Page 69 of Wish Lists and Road Trips

My brain shuffled through a million questions and curiosities until one slipped out. “What do I taste like?”

He pulled away and licked his lips, his pupils dark. “Rummy Bears.”

“Nick!” I kicked my feet against the mattress, and he caught my ankle, laughing.

“I’m kidding.” He crawled up my body locking eyes before catching my mouth in a deep, tongue-sliding kiss. “That’s what you taste like.”

My God.

He pulled up to his knees and grabbed the back of his shirt, hauling it over his head. I thought maybe he’d changed his mind and just wanted to get to it, but then he lifted my hips, dragging me down the mattress until my body curled into a C. My back and bottom were flush to his chest, my shoulders pressed into the bed.

He spread my thighs open just below his chin and licked his lips. I was boneless and in some sort of state where lust mixed with shock. I just stared at him.

Nick smiled with the patience of a saint and the expression of a man who was about to ruin me. “Put your legs on my shoulders,” he instructed.

Right. I wasn’t sure why I didn’t think of that instead of letting them hang awkwardly in the air like I was doing Pilates.

I hooked my ankles behind his head and Nick lowered his mouth, his eyes on mine until the last possible second. “Good?” he asked, one cheek hitched into a devastating smile.

I gurgled some sort of unintelligible sound. My mouth was stuck in an O, eyes wide like I’d just witnessed an angel from heaven appearing to tell me this was all a reward for some kindness I’d committed in another life.

I tried to tilt my body so I could reach him, touch him back, but he let go of one thigh to push my hand away. “In a minute,” he whispered, leaning over me to lace our fingers on the mattress. His other hand wrapped around my stomach, holding me to him. “Focus.” He blew the word out, warm breath over sensitive skin and I choked on a half-cry.

Determination flashed across his face, as if he’d given up trying to impress me with torturously precise technique and let himself get overwhelmed by the rush of it. And overwhelmed was a good word because all of my senses were locked into the scratch of his stubble against my thigh, the greediness of his tongue, thesoundof it. I thought maybe I owed Sean a debt of gratitude that he hadn’t ruined this for me yet.

“I don’t want to finish like this,” I said when I felt my thighs start to shake. I needed him closer.

“Tell me what you want.”

“I just want you.”

“Be more specific,” he said, his voice like sandpaper.

“I want you to stop being careful.”

The corner of his mouth hitched up and in an instant I was on my stomach, Nick on his knees behind me. His fingers tangled in my hair, guiding my head back for a bruising kiss that made my heart slam in my chest. It was pure excitement, though. I knew even when he wasn’t being soft, that Nick would always be sweet.

“Lift up,” he said, tapping my butt. I did as he said, scooching to my knees, my cheek still flat on the pillow. He traced my jaw with his thumb. “Goddamn, this is a nice view.”

I giggled, then gasped when I felt the tip of him nudge me, then his big hand splay over my hip, squeezing tight and rough. He reached around my stomach, between my legs, lining us up to bring us together in a thrust that was anything but soft.

I bit down on my lip to keep from crying out. The last thing I wanted was for him to stop. I wanted that hard edge, that slip of his control. He was holding me to him so tightly, he couldn’t pull all the way out, fucking me with just a rough rock of his hips. He mumbled into my shoulder, telling me how perfect I looked beneath him, asking me to come for him, telling me how much he liked to watch it. It was like a layer peeling away, revealing this needy possessiveness in him. It was so unexpected and intimate and raw, and where I’d just been feeling playful and excited, now the intensity made me shiver.

A whispered “Come on, sweetheart” sliced through my tiny fear of letting it happen like this, in such a vulnerable position, because I wasn’t wrong about Nick or the way he would catch me. He slipped his hand behind my neck, tilting my face toward him, and fell with me, eyes wide open and smiling.

We slept for hours, naked and tangled, finally stirring when the room was cast in shadows from the setting sun. I lay draped over Nick’s hips, my face half-buried in a pillow. Nick’s hand was on my butt, not moving, not squeezing, just resting. I thought maybe he was still asleep, until he pulled in a deep breath and turned to face me. “Can I ask you something?”

“Mmm.”

“How’d you pick a guy like Sean, one who treated you so poorly? I’m not implying it was your fault at all, I just meant, what attracted you to him?”

“Oh. Um . . .” I stuttered. This was an unexpected turn. “He picked me, actually. Plucked me right out of the crowd at this company event. A harbor cruise for my dad’s firm because they’d hit some benchmark for the year—string band, sunset, all that. My father insisted I go. Sean had just started there a few months before so I hadn’t met him yet. He walked up to me and said, ‘You’re the prettiest girl on this whole boat. Want to dance?’ It wasn’t a big boat.”

A flicker of irritation flashed in Nick’s eyes. He didn’t like my self-deprecating humor.

“How’d you get all the way to engaged, though?”

I shifted, pulling my bent arm beneath my cheek. “I told you, he works for my dad. It was good for everyone involved.”

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