Page 117 of The Matchmaker
“You good?” he murmurs, and I nod, lifting my knee between us and extending my leg until I’m pointing my foot at his chest. He gets the hint and backs away, rising to his feet.
With a steeling breath, I follow him, standing from the bed and reaching for the hidden zipper of my dress. I hesitate for only a heartbeat, searching for an inner reluctance that never comes, and then pull it down.
The noise seems ridiculously loud in the quiet space, but before I can get nervous, I free my arms from the sleeves and let the material pool at my ankles before nudging it aside to stand before him in nothing but my underwear. I’m about to remove those too, in for a penny and all that, but then I catch the look on Callum’s face and freeze.
It’s a look I’ve never had directed at me before. An intense, hungry expression that should make me feel like one of those powerful women in Granny’s books, but instead just sends a sprinkle of nerves through me. Like, if he looks any closer, he’ll see all the little things that I’m told not to worry about, but I still always do. Cellulite! Stretchmarks! The bulge in my tummy that I sometimes try to suck in even though I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it. I can’t. And the nerves just increase, and I reach for the dress again and Callum looks so adorably confused before he realizes what’s happening and shoots forward, tossing it into the corner of the room.
“Don’t you dare,” he says, and I laugh a little at how choked the words sound. “You’ve been wearing those the whole time?”
“Nush made me buy them last year.”
“I’ve always liked that girl,” he says seriously, and I grin.
I’d never thought of underwear as sexy before. I mean, obviously, I knew they could be, but all my life they’ve just been practical daily things. Definitely not seductive. But the way he’s gazing at the little bow in the middle of my cups at the front has me pressing my thighs together, and the way he swallows tells me he notices the movement immediately, but he doesn’t move, waiting for something, waiting, I realize, for me.
I’m still a little nervous. It’s a good kind of nervous, but one that makes me linger where I am before I make myself take a hesitant step to him.
Only to burst out laughing as he grabs my hand and pulls me forward the final steps, straight into his arms.
* * *
Callum Dempsey has been holding out on me.
I think I’d be forgiven for not realizing it before. After all, he’d never been shy about letting me know how much he wanted me. We’d only shared a handful of kisses, but each time we did, it brought out a side of me I never knew was there and left me wanting more until I was almost breathless with it.
But this? This is more than lust. More than smooth moves in the shadows and butterflies in the stomach. It’s all-consuming and overwhelming, and even a little frightening, the depth of what I feel for him, but I wouldn’t stop it for the world. I don’t think I could if I tried.
There’s just suddenly somuchof him. So much heat, so much skin. His hands are everywhere, his touch is everywhere, and I still can’t get enough, clinging to him as he somehow pulls me into him and walks me backward at the same time. He lowers me onto the bed, his knees digging into the mattress on either side of my thighs as he hovers over me, never once breaking our connection.
His mouth is blazing and insistent against mine, and relief fills me that he’s as eager for this as I am, that he’s not holding back or trying to play it cool. He lets me know just how much he wants me with every drag of his tongue, every sweep of his hand. We’re kissing so hard that I’m struggling to catch my breath, but I can’t stop, I don’t want to stop, and honestly, if this is how it ends for me, then I can think of worse ways to go.
He falls to the bed, rolling me above him, a position I take full advantage of as I plant my hands on his chest for balance and grind down, moving my hips against his until he groans.
“This okay?” I ask, not really sure what I’m asking.Thisas in this cheap teenage move I’m doing, orthisas in where I want to take this. Where I think we both want to take it.
“More than okay.” But even as he says the words, his hands find my waist, gently stilling me. “But just…just give me a second.”
“What’s wrong?” I ask, and he gives a strangled-sounding laugh.
“My libido, that’s what’s wrong. And I’m man enough to tell you.”
I grin down at him, and he appears captivated by the sight, reaching up to brush the hair from my face.
“I like you like this,” he says, and I raise a brow.
“Half-naked?”
“That,” he agrees and his stomach muscles flex beneath my fingertips as he moves, standing from the bed in one fluid movement and bringing me with him. “And happy.”
Happy. My legs wrap around him instinctively, a warm glow spreading through my chest at his words.
“You know what would make me even happier?” I tease.
His smile is slow and playful and very, very sexy. “I think I’ve got an idea.”
He holds me up with no effort at all, a thing I have just decided I like very much, but I like it even more when he sits on the edge of the bed, lowering us until I’m straddling him. I grasp the hem of his shirt and he helps me pull it over his head. The material ruffles his hair as it goes and, I swear to God, I’m almost jealous of the fabric. It’s my fingers that ruffle that hair and nothing else.
As soon as he’s free of it, Callum’s attention zeroes in on the little blue bow again. He gives it a flick, looking at it like it’s the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen, and I make a mental note to thank Nush as soon as I get over the embarrassment of telling her about my sex life.
