Page 93 of Desserts for Stressed People

“I’m kissing you,” he whispers.

When I moan in response, he helps me off the kitchen counter. Our lips find each other again and we stumble through the kitchen. He groans as his ass hits the table, and when his tongue slips through my lips and his hands squeeze my ass, I stop chuckling.

Making the wise choice not to let me go, he guides me across the living room, and when we’re at the entrance of the bedroom, there’s almost a kick at my stomach that leaves me breathless. I see the ghosts of the girls Alex brought there, the things that he did to them, the lies that he’s told. They color the room dark, and bringing Shane in there would feel like cheapening what’s so beautiful and pure between us.

Maybe Idoneed to buy a new mattress.

“Couch,” I say, pulling him back. He plods toward it, dragging me along, because I can’t stop kissing him any more than he can. When we’re finally in front of the couch, he lowers me on it.

“Shane,” I moan when he lies on top of me. A pool of heat has taken over my stomach, and my lips are still pulsating, vibrating with pleasure.

“Heaven,” he answers with glazed eyes.

I pull on his neck until our mouths are drowning in each other’s, and my hands wander to his back. They touch everything they can reach, like I’m trying to memorize his muscular shoulders, his solid chest. I still haven’t seen for myself all the goodies hiding under his t-shirt, and I can’t wait to feel his body on me, skin to skin.

He licks alongside my jaw, his tongue wet and warm and fucking delicious. It sends goosebumps raining down my body, arching against his, trying to get closer though we’re already in a knot. And he’s so hard, so big, so freaking tempting—chocolate-covered muscles everywhere—that I can’t help but rub myself against him.

When he grunts, it sounds like poetry wrapped in the most perfect melody. The best noise I’ve ever heard—throaty and guttural. Hot. So hot, in fact, that I trail my lips down his neck, his throat. Lasciviously, adoringly.

“You taste like chocolate,” I whisper, almost out of air.

“You taste like…”—he cocks his brow dramatically—“heaven.”

I snort out a laugh. “Oh, that’ssobad—”

He nibbles my cheek until we both chuckle, and as soon as we stare at each other again, the tension crashes over us in full force. His hand moves under my shirt, gripping onto the small of my back until my brain shuts off. It’s big and warm. His long fingers that I’ve stared at more than I’d like to admit during our work meetings bury into my skin—hopefully leaving red, delicious marks on it.

He’s holding his weight on his elbow, but I pull him down to me. I want to feel all of him—need to, rather. And once his body is resting on mine, we both let out a sigh.

In the last hour, I’ve gone from cringing at the thought of seeing him again, to feeling his...bulging girth, as the romance book called it? And it feels different from Alex’s.

Everything about Shane is different from Alex. Shane is safety, care, trust. Shane is a whim. He’s the best kind of dessert—the one you don’t need to prove you deserve.

His lips trail down my neck again, and this time, he lowers the shoulder strap of my dress and kisses my chest. He does so reverently, like every new spot deserves twice the attention the last one got. It makes my body spasm up and down with shaky breaths as I struggle to keep still.

When his teeth trace down the skin of my chest, a hoarse noise comes out of my throat. I don’t know if my body is reacting the way it is because of him, or if I’m all of a sudden a mix of erogenous zones, just like the girl in the book.

“Take it off,” I say, grasping his shirt, and he quickly gets to his knees. The next thing I see is his shirt flying onto the chocolate-covered coffee table.

“Oh my God.” I stare at his chest as he moves down on me, then I push him back. My fingers trace down his defined pecs, following with his abs. “What is allthis?”

With a chuckle, he holds his hand over mine as I discover every furrow of his upper body. He’s deceived me. I never knew all of this was underneath his neutral cotton shirts.He’s the Adonis. And he’s spectacular.

He moves his face closer, but I’m not done staring at his six-pack and push him back again. Only once he drawls, “I want to kiss you,” do I force myself to look into his eyes. They’re hooded, his breaths shallow. He leans down a third time, and as our lips dance on each other, I have to make do with touching his chest—it turns out to be even better than just looking.

His soft, dark hair tickles my fingertips, and his muscles tense under my touch. I trace his biceps, then his shoulders, all the way down to his lower back. I don’t think I can get enough of him.

He holds onto the elastic band of my shorts, and my brain is a maze. It’s much too fast, much too soon, but any rationalizing has gone out the window, and I can’t find myself anymore—I’m completely lost. Everywhere around me is him, and the only way I’ll find my way back is with this man.

Until it all crashes.

I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s the fact that he cups my thighs, dangerously close to my underwear. Maybe it’s that his finger dangles at the edge of my shorts, and no one has seen me naked in five years but Alex. Maybe it’s because as he kisses my shoulder, I notice the model airplane Alex gave me on our third date staring at me from the shelf. I guess Emma and I forgot to trash some things.

But in an instant, I’m aware this is leading to sex, and I’m not ready for it. I’m not ready for Shane. Not on the same couch where Alex sat only a couple of days back, not when he’s here to make me feel better about my breakup. All the different emotions I felt for Shane in the last twenty-four hours dawn on me, and I can’t deal with it all.

“Wait,” I whisper. “Shane.”

“Hmm.” His lips press gently onto my clavicle, almost like he hasn’t heard me and definitely like he has no intention of stopping. “Yes?”

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