Chapter Three
CHAPTER THREE
YOU SHOULD BE SO LUCKY
ELOISE
“Why’d you kiss me?”
The question’s been building inside me, each step we take back toward the bookstore stacking need upon need to know the answer.
“You looked like you needed someone to see you.”
Those words must make some semblance of sense to him. But I’m still as lost I was when I asked.
“See me. Not kiss me,” I correct him.
“I’m quickly learning that to do one and not the other is…unnatural.”
I chuckle and he stops short, his hand over his heart.
“Is this what you do to my truths?” he asks me.
“Your truths sound a lot like bullshit.”
We continue walking and Ezra has this way of stepping silently beside me that makes me feel like he may be the most significant person I’ve ever met.
But this isn’t a romance novel.
Love doesn’t start this way in real life.
“Tell me something unattractive about you,” he requests.
The laughter I release into the air speaks for me.
“What? I need a buffer right now,” he says.
Am I beautiful to him? Does that make him as nervous as his strong presence makes me?
“Fine.” I comb through thoughts and memories, willing anything to form into something worth sharing. “I might be the stubbornest person in existence. My sisters used to dare me to do the silliest things. And I had to do them.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because,” I start, my eyes wide.
“I refuse to think you followed through with dares because you were afraid of what they’d think.”
He reads me dangerously well, and it makes me rub my hands over my bare arms.
“Cold?” he asks.
There’s no way I could be with the air so warm. I shake my head and stare at the sky with a sigh.
“I hate to feel fear. I think it’s such an inefficient emotion.” My arms now swing at my side. The abridged version of my theory is met with silence.
He sends a smile my way when I look at him and I offer one in return.
“Plus, I really am just awful at feeling bested.” Another sigh at the night sky. “If truth or dare were a professional sport, I’d be the MVP.”
“You’re sharing all your secrets with me,” he reminds me.
“It helps that I think I’ll never see you again.” Words that should make us slow down, only reignite that spark, creating a kind of foreplay I’ve never experienced before.
Ezra is silent again as we reach the bookstore.
I push the key into the lock, and I swear I can feel his focus on me. It’s like a laser beam targeting the side of my face.
My breasts peek through the deep V of my dress as I lean toward the handle to unlock it. I push the door open and turn to press my back against it, allowing him the space to fully enter before I do.
“Truth or dare?” he asks, his breath brushing against me as he walks past me, inside.
Easy.
“Truth,” I answer. I have no idea what type of bidding he may be into, sexy or not.
I follow him inside and we’re doing a slow dance, avoiding collision.
Avoiding the inevitable.
I choose to head toward the desk, claiming the stool once again. I turn on the lamp at the register, filling the place with a muted yellow light. The stuffy air is mixing with something much heavier.
“You’re certain? Because once I say it, there’s no going back.”
His warning has desire doing flips in my belly.
He says the right words, and there’s no way he knows how deeply he’s penetrating my shell.
There’s no way he knows I haven’t had sex in ten months.
No way he knows how hard it is to make me finish; how frustrated the men in my past have been, unable to crack the code of my body.
He looks like he’d make a sport of it.
Like he could coax multiple orgasms out of me with a simple crook of his index finger.
“Go on,” I urge him, my library whisper in full effect.
“You look like you want me to fuck you,” he murmurs from across the desk, a tightness wrapped around his vocal cords. His poker face is impressive, and I wonder what the flush I’m sure I’m wearing looks like.
Does it continue to share my secrets?
He plays it safe, keeping his cards close to his chest.
Tonight, I’m laying it all out between us.
He didn’t ask a question. But I answer him anyway. “I do.”
And then he unravels, reaching for me so my knees hit the top of the desk moments before my lips meet his.
But it isn’t a meeting; not really.
This is fire and explosives and hot lava melding us together.
This is fucking with tongues and teeth and smothered moans.
This is what lives in so many of these pressed pages surrounding us.
“What are we doing?” I ask when I pull away, my skin a little raw from the scrape of his subtle scruff. I can only imagine how I look, eyes, mouth, and body open. Ready for pleasure.
