Chapter 30
CARSON
Adrenaline is coursing through my body. The bite of the needle, Dan being so close, the enormity of this permanent decision…
and now Dan’s lips are on mine. Kissing him only amplifies the burning tension sizzling through my veins.
Our connection is immediate and intense, his tongue tangling with mine.
I moan into his mouth, and he devours the sound.
The contours of the room melt away until it’s just Dan, me, and the need between us that’s so intense it feels like a physical presence.
I release the fistful of his shirt so I can wrap my arms around him, pulling him closer, as if I could ever get close enough to him.
And Dan obviously agrees, because in an instant, he springs off his stool and sends it rolling backward across the floor, pressing his knee into the vinyl of the chair just beside my hip.
His large, strong body covers mine, one hand holding him up, the other cradling my cheek.
I’m so lost in him that I barely notice how narrow the chair is until Dan grasps my hips, flipping us so that I’m sitting astride him.
His rakes thrusts upward, his blue eyes burnished with lust.
“So fucking gorgeous,” he mutters, and I can’t help myself. I giggle. His eyes narrow. “Something funny?”
I glance down at my shirt, sweaty from skating, a black smudge on the shoulder from Jax’s eyeliner.
I’ve lost the elastic at the end of one of my braids, and the hair is rapidly trying to stage an escape.
I have scrapes and bruises, I probably smell, and there’s a fresh tattoo on my arm, already bleeding beneath the protective shield Dan applied.
But Dan, who looks at me like he can hear every one of my intrusive thoughts, digs his fingers into my hips.
“Carson, I’m not fucking around here. You? Like this? Undone from spending your afternoon being a fucking badass? You look happy and strong and like you don’t give a fuck, and you’ve never looked more beautiful.”
“I don’t,” I reply. “Give a fuck, I mean.”
The word tumbles out of my mouth, no hesitation at the profanity, no need to hold it back. The realization that I have never felt more myself is too powerful.
“I don’t give a fuck how my body looks. I give a fuck what it can do. It can skate, and hit, and lift,” I say, running my hands up Dan’s chest, across his shoulders, and down his firm, rounded biceps. “And I know what else it can do.”
I roll my hips, grinding into the stiff length beneath me, straining at the zipper of his jeans. Dan lets out a low, masculine groan, his head tipping back. His jaw flexes as he works to hang on to the fraying ends of his control.
But I don’t want him to be in control.
I reach for the hem of my shirt and drag it over my head. It lands in a pile on the linoleum. Then I reach for the thick band of my sports bra.
“Let me,” he says, pushing my hands away.
“Dan, this is an industrial-strength sports bra,” I tell him, but he scoffs.
“And I’m a big boy, Carson. I’ve been dreaming of peeling this thing off you since you wore it to the gym last week. So let me.”
His strong fingers grip the material, his forearms flexing as he pulls. I lean forward to help him with the angle, so when the spandex comes off, I’m left leaning over him. My breasts, heavy and aching, hang just above him. He grins. “See? This worked out perfectly.”
He tilts his head up and sucks my nipple between his lips, his free hand kneading my other breast. The sensation is too much, and my back arches to offer him more and less at the same time.
Lost in the moment, I tip my head back and let myself feel it, an explosion of pleasure that fills my vision with a glittery brightness.
And then I catch sight of us in the mirror hanging on the back wall of his booth.
I look wild and wanton, my skin flushed as I writhe atop him, his lips on my breasts.
I have a momentary flash of anxiety, just a hint of that old shame that always hides in the back of my mind. But Dan’s tongue, lavishing my full breasts with attention, chases it away.
“Like what you see?” he asks, catching my eyes in the mirror, his lips curling up.
I reach down for his shirt. “I’d like it a lot better if you caught up.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says, grabbing the back collar of his T-shirt in his fist and tugging it off in one swift, shockingly sexy move.
But it’s nothing compared to the sight of a shirtless Dan, all his ink on display beneath me, my hands free to roam.
I trace my nail over a sunrise inked just above the waistband of his jeans and delight in the shudder of his breath. “Someday you’ll have to give me a tattoo tour,” I say. I roll my hips again, grinding my needy pussy over his desperate cock.
“Any time other than right now,” he rasps as he looks up at me from beneath his dark lashes. “I fear I’m about to lose the power of speech.”
I arch an eyebrow at him. “If I recall, turned-on Dan is the mouthiest version of Dan.”
A slap lands on my ass, the delicious sting of his palm going straight to my clit.
“Aren’t you the little sass mouth?” he says with a smirk. “I’ll show you mouthy.” He snaps the waistband of my shorts. “Take these off.”