Foreplay: The Ivy Chronicles (11 page)

All that bare, firm-looking skin drew my eyes again. I couldn’t stop drinking it in. He looked edible. He should go around without a shirt on all the time. Scratch that. The guy would cause a riot.

He let go of my wrist, leaving me standing between his splayed thighs. His body radiated warmth as I stood between his legs, hovering close, looking down at him, my fingers itching to settle on the naked curve of his shoulders and feel all that solidness, that warmth, to trace the tattoo crawling over his chest and shoulder.

“Keep going.” His voice slid like velvet over my skin.

I swallowed. “What?”

“As pretty as the pink looks against your skin, I want you to take this off.” He fingered a single strap, barely touching me.

Okay, so he wasn’t letting me off the hook, but the idea of removing the bra sent a ripple of panic through me. He was eye-level with my chest! I wasn’t sure I could handle him that up close and personal.

I wanted experience, but wasn’t this diving into the deep end? Couldn’t we wade in a bit first? Start out with the kiddie pool?

His lips twisted. “You’re thinking too much. I can tell. Stop.”

“Is this what you do with other girls that you don’t intend to sleep with?” I hardly recognized my voice. It sounded so small and breathless.

“This is what I’m doing with you.” His hands settled on my waist, twin burning imprints on my skin just above the waistband of my jeans. “C’mon. Let go.”

Maybe it was the challenge in the low rasp of his voice—or simply the truth of his words. I was thinking too much. I reached behind me and undid the clasp, wondering how, in one week, I’d gone from a girl with one bad kiss to my credit to this. Alone and half naked with a hot guy way out of my league.

Stop thinking, Pepper
.

I held the cups of my bra close to my chest, stopping it from falling.

This has nothing to do with thinking. It’s just instinct.

He studied me, looking from my face to my arms pressed tightly in front of me, saving me from total exposure.

He lifted one hand. Watching me intently, he slid one loosened strap free, his fingers grazing my skin, soft as a whisper. The thin scrap of satin fell soundlessly off my left shoulder. A shiver raced through me. Goose bumps broke out over my flesh and everything in me tightened.

It was just a tiny thing. One strap that afforded no real protection, but it was like a barrier dropped. He moved to the other strap. Another whisper-brush of fingers against the curve of my shoulder. More shivers.

It was just my arms now, clutched before me, holding the pink cups in place. He continued to watch my face as he set both hands to my wrists, circling them with long, sure fingers. Slowly, firmly, he pulled them away from my chest. The bra dropped.

Despite how warm I felt—how warm he made me feel—a cold draft slid over me and I shivered. My nipples reacted, the peaks hardening. Or maybe that was just him. His stare roved over me, those eyes a glittery shade of blue, impossibly bright in the dim room.

It was the most exposed I had ever been. I didn’t even strip off my clothes in front of other girls. I had been that girl in that locker room who dove into bathroom stalls or dressed hurriedly with her back to everyone. This was a big, huge, never-before-happened event.

There was nowhere to hide.

His hands settled around my rib cage. It wasn’t my breasts, but he might as well have touched me there. I still jumped. His thumbs rested below the undersides of my breasts. So close but not touching.

He drew me in, pulling me down onto the bed. The mattress met my back. He curled against me, one muscled arm beside my head, one of his legs sliding over my hip, pinning me. I sucked in a tortured breath and held it. It was too much. Too soon.

“You’re beautiful. All peaches and cream.” His hand skimmed my stomach. The sensitive skin there quivered under his warm palm. My lungs ached, holding in my breath, but I couldn’t make them function.

I brought my hands self-consciously to my chest. He was quick to act, peeling my hands free. With a bracing breath, I held them stiffly at my sides, wanting to be brave. Wanting to be someone that reveled in this and didn’t feel like a scared virgin even if that’s just what I was.

Heat crawled up my neck, bursting across my face. I waited, expecting to feel his hands there, on my breasts, groping like any other boy would do, but his touch never came.

He brought his face closer to mine, his lips brushing my ear with warm breath. I leaned up, seeking that touch. “You need to relax. You’re supposed to enjoy this.”