“I’m going to lock that door,” he starts as he steps back. Slow steps toward the front door. “Then I’m going to take you behind the bookshelves and pull that dress up over those mesmerizing hips of yours. They’ve been secretly seducing me all night.” He flips the lock, a solid sound in the midst of all this hazy sexual tension.
“And then?” I ask, still kneeling on the desk, my hands on my thighs in a subservient manner that feels foreign to me.
It is sobering and sexy all at the same time.
I close my eyes when his hand grazes my cheek, lifting my face.
“I want to see you. I want to see how wet you are for me,” he tells me.
Unable to battle against this, I open my eyes, admiring the way his stare back at me. “You only want to see?”
Those glistening green eyes have a hold on me, more than the hand resting on my face. When his head shakes, I run my tongue where my lips meet, wanting to taste more of him.
“I want to devour you.”
Words that should scare me have me sliding my legs in front of me and parting them once I’m sitting on the edge.
I can’t remember the last time my body felt so primed for fucking. I can’t remember being this entranced by the bulge in a man’s pants. Or what it felt like to be looked at with new eyes; eyes that wanted to see all of me in a way I was more than prepared to make happen.
“Is this your story?” I whisper. Because something pinches at the back of my neck, telling me to look before I jump.
“A very small part of it.” His thumbs are on my thighs, pushing the fabric up, setting little trails of fire along the way. My body is igniting. “Perhaps we’ll both want it to be more.”
I want to warn him that it’s unlikely. That I’m chained to this place and that I’ve never been good at this. Loving and wanting and being for someone else.
Sorrow runs so deep, it mingles with my blood and pumps through my heart.
But he’s set a flame so large, it roars at my aching heart and makes me come alive.
Fingers slide against the fabric of my panties, knuckles against what I’m sure is damp fabric.
His hiss confirms it. “I bet your pussy is sweet.” He nuzzles at my neck. “It has to be.”
“You could always put your mouth to use and find out,” I inform him, with a smile that slips off my lips when he slides his fingers under my panties and pushes one inside. I try to watch the slow impale but he grabs my face, determined to watch me come apart.
“You’re going to drive me fucking crazy, aren’t you?”
“You should be so lucky,” I tell him. I try to hide the way my hands shake, bracing them against the desk. I try to hide how intimidating his power is to me and how I need to regroup before I do something stupid. Like get attached.
I pull away from him and push off the desk.
We’re silent as I lead and he follows, our bodies meeting against a shelf, hidden from the front windows of the store.
“Tell me what you want,” he says, our lips so close without touching.
This is the lightning before the thunder.
“Fuck me like you’re never going to see me again.”
His answer is a wicked smile and I am a woman, standing in a downpour, celebrating the fact that she’s forgotten her umbrella.
Hands are sliding up my thighs again but I’m impatient as I reach for one of them and press it against my core.
“I want you here,” I tell him, wetting my lips, wanting more than that. Wanting things I can’t even fathom. Things that involve keeping him here.
The quiet between us has my breath coming out in a quivering sigh. He catches it with his mouth.
He grips the sides of my panties, yanking them down like the unnecessary barrier they are. It’s like we’re dying to get inside of each other’s skin as I tug at his button and pull his zipper down over what feels like a promising present.
My panties hit the floor just as I reach into his shorts and grab his thick, warm cock. A light squeeze has him lifting my leg so it rests over the crook of his elbow and licking the fingers on his free hand.
His eyes have a hold of mine as he brings his wet fingers to rubs at my entrance, and my lips part when he sweeps over my clit.
“You’re so ready,” he whispers, pressing his index finger into me. “Like you knew I’d be here tonight.”
I want to tell him how silly that notion is—how there’s no way I could know that. But then he’s lifting both my legs to wrap around his waist and I’m holding on, ready to ride the wave of lust.
