Page 53 of By Your Side
“Is this okay?” he asked, his voice low, his hand hovering near my waist like he wasn’t going to touch me until I said yes.
I nodded before I found my voice. “Yes. More than okay.”
Something eased in his shoulders, and then he stepped closer, his palm sliding along my hip. The heat of his touch bled right through my jeans, steady and sure.
I leaned into him; my hands braced on his chest. “But I need to say this before anything else happens. I’m not ready for complicated conversations about what this means. Not tonight.”
“Then we won’t have them tonight,” he said, without a single ounce of hesitation.
Relief loosened something tight in my chest, and I let myself pull him down into a kiss.
It started like the one in the parking lot—familiar and warm—but quickly deepened, hunger curling between us. My fingers slid into his hair, tugging gently, and he groaned against my mouth like he’d been waiting years to feel this.
When his hands slipped under the hem of my shirt, his palms warm against my skin, I broke the kiss just enough to whisper, “Condom?”
He smiled, quick and a little breathless. “I have one.” He stepped back long enough to tug his wallet from his back pocket, the foil packet catching the low light. “Still okay?”
“Yes,” I said, with more certainty than I’d expected to hear in my own voice. “I love how you check in with me. I’m okay, I promise.”
His lips found mine again, slower this time, like he was savoring the moment. Each touch was deliberate—his hands mapping my waist, my ribs, the curve of my back—as if he was trying to learn me all over again but this time beneath my clothes, skin on skin.
When he pulled my shirt over my head, his gaze lingered on me like he was memorizing every inch. “You’re beautiful,” he said, not in the offhand way men sometimes did, but like it was a fact he’d been holding onto for years.
Heat spread through me, and I pulled him closer, wanting to feel his solid strength pressed against me. My legs bumped the side of the pool table, and he guided me back until I was sitting on the edge, his hips between my knees.
The kiss turned hotter, more urgent. He traced his lips in a line along my jaw, down my throat, and my breath caught when his stubble brushed my skin. My hands slid under his hoodie, finding warm, hard muscle, and I felt him shiver when my nails scraped lightly along his spine.
He murmured my name against my skin like it was both a prayer and a warning, and I knew—down to the very center of me—that this was going to change everything.
And I wanted it to. It was time.
He framed my face with his palms, his thumbs brushing lightly over my cheekbones like he was making sure this was real before moving any further.
“Tell me to stop anytime,” he said, and the weight behind those words wrapped around me just as much as his body did.
“I won’t,” I whispered. “I don’t want to.”
That earned me the kind of kiss that stripped the rest of the world away. His mouth was warm and demanding, but not rushed, each movement deliberate—like he wanted to memorize the way I tasted, to study the way I breathed when he kissed me just right so he could do it again.
He eased me back on the pool table, his hands sliding under me to hold me steady. The felt was cool against my skin where my shirt had been, the edge pressing into the backs of my thighs. He broke away just long enough to pull his hoodie and T-shirt over his head, and I couldn’t stop my gaze from roaming over him—over his broad shoulders, down the cut of muscle down his stomach, the trail of hair disappearing under his waistband. He was beautiful.
“Lift up,” he ordered, spreading his hoodie out beneath me as I did. “You’re staring,” he said, a half-smile tugging at his mouth.
“Uh-huh, I am,” I murmured, unapologetic. “I’ve earned it.”
That made him laugh, low and rough, and then he leaned back in, kissing me hard enough to make my toes curl. His hands slid down my sides, gripping my hips as he tugged me closer. The heat between us sparked sharp and insistent, and I didn’t bother pretending I didn’t want him. The thought of slow fled recklessly out of my mind.
He unbuttoned my jeans, his fingers brushing along my hipbone as he tugged the denim down. I helped, kicking them off to land with a soft thud on the floor. My heart hammered, not from nerves, but from the pure headrush of being this close to him, this bare, wanting more and knowing I was about to get it.
He kissed his way down my neck, over my collarbone, his breath warm against my skin. When his hands slid over the backs of my thighs, urging them apart, I gasped—half from the shock of it, half from how right it felt. He dipped his head, kissing the inside of one thigh, then the other.
“Hunter, please,” I gasped right before he tasted me, gripping my thighs and spreading me wide to lick me from my opening to my clit. Never had I felt this way, ever.
I ran my hands into his hair to pull him closer. He knew what he was doing; he gripped my ass tight, fingers digging into my flesh as he licked into me and swirled his fingers in slow, deliberate circles. I cried out, falling apart embarrassingly fast.
“Fuck, the way you taste. The way you feel. So soft. So perfect. I can’t wait to get inside you…”
“Hunter.” My head spun from his words, his hands on my body, but mostly because of the way he looked at me. Like he was desperate for me, maybe even loved me a little bit. I had to stop thinking and get back out of my head. This was too much. “I’m saying yes. I want you. Please. Now.”