“O-okay.” My voice wobbled.

“Rigid and afraid isn’t exactly a turn-on.”

“I’m not turning you on then?” I blurted, mortified, feeling like I had somehow failed. I was here to explore, to learn, and I was doing an abysmal job.

“Oh, I’m turned on. Don’t worry about that.” His hand threaded through my hair, pulling it clear of my neck. “I’m just talking in general terms. If you’re messing around with someone else . . . he might like for you to be more responsive.”

As he spoke, his mouth settled at my cheek, just beside my ear.
Someone else
. The words rattled around inside my head like loose marbles. I couldn’t think of anyone else right now. Couldn’t imagine anyone but him and the way his mouth felt on my skin. The way his palm rested on my stomach, his fingers splayed wide, the blunt tips curled ever so slightly, lightly brushing my quivering flesh.

In this moment, I could forget all my fears. I could even forget the fact that I was exposed and vulnerable in a way that I had never been before. In a way I had never
let
myself be with anyone.

I squirmed on the bed, dying inside, waiting for his next move, waiting for him to touch me. Both hoping he did and hoping he didn’t.

His mouth hovered over my ear, his breath fanning hotly against the hypersensitive whorls. He made me ache for more. “He wants you to be just as hot for it as he is.”

Again, he referenced my supposed future lover, the guy I was doing this for. The insinuation of Hunter into this moment actually bothered me. He wasn’t here. Reece was. I didn’t want to think of Hunter right now. I only wanted to feel.

I turned my face to look directly at him, our lips not quite touching. “Is that what you’re doing? Making me hot?” I didn’t know where the question came from. It sounded throaty and seductive in my voice.

“You tell me. Am I?”

I swallowed and started to tell him yes, he had long since succeeded in that regard, but just then he bit down on my earlobe and I arched off the bed with a cry, unexpected pleasure knifing through me.

He made a deep sound of approval, and then he touched me.

It was one startling sensation after another. His mouth on my ear. His hand cupping my breast. I gasped at that, at the full heat of his palm caressing my flesh. “You feel so amazing. I love your tits.”

My head rolled on the bed and I grabbed his shoulders, forgetting my shyness. I curled my fingers around the solid muscle, my nails biting into the supple skin, silk on steel. It was a heady thing to touch him, to feel his strength, the muscles that contracted at the dig of my fingers.

And then he found my nipple. I sobbed as he traced the tip, teasing me. I writhed on the bed, the ache tightening between my legs. I wriggled, looking for a way to ease the squeezing clutch of heat.

His mouth found mine in a desperate fusion of lips and tongues. I kissed him back, my earlier uncertainty gone.

His lips broke from mine and his mouth went for my breast, claiming it with none of the teasing lightness of his fingers. He took me in his mouth, enveloping me in warm, wet heat.

I choked, the sound not quite speech, but something on the verge of words.

Suddenly my phone went off. I stiffened. He continued like he didn’t hear it. His mouth continued to devour me like I was some rare treat. Like we were the only two people in the universe. With no people in the bar below us. No phone going off in my pocket.

The ring tone soon died, and I quickly forgot to even wonder who was calling me. Although it was an easy guess.

Then a text vibrated in my pocket against the weight of his hip. We ignored it. Even the second time. And the third.

At the fourth, he lifted up with a growl. “They’re not going to stop.”

Sitting back, he slipped his hand into my pocket for my phone. I bit the inside of my cheek at his hand there, so close to the apex of my thighs. Even after all the intimacy of the last few minutes, that felt beyond intimate.

He pulled my phone free. Instead of handing it to me as I expected, he started typing.

“What are you doing?”

Finished typing, he tossed it on the bed above my head. He came down over me. I gasped at the sensation of his bare chest against my skin, pressing down on my nipples, moist from his mouth.

Words shivered from my lips: “What did you tell them?”

His breath fanned my lips. “That you’re staying the night with me.”

Chapter 13

O
h. My. God. His words shot a hot thrill right down my spine. A sensation only magnified as his lips smothered mine. He settled his body between my thighs and I marveled at the fit of him there, so natural, so right. His hands went for my waistband. He slipped his fingers inside, the backs gliding into my panties and low against my navel.

