Page 152 of Built to Fall
“We don’t have all night,” she says with the smallest bit of desperation, trying to pull out of my grip.
“Actually, we do.” My hands reach out for her waist automatically, pressing her backward against the wall right beside the door. “Patience, pretty girl.”
Lina rolls her eyes. “You have practice tomorrow morning.”
“I’d lose any amount of sleep if it meant my conscious mind had the chance to focus on you a minute longer.”
Again, she thinks I’m lying. “Whatever,” she says, smacking my shoulder. “Can we go in now? I have theories to prove.”
“Theories?” She opens the door easily—because Braxton, Cam, and I are all bad about locking it when we leave—and heads straight for my bedroom. “What kind of theories?”
Her voice stays completely level, and she barely cracks a smile when she glances over her shoulder and says, “Sex god theories.”
I lunge in front of her, nearly tripping over the leg of a barstool that hadn’t been pushed in all the way. I don’t bother fixing it. I’m too busy trying to get inside my bedroom as quickly as possible.
Lina giggles. “I thought we had all night?”
I shake my head, pulling her into my bedroom and shutting the door behind me. It doesn’t take me more than three seconds to have her pressed up against it.
“I’ve decided I’d like a vote,” I whisper, my lips barely grazing her ear as my hands inch beneath the band of her leggings, fiddling with the strap of her panties.
“It’s a little late for that,” she manages to reply before her breath hitches. “Plus, you can’t vote. That would be like sportsbetting on a game you’re playing in. You can’t be a voter and an unbiased election official—it would corrupt the system.”
“I have about a thousand much more corrupt thoughts running through my mind.” I know exactly what I’m doing, teasing her as I inch my fingers closer and closer toward her center. “And I can promise you none of them include you wearinganything.”
I feel her tense. It’s clear she’s still getting used to the buildup of it all—letting herself relax first, instead of fast-forwarding straight to the races.
Trailing kisses down her throat to her clavicle, I feel her body slowly ease up.
Lina must feel it too, because her normal confidence comes back ten-fold. “Well then,myvote is for you to just take them off.”
I follow her order without complaint, settling on my knees as I pull her leggings down her legs and nodding in approval when I see the red panties she’s wearing. Despite what she originally requested, I don’t take them off right away. They look too good on her to discard them yet.
She hums, lifting her feet one at a time for me to drag her pants completely off. “I like this view.”
Me too.This angle of her allows me to see every sharp line and contrasting soft curve while feeling every ounce of power she knows she holds over me.
Evangelina Everhart is the type of beautiful that should come with a warning—a quiet ruin you never truly see coming until you’re wrecked.
“I’m sure you do,” I chide, grinning up at her as I press a kiss to the inside of her thigh. “Feel free to get used to it.”
She leans back against the door, eyes warm, smirk even warmer. “I’m already used to you being obsessed with me.”
My fingers slide up her calves, over her knees, until I’m gripping her hips again, mouth hovering just shy of where I know she wants me. “I campaigned hard, didn’t I?”
Working my way into Lina’s good graces didn’t come from a grand speech or gesture. It came from relentlessly showing up, openly campaigning myself to her in order to be the name on her ballot.
“Careful,” she murmurs, threading her fingers through my hair. “My roommates might not be the happiest with you if you’re holding separate elections.”
I kiss her again, slower this time. “Your roommates can’t rig the vote if I’m the only candidate.”
She pulls me up by my shoulders, pressing her lips harder against mine once I’m standing. “Let’s take politics out of the bedroom.”
With that, she shoves me backward. Her back is no longer against the door as she stalks toward where I’m standing near my mattress.
I have a fairly good idea of where tonight is going, but I’m well aware of Lina’s wariness toward intimacy, and I’m not trying to assume anything. Her ex was the crack in the dam that flooded her fears—I can’t ignore that fact, despite how much I’d like to.
“You hold all the power here,” I tell her, taking a seat on the edge of the mattress, pulling her so that she’s standing between my legs. “Whatever you want to do, pretty girl.”
