Page 83 of Off Limits

Smiling against his lips, I wrap my hands around his head and hold him in place for one last kiss before letting him answer the door, enjoying the sight of him in gray sweatpants that mold to his fine ass as he walks away from me.

Taking off my coat is a marvelous idea, though. Making out with Simon always gets me hot and bothered, and I’m definitely not going anywhere now.

Simon returns moments later with a bag full of Chinese takeout. He sets it on the coffee table and together we open the cartons to see exactly what Cal ordered. It looks like a mix of everything he thought would be good—fried rice, egg rolls, teriyaki chicken, lo mein, beef in some kind of sauce I haven’t tried before, but it’s rich and tangy and I want more right now.

With a chuckle at my moan of delight as I pop another bite of beef into my mouth, Simon straightens. “I’ll get plates.”

Once we’ve divvied up the food, we sit back on the couch, and I examine Simon, marveling at this unexpected turn of events. The last ten days have been spent oscillating between convincing myself I can somehow find a way to fix things and telling myself that it’s over, and I need to learn to accept it and move on. Showing up at the game today was my last ditch effort at trying to fix things. I’d told myself that if he wouldn’t listen, or if even after listening he still didn’t want to be with me, then that was it. It was over. And I’d figure out a way forward without him.

So when he heard me out and then left … well, I figured that was it. We were officially done. Never in a million years would I have guessed that my brother, of all people, would be the architect of repairing my relationship with his best friend.

Maybe he’s not as much of a dick as I thought he was after all. Or maybe he was, but he’s working on changing, and this is the first step on that road.

“What made you change your mind?” I ask, catching Simon just as he’s put a huge bite in his mouth. Perfect timing.

Surprise passes over his face, and he freezes for a second before chewing more slowly, his face thoughtful.

The silence stretching between us as I wait for his answer is unbearable, so I poke at my fried rice and start babbling. “I mean, earlier it seemed like you never wanted to see me again. Or something. And now …” I gesture at the food and us.

He shakes his head. “I was trying to convince myself that letting you go was best for both of us.”

“But?” I prod, too impatient for the answer to keep my mouth shut and let him get it out in his own time.

With a crooked grin, he shrugs. “But Cal ambushed me with you. He told me he was ordering dinner, and I expected you to be the food delivery. And when I saw you interacting with him, everything that you were trying to tell me before finally made sense.” He shrugs again. “It was never about me at all.”

The last tangle of the knot in my chest, the last niggling worries, relax away, my shoulders coming down from where they’d been permanently hitched around my ears. “No. It wasn’t.”

He sets his plate aside and scoots closer to me, pulling my plate out of my hands as well, cupping my face, and bringing his lips to mine. He tastes of soy sauce and sesame oil, and I’m sure I do too, and I think after this, those will be aphrodisiac flavors for me, becausedamnwhat a kiss. It’s the perfect combination of heat and gentleness, domination and savoring, and I want more.

I grip his wrists, slide my hands up his arms to his shoulders, and do my best to pull him closer. Or pull myself closer to him. It’s been way too long since I’ve felt him against me, and now that we’re here, misunderstandings resolved, I don’t want to wait anymore.

In a flash, I’m back on his lap, his hands on my ass moving me over the hard ridge of his dick, slow and grinding and so, so right. Except for my jeans. And his sweats. And right about now I wish I were in one of those paranormal romances I sometimes read where one of the characters can just blink and make their clothes vanish. That would be a particularly awesome power to have right now.

Sadly, we’re just normal humans without any special powers to blink our clothes away, and we’ll have to part to undress. But in a minute. Because right now my tongue is in his mouth, my fingers in his hair, his hands on my ass, and I don’t want to let this go just yet, even if I know that being naked will be immeasurably better.

He lets out a low, rumbly moan and lifts his hips, pressing into me even harder. I break away panting and barely able to get words out. “Naked. You. Me.Fuuuuck.” The last part is because Simon’s still rolling his hips under me, but his hands have found their way under my shirt and he’s circling my nipples with his thumbs while kissing a trail down my neck, and the overload of sensations is too much for my brain to do anything other than twitch with pleasure.

Not that I’m complaining.

He lifts the shirt over my head, almost without missing a beat on his mouth’s path south, and then he tugs a bra cup out of the way and his tongue wraps around my nipple in the most delicious way, prompting more incoherent sounds from me.

When he lifts his head, he graces me with a beautiful smile before saying, “Hang on,” in that sexy, commanding voice of his, moving his hands to my ass once more to yank me even closer, and standing.

I cling to him, peppering his cheeks and jaw with kisses as he carries us to his room, where he kicks the door shut and falls back on his bed, surprising a little squeal out of me.

He grins up at me, and I smile back, overflowing with giddy happiness. This is our first time doing this in his room, and the fact that neither of us has to worry about Cal showing up and getting mad is more of a balm than I would’ve expected. There’s nothing hanging over our heads. No worries or fears or hangups. Just this. Us. Here. Together with no impediments. And I couldn’t be happier.

His hands skim up my bare back and make short work of my bra clasp, and I pull my arms from the straps and toss the offending garment away. But of course, I’m the only one topless, and I’m not okay with that.

I reach between us and start tugging on the soft cotton of his T-shirt. He wiggles and twists so that I can work the shirt up his torso before curling up—and my god, the ripple of his abs in high relief when he does that,unf—reaching behind his neck, and yanking the shirt off. It takes some effort to get his arms out and the balled up fabric tossed in a corner, and when he finally does, we’re both smiling and laughing.

He pulls me down so my bare chest presses into his, warm and hard with a sprinkling of hair across his pecs. His hands move my hair out of my face, his gaze warm and affectionate as he meets my eyes. “I’ve missed you,” he says softly. “I’ve missed this. Us, together, just having fun.”

I place a soft kiss on his lips. “Me too.”

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Simon

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