As much as the touch sent a jolt of sizzling awareness through me, a frisson of panic rose inside me, too. Moaning against his mouth, my fingers locked around his wrist and tugged.

He obeyed, slipping his hand out of my panties, and instantly I was overcome with a sense of calm. He meant what he’d said earlier. He wouldn’t do anything I didn’t want. This knowledge gave me a heightened sense of power. I could do anything. Kiss him. Touch him. Explore him as I wished with no fear that he would demand more from me than I wanted to give.

The last of my reservations melted away. I ran my hands through his hair. It was like silk against my palms. I felt the shape of his skull, the tender skin at the back of his neck. I deepened our kiss, pushed my lips harder against him, tasting him with my tongue. He groaned in approval, muttering, “I like your hands on me.”

And I liked feeling him, too, reveling in the freedom to do so, feeling all that sleek skin stretched over hard muscle and sinew. My palms skated over his broad shoulders, down the slope of his back and up again, loving the velvety texture of his short hair, the scrape of stubble on his face.

“Fuck, you’re sweet,” he ground down against my lips roughly, his jaw flexing beneath my fingers.

He slipped his hands under me, gripping my bottom and grinding himself into me. I felt his erection. His hardness, the arousing shape of him. Need clenched deep inside of me. He began a rocking motion and I ripped my lips free, gasping raggedly. His breath filled my ear, just as harsh as my own.

He removed a hand from behind me and placed it between us, rubbing between my legs. I cried out, lifting my hips up into the pressure of his deft strokes. He slid his fingers over the denim concealing me, increasing the pressure with each glide. The base of his palm bore down, pushing at some magical place. I started to tremble. Clutching his arms, I rocked my hips into him.

“Oh, God.”
OhGodOhGodOhGod
. I closed my eyes and bit my lip to stop myself from being too loud. He was making me come. Like this. So easily. With my jeans still on.

“Let go. It’s okay,” he rasped. “I want to hear you.”

I released my lip and let sound escape. I cried out sharply, arching under him, thrusting my hips up and out. I didn’t even sound like me. I was some creature ruled by desire and wild sensations. I closed my eyes to the unbearable ache building inside me. My internal litany burst from my lips. “OhGodOhGodOhGod!”

A low, rough chuckle left him, brushing my bare throat. His head dipped and his mouth closed over a nipple. Bright spots exploded behind my eyelids. I screamed, my nails digging into his shoulders. I shook in his arms, shudders rolling over me. I went limp, my body boneless.

He eased me back down and curled around me, spooning me with his larger body. His erection was still there, prodding my backside, reminding me that he hadn’t reached his own release.

As the delicious sensations faded from my body, awkwardness crept in. I held myself still for a moment, thinking, wondering what to say.

What did one say after her first orgasm
? Can I have another, please?
I turned my face into the bed, muffling the snort at my own joke.

He got up, and I held myself still on the bed, fiddling nervously with a lock of my hair, debating how I should handle this moment. There was a soft click and the room plunged into pulsing darkness. I heard a rustle and then felt a soft blanket drape over me. He returned, sliding under the blanket, his strong arm wrapping around my waist, pulling me into his chest. Moments passed as I waited for something else to happen. Is this the part where he tried to push me into having sex? His erection was still there, right behind me, distracting and exciting, building the clenching ache back to life between my legs. I squeezed my thighs, pressing them tightly together in an effort to assuage the almost painful throbbing there.

Nothing. Not a word. Not a move.

His erection became less insistent, and eventually his chest eased into a steady rhythm against my back. Unbelievable. He was actually asleep.

I held myself tense, a board in his arms. I doubted I would ever sleep.

That was my last thought before darkness rolled in.

I
woke with my legs tangled with the longer, heavier legs of a man. A definite first.

