12. Delilah #2
My stomach clenched in anticipation. I knew what was coming.
But no amount of bracing myself could prepare me for the way I felt when our lips touched.
Saying it rocked my world seemed so cliché but was the most accurate description I could come up with.
Kissing Jasper literally scrambled my brain, crisscrossed all my internal wiring, and made me yearn for things so incredibly beyond my reach.
Jasper took the kiss deeper, his hands exploring as eagerly as his tongue. His fingers slipped under the hem of my shirt again, racing up and down my ribs.
A deep ache pulsed between my thighs. I wanted him. Wanted him like I’d never ached for anyone before. But I wasn’t the kind of woman who would toss reason out the door for the fleeting passion of a magical moment.
Or at least I hadn’t been in the past.
With Jasper, I wasn’t sure who I was. He made me want to do things I’d never dared to imagine.
His hand paused when he reached the underwire of my bra. “We can stop whenever you want.”
Stop. Why would I want to stop? I never wanted to stop feeling the kind of feelings he stirred up. I shook my head.
“Delilah. I don’t want us to do anything you’d regret. I get the sense you’re not the kind of woman who’s into one-night stands. But I also know you’re leaving in a few weeks. And dammit, there’s something going on between us. Something I can’t explain, but it’s something I’ve never felt before.”
I nodded. That was how I felt, too. And in that moment, nothing else seemed to matter. I reached between us and put my hand on his, gliding it under the cup of my bra.
His fingers smoothed over my skin, tentative at first. Then his lips were back on mine, and he reached behind me to work on the clasp.
I’d never wanted anything as much as I wanted to feel his hands on my skin. He pushed my shirt up and released my bra, then cupped a breast in each hand, his thumbs working over my nipples. I couldn’t help but let out a little sigh. “So good.”
He gently rolled me onto my back, then lowered his head toward my chest. His tongue swirled over one breast before he switched to the other.
My body burned for his touch. But even the heat from his mouth wasn’t enough. I wanted . . . no, I needed . . . more.
Jasper
Her skin felt like satin under my rough palms. Her body tasted like a mix of sweetness and salt.
Not even the brush of cooler evening air could tamp down the heat between us.
Looking at her, her chest bare in the dim light of the moon, my heart beat so fast and strong it seemed like it might thump right out of my chest. I wanted to savor each kiss, each flick of my tongue against her skin.
But something deep within me urged me on.
She must have felt it, too. Her hands roamed over my shoulders, down my chest, working their way under my shirt.
When her palms met my skin, I hissed in a breath.
Even the way she touched me turned me on.
Her fingers danced over my abs, pressed against my pecs, and gripped my shoulders.
I didn’t know if I should put a stop to things or see how far it would go.
Then her fingers came to rest on my belt buckle. If she breached the waistband of my jeans, I might not be able to hold back. Reluctantly, I shifted next to her and took her hands in mine.
“What’s wrong?” The concern in her eyes nearly undid me.
“Nothing. Nothing at all.” I licked my lips, the taste of her still on my tongue. “We don’t have to do this.”
“Do you not want to?” A wrinkle bisected her brow.
“Hell, yes, I want to.” I’d been attracted to her since the first day I met her.
The day I almost hosed her off the steps of city hall.
And even though we hadn’t known each other very long, I felt like I’d known her all of my life.
Or maybe even in another life. Being around her was like experiencing a deep sense of déjà vu. Over and over again.
I’d heard people say they fell in love at first sight.
But I’d always dismissed it as complete bullshit.
How could I fall for someone I didn’t even know?
But there was no other way to describe the way I felt about Delilah.
Like I knew her on some deep, otherworldly level, even though we didn’t know the trivial things about each other yet.
All of those thoughts created a traffic jam in my brain. How could I get involved with her when she’d be leaving in such a short time? How could I not? Would I spend the rest of my life wondering what might have been if I didn’t have the balls to take a chance?
She leaned over me, her hair creating a curtain around our faces. “What are you thinking about right now?”
“You sure you want to know?”
Her hair moved as she nodded, tickling my chest.
Now or never. “I’m thinking how amazing it would feel to make love to you.”
She didn’t react, not even the slightest quirk of her lips or scrunch of her nose.
Great. I’d decided to be honest and she’d turned to stone. Time to dial it down. Way down. I was about to sit up, chalk up the whole stargazing thing to an epically bad idea. But then her palm on my chest pushed me back.
“I don’t do one-night stands.”
“I get it. That’s not what I want from this.”
“I don’t do no-string flings.”
“I get that, too.”
“But I can’t say no to you.” She nipped at her bottom lip with her teeth—a move that made me desperate for her.
I laid her back on the blanket and slid her jeans down her legs.
The blanket was big enough that I was able to pull half of it over us, trapping us inside.
She finished what she’d started with my belt buckle, and before I could voice any rational thought as to why this was a bad idea, her hands found my cock.
I pulled the one condom I’d carried around for forever out of my wallet, and she helped slide it into place.
Then, with the eyes of a million stars looking down on us, I hovered over her.
I tried to commit each detail of her face to memory: the curve of her lips, the arch of her brows, the emotion in her eyes.
Then I lowered myself into her, losing myself in the slick heat between her legs.
Her hands gripped my shoulders as her hips met mine.
We moved to some internal rhythm that both of us knew by heart.
I slipped a finger between us, circling that bundle of nerves that would drive her over the edge.
With a moan, she clenched around me. Every part of me wanted to take her faster and harder but I didn’t want her to lose her momentum.
So I kept it steady, increasing the pressure of my finger a fraction more each time I pulled back.
“You feel so good, Delilah. Like you were made for me.” For half a heartbeat I wondered if she had been. We didn’t make sense on paper. The polished beauty queen and the farmer’s son. But I’d never been one to take things at surface value. And she was so much more than what met the eye.