Page 57 of What Hurts Us

The hand I had planted on her waist had pushed up her threadbare tank top. Testing, I slid my palm up the side of her rib cage, teasing the side of her breast with my fingers. Her eyes fell shut, and she whimpered in satisfaction. Gently, I stroked the supple skin, enjoying the velvet feel against my hand.

“Callum.” Her whisper was desperate this time. A reverent utterance of my name. A plea.

I walked her backward, towering over her as the heavy weight of her tit fell into my palm. Her head made athudas she pitched back into the wall. The pad of my thumb rolled across her nipple. Brilliant white teeth sunk into her pillowy lower lip. I pressed my pelvis to hers, rolling my hips to grind my hard-on between us.

Layla whimpered, begging with incoherent sweetness for more. I dropped to my knees in front of her, my hands on her hips, pinning her to the wall. My breath lingered on her naval for a moment before I pressed my lips to her soft belly. Slowly, I made my way up, forging a path of wet, sloppy kisses against her velvet skin.

I pushed her tank top up to her shoulders, baring both breasts for my pleasure. Pert nipples pointed at me. I sealed my mouth around the left one, alternating between sucking and teasing with my tongue. When I switched, I grazed the other with my teeth. Layla cried out in what could only be described as ecstasy.

“That’s right, honey,” I growled as I nipped at the side of her breast, leaving a faint mark on her otherwise flawless skin.

I was ready to throw her over my shoulder like a goddamn caveman, tie her to my bed, and fuck her until neither of us could remember our own names. Living with her was foreplay enough. Being close to, but rarely touching her? It was torture.

But not anymore.

I was on my knees for this woman—a place of vulnerability she didn’t even know that she commanded of me. It wasn’t something I would have done apart from her.

“Cal—”

“Right here, honey. Let me make you feel good.” I squeezed her thighs as I pressed my mouth to her hip. The scent of her arousal drenching her panties had me salivating like Pavlov’s dog. I trailed my finger down the crease of her thigh.

Goosebumps flooded her skin as she squeezed her legs together for a little more relief.

We jumped apart as the shrill ring of a phone shattered the moment. Layla gasped and opened her eyes as if she had just realized the line we had all too eagerly almost crossed. The ringing echoed from her room, a harsh reality check.

I didn’t want to let her go. The phone could ring all fucking day for all I cared. I wanted her leg thrown over my shoulder as I grabbed her hips and drove her utterly mad with my mouth on her pussy.

“I should…” She pressed her fingers to her lips, though we hadn’t even kissed. Her tits were still out, pointed straight at me, begging for my mouth. For my hands.

I stood. There was nothing I could do to hide the tent in my boxers. Layla’s eyes widened for a moment as she took it in, then looked away quickly.

“I should get ready to go,” she whispered and hustled into her room, slamming the door behind her. Her ringtone went silent, but she never answered the call.

A faint buzzing hummed from her side of the door. For a minute, I assumed she had switched her phone to vibrate.

Then she moaned my name.

“Callum,” she whimpered, the bed squeaking beneath her as she rocked. The sounds of her pleasuring herself were too much for me.

Bracing one hand on the doorframe, I slid the other into my boxers, fisting my shaft as I listened to the muffled sounds of her ecstasy.

Layla went silent, but the ambient buzzing continued. I worked my dick with frantic strokes, drawing myself closer and closer to climax. Every nerve in my body was on red alert.

My vision tunneled, then I heard it: Layla’s soft cry of sheer bliss. “Yes, Cal. Yes.” I came in my hand to the sound of her panting. It was wrong to have stood outside her door, listening to her get off on the memory of what we did in the hallway.Or perhaps the fantasy of what we could have done if her fucking phone had been on silent. But doing something wrong had never felt so good.

I looked down at the mess dripping from my hand.Shit.At least it was better than waking up to the aftermath of a wet dream. On silent feet, I padded to the bathroom and cleaned up.

* * *

An hour later,I jogged down the stairs in a pair of dark jeans, a flannel Layla said “worked” with her outfit, and my favorite leather jacket. I sat on the front porch and pulled on my boots. They were on the worn side of vintage—more like falling apart—but I didn’t care.

I didn’t know what Layla was wearing for the bullshit pictures Brandie Jean had wrangled us into taking. Probably the white dress she wore to the party or some fancy shit like that.

Heavy footfalls clobbered down the steps. I turned my head to look back inside and spotted Layla in skin-tight leather pants with zippers crossing the tops of her thighs. She had on a pair of matching black ankle boots with a small heel. Her slouched t-shirt was a soft gray, the same as some of the threads in my flannel. Her hair was curled into soft waves, brushing the middle of her back with each step.

She looked magnificent.

She lookedlethal.

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