Page 30 of The Fire Walker
What was a guy to do? Lay it out. That waswhat.
“Jessie, I know you’re leaving tomorrow, and I don’t know what I’m fucking doing, but I have to tell you. I can’t not tell you.” I took a deep breath. “I like you. Like, really like you, and I don’t know how else to say it without sounding like a crazy person.” She was staring at me, her expression unreadable. “I don’t want this to end here.” I steeled myself for theinevitable.
Downing the last of her cherry cola, she said, “We better goback.”
And there itwas.
I dumped the rubbish in the bin, and we walked down the boardwalk in silence, our boots thudding against the wood, this horrible black hole opening up insideme.
In the taxi on the way back to the hotel, neither of us said a word, the air heavy with what I’dsaid.
All the way back up to her floor in the elevator was a painful kick in the gut. Knowing that this whole thing could have been so one-sided made humiliation flare like a white-hot flame. Me, humiliated? Add this one to the pile of rejections, and it would sit there like a cherry on top of the proverbial strawberry milkshake. I would never be able to look at one of those in the same way everagain.
I hovered by her door as she slid the key card into the lock. The light flashed green, and she turned the handle, propping the door open with ashoulder.
“Goodnight,” she said with a small smile, and I knew it was now or never. I just had to go forbroke.
Be the fucking alphamale.
Before she could turn away, I grasped her face in my hands and pressed my lips to hers. It wasn’t forceful, just soft. Nice. But when she began to kiss me back, her tongue teasing my lips, it woke all of those crazy things I’d been feeling inside of me. I pressed her back against the door, and it swung inward into the dark room. We followed, her fingers tugging at the belt loops on my jeans. Then we were in total darkness, but neither of us stopped to turn on thelight.
I pressed her against the wall, deepening our kiss, my tongue against hers, and she tasted like the cherry cola I’d bought her at the beach. I breathed in her scent of vanilla and salt from the ocean like it was a drug, and it took away everything but her. She opened her legs slightly, and as I pushed a thigh between hers, she rolled her hips forward, and both of us let out deep moans at the sametime.
I was hard against my jeans as she pressed into me, the sensation almost unbearable. With a whimper, she turned her face from mine, tearing her lips away. I teased the soft skin of her neck instead, my hands caressing herwaist.
God. She was un-fucking-believable. I’d dreamed about it, but I never thought it would feel like this.Like I was onfire.
“Dee.” It came out strangled,breathless.
“Don’t fucking say it,” I murmured into her hair. “Please, don’t tell me tostop.”
She didn’t say anything, and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. We were in darkness, and I couldn’t see her eyes to know what she was feeling. Then her hands were under my T-shirt, tugging it upward, and it was all I needed to know. Reaching over my head, I grabbed the back and pulled it off, throwing it behind me. Her cool hands ran up my bare chest, and I shivered, relishing the feel of her againstme.
“I don’t do this,” she said through heavy breaths. “I’m not likethis.”
“Neither am I,” I said huskily. “But I still want you.” It was the truth. I didn’t just sleep with anyone who threw themselves at me. I made every fuckcount.
I slid my hands between her and the wall, cupping her ass and pressing her into the length of my body. She moaned into my neck, and I moved to kiss her again, but she pushed me back, breakingcontact.
She was gone, and suddenly, I felt cold, but the lamp beside the bed flicked on, casting its warm glow over theroom.
Jessie was standing next to the bed, her gaze locked on mine, and this unbearable urge to push her back on the mattress and show her exactly how she made me feel all night long almost overtook me, but when I took a step forward, she shook herhead.
I didn’t have time to feel rejected because she pulled off her singlet, her mousy blonde hair spilling around her shoulders. My gaze fixed on her hands as they slid down her stomach to the button on her shorts, and it was painful towatch.
She was standing there with her tattooed and almond skin and her perfect brown eyes, and I couldn’t believe she wanted me. Kicking off my boots, I took three long strides and pushed her back onto the bed with a growl, my fingers going between the lace of her underwear and her skin, feeling every curve. Arching her back, she unclasped her bra. I pulled it off, flinging it across the room, and I took a nipple in my mouth while I practically ripped her underwearoff.
“Dee.” She gasped, and the sound of her saying my name with such want made me strain harder against the inside of my jeans. All this time, she’d wanted me as much as I had wanted her. I wasn’t sure before, but now I waspositive.
“Fuck, Jessie,” I murmured against the curve of her breast. “You’reperfect.”
She tugged at my jeans, and I pushed them off my hips, dragging my boxers with them, then it was just us. Skin on skin. I didn’t want to be anywhere else but inside her. I wanted to feel her squirm, I wanted to hear her moan, and I wanted her to say my name as she came aroundme.
I ran a hand over her waist and down her leg to pull her around me. I covered her mouth with mine, sucking on her bottom lip as I rolled my hips forward, pressing hard into her clit, and the moan that escaped her echoed throughme.
My other hand slid between us, my palm over her clit, and my fingers found heropening.
“Fucking hell.” I groaned into the crook of her neck when I felt how wet shewas.
