walnut bookshelf below that. That’s it for the entire living space. Everywhere you look is an endless expanse of wood floor, leading to an open kitchen area at one end, and a set of doors at the other. Abstract art and sculpture decorate the space, making his loft more a gallery than a home. It takes my breath away.

“This is a nice place. You have a, wow, gorgeous art collection.”

“It’s almost all my sister-in-law’s work, and the paintings she curated for me. It was a housewarming gift, because she was so glad to get me off her couch. I’d mooched far too long while I was feeling sorry for myself.”

I shrug out of my coat, and he takes it. While he hangs it up, I move closer to a mixed-media sculpture of a woman. “Is she…masturbating?”

He laughs, then sighs. “Yes. Most of it has an erotic bent. That’s Gemma’s thing. Woman-focused erotic art.”

“I love it.” I move to the next piece, a painting that’s mostly atmospheric, and finally stop in front of a statue set into a nook on the wall. “I love all of it. She has great taste.”

“She’ll get a kick out of that compliment, and from a fellow creator, too.”

I turn my head and smile at him. “I still haven’t told you my pen name. Maybe I made all of that up because of our ice demon story.”

“Did you?”

I don’t answer. “We started an interesting conversation in the elevator.”

He’s taken off his suit jacket as well as his overcoat, and I reach out, pressing my hands against the soft, white cotton shirt stretched across his broad chest. He’s bigger now than in university. But he’s also grown into his body.

“I wrote a poem about you once,” I murmur as I trace the shape of his body.

He shudders. “There once was an asshole from Toronto?”

I burst out laughing. “No. It’s nice. It’s called…” I trail off and step back. He moves closer. I step back again, and we pace across the loft like that, him chasing me.

By the time we reach the floor-to-ceiling windows on the far side, my body is humming.

“Hazel,” he growls. “Tell me.”

“The sounds I imagine you make.” I whisper as he cages me in against the cold glass. “A growly burr/A slow fade into exhalation/A groan/A gasp.”

“I’ll groan for you,” he whispers as he unzips my hoodie.

I close my eyes as he finds the bare skin at my waist, then slides his hands underneath my t-shirt, against my belly. My ribs. Just shy of my breasts. “When I’m on my knees/Or above you, head curved low.”

“Will you suck me? I’d like nothing more than to see my cock in your beautiful mouth.”

I smile and keep going. “Beneath you, shifting/As you pin my arms against the bed.”

He groans now, for real, and buries his face in my neck. Open-mouthed. Wet, hungry. He sucks on my skin as heat ratchets up between us. But I’m not done yet.

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