His fingers are gone and I hear the telltale sound of foil as he yanks at the condom wrapper with the edges of his teeth. Should it bother me that he’s so prepared? He sheaths himself out of my view and a moment later, I feel the blunt head of his cock brushing against me. When I try to close my eyes, he stops.
“Keep them open,” he orders, just before pushing into me.
It’s slow torture as he opens me up, taking his time. My breath is held captive by the pleasure of it all.
His eyes drive into mine as his hips still. My hands find the shelf, bracing myself against it as he pulls out and pushes right back in. It’s a struggle to keep my eyes from closing, but the more I watch him, the more I live in this moment of primal fucking.
Each thrust drives my breath from my body. We are slick with sweat, and he is slick with me.
Hands grip my waist and slide…down…
His fingers meet my wetness where he impales relentlessly.
As he plays, I can feel his coated fingers bringing me higher and higher. My breaths are now punctuated with sounds of satisfaction.
He’s grunting and I grip the books, not bothering to worry when a few of them fall to the floor.
The impending orgasm has me crying out.
This is the thunder , I think to myself before I let go.
He continues the pace, holding my body as I sag into him, little whimpers of pleasure leaving my body without permission.
“God, I love your pussy,” he grunts out.
He pulls out and I slump back against the shelves, reaching out with eyes that aren’t seeing and hands that are shaking.
I can hardly tell if I’m spinning or if it’s the world around me when I find myself now facing the shelves.
Hands brace against the backs of my thighs before sliding up to spread my ass cheeks.
And then there’s licking and sucking and slurping that has me nearly losing my balance.
“I was right. You are sweet,” he murmurs, lapping up my orgasm, his hum of approval making me quiver.
My eyes are squeezed shut against the onslaught of desire spreading through me. All of my senses are involved in this undertaking of my body.
Who am I?
I don’t have time to ponder the thought before he’s pushing inside of me again.
My dress is bunched up around my waist and he reaches forward, plucking at the buttons holding the top of it together. The fabric slides down my shoulders, exposing my back. His thrusts have my body climbing again as he presses kisses into my spine.
I cry out as he creates a faster tempo with our bodies, the sounds of them meeting over and over has me reaching down and rubbing my clit, an expert at getting myself there.
He pushes my hand away and takes over, and I stumble over my orgasm, surprise taking my breath away. The guttural sound that escapes his throat speaks of pleasure, and I lean my forehead against the shelf as I try to find myself again.
Kisses meet my shoulder as we come down and after a moment, I shrug them away, ready to cover myself again.
When his body moves away from mine, I bite my lip.
What comes next?
My hands make quick work of pulling my dress back up. I fumble over buttons and I swear I can feel him watching me. A glance over my shoulder confirms it.
“I can hear the questions you won’t let yourself ask,” he announces.
That voice of his, the timbre of confidence, it agitates when it pokes at my soft spots.
“You’re mistaken,” I lie, tucking my hair behind my ears.
“I think it’s endearing. How clearly it’s written on your face that you have no idea what happens now.” All of these words come as he puts himself back together, pocketing his tied off condom.
And when he’s finished, it’s strange. That he could look so normal after exploding my reality.
He’s stepping toward me again, and I want to run away, to hide from the fact that we just had the most amazing sexual experience of my life, and I will never see him again.
No one ever stays.
Except me.
“Nothing happens now,” I inform him. “You walk out of that door, and I go home. And we never see each other again.”
“Eloise—”
“Don’t ruin tonight.” I push past him, wanting nothing more than space between us. “I’m not the kind of woman who needs pretty promises to hold onto. I sleep just fine with the truth.”
“You really are something,” he says, following me through the store. I stop at the door and turn to face him, hating the way his eyes are wide with hope and still brimming with lust.
Doesn’t he know?
I’m a bitch. A cold-hearted woman. A pain in the ass.
“It’s appealing at first. But we both know this isn’t a task you’re prepared to take on.” I unlock the door and step aside, hanging my head so I don’t have to watch him leave.
When he walks out, I tell myself he wouldn’t have stayed anyway.
Even if I’d asked him to.