Page 60 of All Jacked Up

I sucked in air, then asked, “How?”

“You know how,” he replied, clinching his teeth as his nostrils flared.

I licked my lips as my breaths came in small pants. “No, I don’t.”

“Like you want me to fucking take that mouth,” he growled, his eyes shooting back up to meet mine.

Yes. Yes, I wanted that very much.

“Would you if I asked?” The words came out before I could stop them.

His gaze narrowed as he stared at me with a hungry gleam in his eyes that I’d never seen directed at me or anyone else before.

“Fuck it,” he muttered, then slid his hand behind my neck. His fingers sank into my hair just before he lowered his head.

The moment when his soft, warm lips touched mine, my knees buckled. I grabbed his arms to keep from melting on the spot and opened to him the instant his tongue flicked along my lower lip.

The entire trailer could have blown up around us, and I wouldn’t have moved. Not from this spot and the taste of Ransom as he licked, tasted, and circled my tongue with his, sending pleasure rippling through me. This was a dream I’d had awake and asleep. Not once had it measured up to the real thing. And never had it been while standing in my childhood bedroom.

A deep growl vibrated in his chest as he pulled me closer to him. With one hand buried in my hair, he wrapped his other around me, holding me tightly, as if I were planning on escaping. When that was the last thing I wanted. Climbing his body was a thought.

We began to move, and I realized he was moving me backward. I went. Anything to keep his mouth on mine. My back hit a wall, and he stepped closer, nipped at my bottom lip, cursed under his breath, and then ran his hand up my side to just beneath my breast.

The ache that started up at the need for him to touch me caused me to arch, begging him for more. This insanity of bliss he was taking me to with a simple kiss was demanding more, and I was ready to plead. Promise him anything to experience it.

The cold hit me like an unwelcome blast as he tore his mouth and hands off me and moved back.

“Fuck!” he hissed and shoved his hand into his hair as he stared at me with a wild look in his eyes that turned the tingles between my legs into sparks. “I shouldn’t have done that.” His words said one thing, but his face said he wanted to continue.

“I didn’t stop you.” My response came back breathy.

He tilted his head back and blew out a long breath. “Fucking hell, Noa,” he groaned. “We can’t do that. It’ll mess it all up.”

Our friendship. It would end it. Because we’d have sex, and that would be it. He’d move on. I’d no longer be the girl he kept, but one of the many he tossed aside. A glass of cold water over my head couldn’t have worked better at snapping me out of this.

I straightened. Took a steadying breath. “Right,” I replied.

He looked back at me then. “Tell me I didn’t mess it up.”

I wanted to laugh. What exactly was he worried about? Like I was going to go anywhere. I needed him. It was probably unhealthy, but I did. I needed him in any way he was willing to let me have him.

“You kissed me, Ransom,” I replied, doing my very best amused and unaffected expression. While, inside, I was aching. “You didn’t kill my apartment full of cats.”

The corner of his mouth quirked. “I thought it was a bird.”

I nodded. “That too.”

He ran a hand over his face. “Right. Okay,” he said, then cleared his throat. “I’ll let you decide if there is anything in here you want to keep, and I’ll be waiting at the back door.”

“I don’t need to see the things outside. I’ll call and see if I can find a donation place that will come pick it up or—”

“Shakespeare,” he said, stopping me.

“Yes?”

“If you want to donate it, I will make the call now. You can finish in here, and we will leave. If you want it to go to the dump, I can do that too. Two dump loads have already been taken. What is outside are all things that are worth looking over.”

Don’t look at his lips. Don’t be that girl. Don’t make it weird.

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