Page 64 of Cherry Picked
“Not too fast,” he said gently, leaning forward to kiss me again. “Just… overwhelming. I want you so much, Jack. I’ve dreamed of this—you—for…” He let out a breath and dropped his eyes. “A long time.”
“Is that right?” I tilted his chin back up until he met my eyes again. Anticipation filled the air between us like a living thing, throbbing and swirling and sucking up the oxygen in the room. “Then I’m really,reallyglad you’re here with me now.”
Hawk’s mouth opened in surprise, and I couldn’t help but lean forward to taste it again.
We kissed for a long time, standing just inside the door to my room still fully clothed, our mouths becoming frantic once again. My hands mapped the angular contours of his body through his clothes—his pebbled nipples, his firm stomach, the curve of his ass. His cock was already hard, straining against his zipper as he rubbed himself against my thigh, and his fingers were threaded into my hair like he was afraid if he let go, I might disappear altogether. His words from the cave this morning came back to me…
And then I wake up, and poof.
As much as I wanted Hawk—and fuck did I want him in every possible way—I alsoknewhim. I knew what he wanted and needed from me tonight, and it was more than just kisses and unbridled passion. He deserved a slow, deliberate, no-holds-barred seduction. He deserved to know that while he might have dreamed of this for a long time, I wanted him just as badly.
I gentled the kiss and pulled back slightly. Hawk made a whimpering noise and clung tighter.
“Baby,” I whispered against his lips. “Shhh. Let go for a second.”
He made a frantic, negative sound and pushed himself harder against me.
“Bird.” I grasped his jaw in both hands and held him in place. I kissed him softly, on his full lower lip and his cupid’s bow, on either side of his mouth, on his stubbled chin. “It’s okay. I’m not going anywhere.”
“There’s no need to wait!” he said breathlessly. “Please—”
“Hawk,” I insisted, “do you know the first time I noticed how gorgeous you are?”
Distracted, he pulled back slightly and blinked like the question confused him. His big, brown eyes were dilated with lust and confusion. “Uh. Yeah. Last night… or this morning, I guess. I was there, remember?”
I shook my head. “Nope. Last night was when my blinders fell away, and I realized all that I might lose if I kept trying to keep you in this tidy little friendship box in my mind. It wasnotthe first time I wanted you.”
He frowned, and his nose wrinkled. “So, then… two weeks ago. When I, um… when I propositioned you.” He bit his lip. “When I changed things.”
I shook my head, fighting a smile. “Wrong again,” I said softly. “That was when I realized you might wantme, which, yes, forced me to think about some things I’d been too afraid to let myself think about. But your cherry-popping proposition didn’t change my feelings for you. They were there all along, just waiting for me to stop pushing them away.”
“But then…”
I huffed out a laugh and pressed a kiss to the tiny dent between his eyebrows. “Four years ago, Hawkins.Four.”
“No,” he said flatly. “Impossible.”
“So. Very. Possible,” I informed him, punctuating each word with a tiny kiss to his lips. I nudged him to the overstuffed chair in the corner and pushed him down gently before kneeling in front of him. I had to find a way to distract myself, or this whole thing would be over in a minute. “You know, Webb and I bonded really quickly after I came to the Hollow because he knew what it felt like to have a business and family depend on him, right? He understood where I was in my life, my circumstances, because he was in a similar place. But you…” I shook my head and began stripping off his socks. “You understoodme. I knew you were special from that first day. That I wanted to protect you at all costs. But you were a kid then, so I figured, ‘Well, Jack, you’ve never had a brother. Maybe this is what it feels like.’”
“But it wasn’t?” he whispered.
I shook my head. “That was only when I first knew you,” I said in my best Colin Firth impression. “It has been many years since I have thought you one of the most handsome men of my acquaintance—and by that, I mean utterly gorgeous, down to your soul, Hawk Sunday.”
“Oh my god.” Hawk’s eyes widened, and he leaned forward in the chair with a gasp. “Oh. My. God. Is this actually happening? Did you just… did you just quote Darcy at me?”
“Maybe.” I was pretty sure I’dbutcheredDarcy at him, but with Hawk, it was generally the thought that counted. I pecked him on the lips and pushed him back in his seat to resume my story. “Remember that time we went swimming at Lake Nitka a few years ago?”
“Yeah. We… um…” Hawk licked his lips, his gaze focused on my hands, which had begun massaging his feet and then the thick muscles of his calves. “We did the, ah… the zip-lining thing. Just us. It was one of the first times it was just you and me on one of our adventures.”
“That’s right. And you decided to take your shirt off before we climbed up the tower…” I massaged higher on his leg, my fingers delving under the hem of his shorts and sifting through the coarse hair there.
“Yeah.” Hawk’s voice was strangely gravelly, his neck flushed red. If I worried for a second that too much talking and confession might ruin the mood, one glance at the bulge in his shorts proved me wrong.
Hawk had always been a lover of words.
I kept my eyes locked with his while I kissed the inside of his knee. The hiss of his breath made my heart kick into a higher gear. “All of a sudden, you lookeddifferent. Muscles in your arms. In your shoulders. In these legs…” I ran my palms up the outside of his thighs, over those muscles that were thick and strong after covering endless miles of mountain terrain, until I could tug at the hem of his boxer briefs. “And holy shit, Hawkins, your ass.Hngh.”
“I wanted you to notice,” he admitted. “But you never… I didn’t think…”