My face burned, and various other parts of my body, as memories of the night before flooded me. I tensed instantly, all my senses alert, reaching out, listening, feeling for my surroundings. A light spattering of hair covered the masculine limbs, creating a delicious friction against my smooth legs. It was a wholly alien experience. I inhaled and caught the musky aroma of the cedar bed, and something else. Something already familiar. It was him. I knew his scent. The soap and musk and salt to his skin. I’d never known another person’s scent before. Well, save for Mom and Gram. Gram was a combination of laundry detergent and Bengay. Not an unpleasant odor. Mom was cigarette smoke and sour alcohol.

I turned my head on the pillow and peeked to my right. A murky blue suffused the room, seeping in through the blinds. I studied him in the pale wash of dawn. He slept with one arm flung above his head, the other tossed out carelessly at his side. At least he no longer hugged me like some kind of favorite pillow. I was free.

With his guard down he looked younger. My palm itched to touch his face, to feel the rasp of stubble against my palm. I had an unfettered view of the ink crawling along the side of his torso, moving over finely cut muscle and sinew, stopping only a couple of inches beneath his armpit. I peered at the words in the dim light.
Lead me to the rock that is higher than I
. Was that biblical? My brow creased, more confused than ever that those words somehow held special meaning for him. Enough that he would permanently etch them onto his skin. It revealed a new side to him, a softness, depths I never suspected existed.

Suppressing the urge to touch him, I untangled my legs from his and eased from the bed, quickly scanning the floor and finding my top and bra in a ball several feet away.

As I dressed, I watched him, certain he would wake and level those smoky eyes on me at any moment. My heart beat a wild rhythm in my chest as I slipped on my last boot, bouncing lightly on my other foot.

Standing, I carefully retrieved my phone from the bed and backed away, pausing at the top of the stairs. My gaze swept along every decadent inch of him nestled in the sheets like he was the subject of some kind of sexy cologne ad. I sucked a breath into my too-tight chest.

With one hand braced on the wall for support, intense relief that he hadn’t woken rushed through me. But that wasn’t all I felt. Unease skittered through me, settling in the pit of my stomach like bubbling acid. It somehow felt wrong slipping away like this. Without a word. Like a thief in the night. A betrayal. Which was silly. One-night flings happened all the time. No strings. No commitments. And it wasn’t like we had sex. We didn’t need to stare at each other and suffer an uncomfortable conversation full of lies and promises to call. This wasn’t about that. He knew why I followed him up here last night. Why I dropped my guard and let myself do all those unbelievable things with him. We both knew. I wasn’t that girl he had to worry about sticking around and making a nuisance of herself, infatuated and desperately convinced he was the love of her life.

Still, I hovered, arguing with myself, convincing myself it was okay to leave. I couldn’t imagine waking in the bright light of morning with last night between us. What would I say? I got what I came for. And he . . . I frowned, suddenly unsure what he had gotten out of the whole experience. I hadn’t slept with him. He hadn’t even . . .

My cheeks flamed hot, which only pointed at how inexperienced and awkward I still was. I couldn’t even complete the thought. I shouldn’t blush at my own thoughts, and yet here I was, face burning simply thinking about how he got me off and then I hadn’t returned the favor.

I tore my gaze away from him and quietly moved down the stairs, shooting Em a text to come and pick me up. I needed to get home anyway. I had work today. And I needed to study.

I winced. Was I actually feeding myself excuses? As if I didn’t know the truth?

As if I wasn’t running scared.

T
he instant I climbed into Em’s car, the inquisition began and continued all the way back to the dorm. Apparently I would get no respite. Not that I expected I could keep any of last night to myself.

Emerson fell onto my bed when we entered the room. She hadn’t bothered changing from her pajama bottoms and pink tank. She kicked off her slippers and curled her feet under her. Her short hair fell soft and smooth around her pixie face, free of product. She must have showered after Mulvaney’s last night. Her face was squeaky clean. Not a spot of makeup. She looked adorable and closer to fifteen than twenty.

She shook her head at me and there was a touch of awe in the motion. “I never thought I’d see you come through that door at seven
A.M.
after a hookup. I mean I’ve done plenty of walks of shame, but you? Nuh-uh.”

I waved a hand. “Please.”

She lifted her face and shouted into the next room, “Georgia! She’s back!” Her eyes beamed brightly with approval. “I feel like we need to go out for pancakes or something to celebrate.”

