Page 91 of Perfect Pairing
“If it makes you feel better,” Rik said, “I warned them this was a bad idea.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Ezra muttered.
Poking his head out from behind his grandfather, Hansen said, “Papa, what’s happening?”
Rik rested his palm atop Hansen’s messy curls and said, “Nothing you need to concern yourself with,Älskling.”
Ignoring them, Mom said to me, her expression softening, “It’s time, my sweets.” Then, she pointedly turned and left the room through an arch on the other side, the rest of my familyfollowing behind her.
“Time for what?” I yelled after her, but everyone ignored me. Exasperated, I turned to Ezra and buried my face in his chest. “That little—”
“Brie,” Ezra warned.
“She’s manipulating us!”
“It only works if you want to be manipulated.”
My gaze flew to his, dazzled by the honest-to-god twinkle in his eyes. A small smirk played on his lips, drawing my attention there. To the plump bottom one and thinner top one. Remembering how they felt against mine—against my entire body, electrifying my synapses with each new connection, wringing endless pleasure from me with them.
Did I want to be manipulated? Did I want to let my mother shove me into participating in this tradition?
“What do you say, honey?” Ezra asked, the old nickname sliding over my skin like the sweet, sticky substance. “You gonna let me kiss you?”
“Do youwantto kiss me?”
“More than I want my next breath.”
Who was I to deny this man air?
Tentatively, I stepped closer, trying to take things slowly.
Ezra, apparently, was done waiting, because the second I moved, he was on me. His arms slid around my waist, palms warm, spanning my back, pressing me closer.
Then his lips were on mine, and everything in me went lax, a sigh escaping me as we came together. I’d missed this, more than I wanted to admit, which was wild given we’d really only kissed a handful of times. But that first time, the caving to ourmost carnal desires, that morphed into those months of phone calls. Getting to know him over that distance and span of time…I knew Ezra better than I knew anyone in the world save my family, and I think he knew me better than even my sisters did.
I found my way home in his kiss, and I couldn’t remember why I’d deprived us of it for so long.
I opened for Ezra, and he swept his tongue into my mouth. I sank further into him, reacquainting myself with his scent and his taste and the way it felt to be wrapped in his arms.
But I pulled away before we could get too deep, before his hands could wander lower than the small of my back. Before I lost myself entirely to him.
Ezra made a noise of protest when I extricated myself from his grip.
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t want to do this here,” I said, and he bent to rest his forehead against mine.
“So let’s go back to my place,” he whispered, angling his head to nip at my ear.
With a giggle, I shoved him away, needing some air to breathe, but I gripped his hands in mine.
I squeezed his fingers. “There’s no reason to rush.”
He guided one of my hands to his lap, pressing it against the thick length of his cock straining against his fly. “This seems like a pretty good reason to me.”
I hissed at the contact, at the reminder that I turned him on this way. That something as simple as a thirty second kiss had him hard as stone.
Quickly, before a member of my family could walk in onsomething so private and intimate, I snatched my hand away, but I soothed Ezra’s frown by rising onto my tiptoes and giving him a light kiss.
