Page 65 of Old Fashioned
“Please,” I said, nearly crying again. “I really don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
He frowned, but nodded in understanding. “Well, what I had to talk about can wait, too.”
“No, please, you wanted to talk first, and then I sprung this all on you, and—”
“Hey,” he said, his knuckles finding my chin. He tilted it up, those blue eyes searching mine while I traced the rim of gold around his iris. “I am always here for you. Okay? Always. You are not a nuisance, and Iwantto be this person for you.” He swallowed. “I want to be your everything.”
My chest tightened, a mixture of the most intense longing and desire I’d ever felt swirling in a tornado with all the anxiety and warning sounds my body could release all at once.
“Jordan…”
But before I could speak, his lips were on mine, the warm swells both comforting and demanding as he took the words I was going to say and swallowed them whole.
I pulled back, breathless, fingers trailing down his chest before I grabbed his hand and stood. He followed me down the hall to the guest room, where we could be alone without the possibility of waking Paige since my room was next to hers.
When I closed the door behind us, the only light came from the horizontal slits in the closed blinds, and they cast streams of white across his face, his chest, his arms, his hands where they reached for me and pulled me in again, the next kiss tender and sure.
Just like that, we were done talking.
Jordan
Something about the way the night settled over both of us in Sydney’s dark guest room was different than any time we’d been alone before.
The moment that door closed behind us with a quietsnick, the moment her hands reached for me in the dark, and mine reached for her, and our mouths connected, comfortable and instinctively, it sent a charge through me like an electric current. I felt that energy spread like warm oil, slicking up every joint, seeping into every crevice, filling me up whole.
I cradled her face in my hands, my eyes closed as I tasted her, memorized her, my heart aching from what she’d confessed in the other room. The urge to protect her and keep her safe tore through me in the next moment, and I pulled her into me, crushing her in my embrace as I strengthened the kiss.
Sydney gasped, and as soon as her mouth opened I was walking her backward, kissing down her neck and over her collarbone until the back of her knees hit the bed.
“Lie down,” I whispered, and she reached blindly back, hands finding the bed as she sat and stared up at me, her chest heaving.
Without a word, I reached down for the hem of her sweater, peeling it up and over her head as she lifted her arms to let me. Then I kissed her, pushing her back until she was flat on the bed, and I kissed down, down — over the swells of her breasts, the muscles of her abdomen, the smooth skin above the band of her leggings.
My fingers dipped beneath that band, and Sydney lifted her hips, helping me peel them down her thighs and calves until they rested at her ankles. I kept my eyes on hers as I pulled them the rest of the way off, letting them fall to the floor.
She hadn’t been wearing anything beneath them.
The urge to groan in approval ripped through me, but I suppressed it, because though she was nearly naked now and my erection was so strong it pitched a tent in my pants, there was something more to this moment than lust, something more than my hands on her thighs spreading her legs as I kissed a trail from her ankle to the sweet spot at the apex of them.
I couldn’t take away what she’d been through. I couldn’t go back in time and steal her away from Randy before he had the chance to make her his, before he took that chance and used it to fuck her up instead of cherish her. I couldn’tunhurther.
But I could show her what she meant to me.
My heart thumped hard in my chest — once, twice — reminding me that I had things I needed to tellher, questions I needed to ask, answers I had to have. But I quieted it with a soft kiss on her clit, one that elicited a gasp from her lips and an arch of her back off the bed.
It could wait.
Knowing what we were and what we weren’t, hearing her claim me, explaining that I needed to claimher,that I needed more, that I needed all of her — it could all wait.
Tonight, I wouldshowher what I felt.
And when the time was right, I’d tell her, too.
My hands grabbed at the creases where her hips met her thighs, and I tugged her down until her ass was half off the bed, the weight of her in my hands as I paid homage to her pussy. I ran my tongue flat and hot from bottom to top before sucking her bud between my teeth, gently sucking, just enough to make her squirm before I released it again.
Sydney’s hands found my hair, and I buried my face more, letting her guide me where she wanted me. I listened to the words she wasn’t saying, to the way her hands tightened in my hair or loosened, to the way she moaned or stayed silent. My tongue was the student, eager and devoted, and her body language taught all it needed to know.
She was panting heavily and squirming so much she’d nearly fallen off the bed when I adjusted her, making sure she was secure before I removed one hand from where I held her and tickled her entrance with my fingertips. She groaned, leaning up on her elbows, her eyes hooded from where she watched me.