“It’s not my birthday, Emerson.”

“Uh.” One of her dark eyebrows arched. “It kinda is.”

Georgia shuffled in, looking like she had been awake for a while. She was always an early riser. She eyed me up and down as if looking for signs of injury. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Fine.” I nodded.

“Told you she was okay,” Emerson said. Her gaze swung to me. “She was worried. That text . . . he sent it, right?”

I nodded again.

She grinned. “God. That was so hot.”

I smiled weakly, dropping down in my chair. Georgia lowered herself onto the bed, shoving Emerson over.

“Well. Dish,” Emerson demanded. “How was it? How was
he
?”

“It was . . .” My voice faded, suddenly uncomfortable with sharing, and that left me a little confused. It was just a hookup. It wasn’t supposed to be anything special. Okay, I had covered bases one, two, and three in my otherwise base-free existence. That was special. True. But Reece . . .
us
. . . well, there was no
us.

My friends watched me, waiting expectantly.

“It was nice,” I finished. “He was . . . he was nice.”

Emerson flinched. “Nice?”

“Hmm.” I nodded again.

“That bad?” She tsked. “Sorry.”

I blinked. “What? No. No. He was fantastic. He . . .” I floundered again.

Georgia studied me carefully.

Emerson tossed a small accent pillow at me. “
Nice
is code for
sucks
. Now tell us already!”

“Em, she doesn’t want to.”

Emerson looked at Georgia with a baffled expression. “Oh, come on. This was her first hookup. And he’s smokin’.” Her gaze swung back to me. “You can’t hold out on us.” Her eyes grew wide. She leaned forward, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Ohhh. Did you and he?” Her fingers did some funny little dance that ended with them interlocked.

“No!” I tossed the pillow back at her.

She caught it with a laugh. “Well, give us something then.”

“Suffice it to say, a much more experienced woman sits before you.”

She blew out a heavy breath. “Fine. You’re not going to give us anything juicy. Can you at least tell us whether you’re going to see him again, or do you feel suitably educated now?”

It was like her question triggered my need to run. I rose from my chair and moved to gather some fresh clothes. I had to be at work in an hour. “Um. Not sure.” I sorted through my selection of khaki work pants, averting my eyes.

“You don’t know?” A hint of concern tinged Georgia’s voice. “Don’t tell me he gave you the brush-off this morning. What a jerk.”

I rolled my shoulders in an awkward shrug. “Ah, he might have still been sleeping when I slipped out.”

“What?” Em’s voice came out a squeak. “No way. He’s waking to an empty bed?”

I faced my friends again, my clothes and shower caddy in hand. “Yeah.” Even I detected the uncertainty in my voice.

Georgia and Emerson shared a look.

“Was that wrong?” I whispered.

“A bit harsh, Pepper.” This from the girl who never spent the night with a guy—or let him spend the night.

“Why?” I looked at them searchingly, my stomach churning uneasily.

“Not even a good-bye?” Georgia asked.

“Wow,” Emerson murmured. “Didn’t take you for a use-’im-and-lose-’im kind of girl.”

My face flushed hot. “It wasn’t like that.”

Georgia looked at me in sympathy. “That’s what he’s going to think when he wakes up.”

I bit my lip, the acid stirring in my stomach boiling over. “I just didn’t want to face him. And no”—my gaze shot to Emerson—“
not
because last night was bad. I was just embarrassed, I guess.”

“It’ll be fine. He’s a guy. Probably won’t think twice,” Emerson assured me, and that actually annoyed me a little. I was a walking contradiction. I didn’t want him to feel slighted, but I didn’t like the idea that he might not care that I had vanished from his bed, either. Ugh. This was confusing as hell.

Shaking my head, I headed for the door. “I have to shower for work.”

“Hey, even if he is insulted it’s a nice change. Let the guy feel abused for once,” Emerson called out.

“Thanks,” I tossed over my shoulder, wondering what had become of me. When had I turned into a girl who shacked up with a hot bartender and then bailed on him before he woke up? It felt tawdry. Too much like the past that I was running from.