Page 47 of On the Run
“Beale, honey, maybe you need better sex.”
He opened his mouth to retort, but I held up my hands.
“Fine,” I said in defeat. “The truth is, I’ve wanted to climb you like a tree since thirty seconds after we met. You’re gorgeous and you’re funny, and I apparently have a kink for guys who are really capable or something. Also, abstinence makes me twitchy, and you’re my only option for the next week, fake soul mate.” I blinked my eyes in my very best starving orphan impression, though I wasn’t looking for gruel so much as one particular enormously hot male.
“And you’re not suggesting this because you feel like you owe me, are you?”
I hesitated, running my tongue over my top lip and studying him like a puzzle. “Which answer would make you more likely to agree?”
“Ah, fuck it.”
He bit his lip and pulled me nearer, his eyes fixed on my mouth, and I’d have sworn I could feel his heartbeat pulsing in the air between us. Or maybe it was mine.
He wrapped a hand around the back of my neck, lowered his head… and sank his teeth into my bottom lip. It was so arousing and so fucking unexpected I gasped and shivered.
I saw the flash of Beale’s grin a second before he captured my mouth more fully, and I realized too late that, virgin or not, if the man could take me apart with a kiss, sex with him was going to be about as safe as riding a roller coaster in an earthquake.
But given that I was so very, very screwed, what was there to do but hang on and enjoy the ride while it lasted?
8
Beale
Czarina’s StarCharts for Today:
Delayedgratification isn’t always the best policy, Virgo. Dissolve your inhibitions; grab what you want.
* * *
“Wawasthat?”Toby mumbled against my mouth as I steered us around the fountain in Mason and Fenn’s front yard and headed for the backyard without breaking the kiss we’d started in the driveway, which was really just a continuation of the kiss we’d started back on Menucha.
“Fountain,” I said shortly.
“Mmm,” he agreed before plunging his tongue back into my mouth. He groaned like a starving man who’d finally been given a meal, like it had been years instead of milliseconds since he’d tasted me, and fuck if my dick didn’t perk up at the sound.
I swept my hands up his back under his crop top, soaking in the feel of his smooth skin under my fingertips. He was so much smaller than me, but firm and solid, too.
We crashed through the gate, and Toby pushed me away with two hands, his brown eyes alight with mischief. I stumbled back into the column of the pergola that shaded one corner of the backyard.
“Are we alone?” Toby’s chest heaved. “No remodeling dudes around? Not that it’s a deal breaker for me, but I’d rather not be interrupted.”
“Oh. Um.” There was no space in my brain for thoughts about this, but I tried to make some. “Yeah. Yes. No trucks in the driveway. They only work a half day on Saturdays. We’re alone.”
“My God, you’re gorgeous when you’re thinking,” Toby breathed before stepping back into my space and lifting up on his toes to lick a path up the side of my neck. “And you taste delicious.Fuck. Salty and sweet. I want to put my mouth on you.Allover you. Okay?”
Was that an actual question? Did he expect an actual answer? Just in case, I said, “Good. Yes. Do that.”
Any further response I might have made evaporated when he clamped my earlobe between his teeth, and my goddamn knees actually quaked.
“Holy Jesus,” I breathed, like I was experiencing a religious conversion, because I kind of was. “I’ve never… Do that again!”
“Wait.” Toby pushed me away again and kept both hands braced on my shoulders. His breath came in rough pants. “Wait.Wait, wait. You’ve never had someone kiss your ear?”
I shook my head. “Not that I remember.” And I would definitely have remembered something that felt this good.
He tilted his head to one side. “How virgin is virgin, Beale?”
“Uh.” I shook my head, momentarily unable to form a sentence since all the blood in my body had rushed to my cock and it was literallythrumming. “Not entirely virgin?”
