Twenty-Two #2
But most of all, it’s the attention. The unwavering, complete attention.
The feeling that this place could go up in flames, and Heath wouldn’t even notice because he’s so focused on me.
He’s looking at me the way he’s been looking at me all night, and I’m hot and shaky and fucking bothered, and actively fighting the urge to make him fix it.
I don’t get it. I really don’t fucking get it. Why? Why him? I was with Ben for years, and I never . . . well, I did, but it . . . it wasn’t like this. I didn’t feel like this, so desperate.
The back of my neck prickles as my hair is swept away, and a warm breeze dances across my skin – a warm breath. ‘You okay?’
No. My heart is beating too fast and my skin is too sensitive and my every movement reminds me that between my thighs is slick, and a fist is holding my hair hostage and it’s not helping.
‘I need some air,’ is what I rasp over the thumping music as I move out of his orbit for the first time in hours.
It doesn’t last long. I don’t hear him – I can barely hear anything over the blood pounding in my ears – but I feel him follow me toward the sliding back doors that lead to the backyard.
I feel him follow me outside, feel him trudge across the grass to the huddle of lounge chairs tucked away in the dark far end, and just before I collapse into one of them, I feel him stop me.
I feel a whole lot of things when he drops into one, spreads his legs, and pats a thigh.
My gaze darts around the yard. I frown when I confirm that we are relatively alone, except for the few people leaning against the back wall of the house, smoking. ‘No one’s watching us.’
His smile barely wavers, but I notice. The same way I notice his hand flex and curl before he raps his knuckles against his leg. ‘I know. Sit with me anyway.’
I wipe my sweaty palms on my skirt. My very short, very tight denim mini skirt, that barely hides the slick proof of the horny little secret I’d rather not be revealed quite so damningly. ‘I’ll stand.’
Heath doesn’t like that option at all. I don’t get why, but I don’t ask – my tongue abruptly gets all tangled up in my mouth when he leans forward and grips the back of my thighs, just above the crease of my knees, and guides me between his legs.
Gentle enough, but firm. Like if I’m going to stand, it has to be right here.
‘Didn’t work, huh?’
‘What?’
‘You’re all tense. Still thinking about earlier?’
I shake my head. God, I forgot there even was an earlier, that that whole thing with my stepmom even happened. Isn’t that kind of fucking terrible? That a supremely shitty encounter, a meal that nearly drove me to tears, can just go poof because of a little male attention?
Isn’t that just fucking terrifying?
‘I am,’ Heath admits. ‘I should’ve said something. I let you down.’
No, I correct myself silently. Not because of a little male attention. Because someone cared enough to make me feel better.
‘You didn’t,’ I promise. Fuck, I love that he cares so much.
Makes me want to burrow inside his fucking chest, get an eyeful of that big heart just so I can see how he makes it beat so nicely.
Makes me want to kiss the concern right out of him, and in my tipsy state, I can’t find a reason not to do that.
But as my hands find his shoulders, my gaze finds something else. ‘Oh, fuck me.’
‘What?’
‘Some of Ben’s friends just walked in.’ As he twists to look, I grip his shoulders more firmly, keeping his gaze on me. The last thing I need is for a stray fucking glance or a goading facial expression to start a pissing match. ‘Don’t look.’
‘Do you see him?’
I peer at the new crowd a little more closely, squinting against the darkness, fighting the fine haze of alcohol and music and sensory fucking overload. ‘I can’t tell.’
Heath grunts.
‘Maybe we should, uh, do something. Phase . . .’ Four? Five? I’ve lost track now. Honestly, I forgot they were even a thing.
I think Heath did too.
‘Got anything in mind?’
I purse my lips, thinking. Out of the corner of my eye, a flash of movement catches my attention – a guy and a girl, hand in hand, stumbling up the staircase. ‘We could go upstairs.’
Heath blinks. Repeats, ‘We could go upstairs.’
‘Yeah.’
‘And do what, Daniela?’
‘Well, we wouldn’t do anything. But, uh, people would think we were . . . y’know. Doing what couples do upstairs at parties.’
‘Why, darling, whatever could that be?’
My cheeks heat as my eyes narrow. ‘You know.’
‘I’m a nice, respectable boy,’ he claims, he teases. ‘Spell it out for me.’
Eyeballing the little smirk he does a shitty job of hiding, defiance thrums in my veins. He wants to tease me? Fine. Two can play at that game. I can tease too. Surely, I can.
Humming lowly, I let my hands wander. I smooth them along rigid pectoral muscles, over broad shoulders and back again, dipping beneath that indecently unbuttoned shirt so I’m palming bare skin.
Tapping the freckles dusting his collarbone, I stoop to eye-level and flash a shitty little smirk of my own.
‘They fuck, Heath. People would think we’re fucking. ’
Beneath my palm, his heart skips. A couple of inches above my fingertips, his throat bobs dramatically. ‘And you’d be okay with that?’
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ I question, purposely obtuse, my bravado strengthened by tequila and obstinance. ‘It’s just sex. Hypothetical sex, of course.’
‘Right.’ He swallows again. Wraps his fingers across my wrists. Reveals slick, clammy palms.
My head cocks. ‘That makes you nervous.’
‘Not quite the word I’d use for it.’
‘Pick a better one then.’
‘Daniela.’
‘What?’
‘Enough. Please.’
‘You started it.’
‘And now I’m ending it.’
‘Why?’
‘Dani. Baby.’
When I’m no less confused by what I can only describe as anguish darkening his gaze, he lets a ragged noise loose.
With an inhale that’s just as unsteady, he curls his fingers loosely around my wrist. Moving slowly, giving me every opportunity to stop him, he moves my hand down and down and down, until it reaches his lap.
Something hard pulses beneath my knuckles, and my lungs abruptly stop working. ‘Oh.’
‘Yeah.’ He lets me go, clearing his throat. ‘Sorry.’
My hand goes nowhere.
Nor does my frown.
Sorry? He’s sorry? He’s . . . embarrassed, almost. Not ashamed, but bashful. Adorable.
Entirely oblivious to how far that sweet, pink flush goes in appeasing the anxiety roiling in my gut.
It’s not just me, a tiny, timid voice in the back of my head celebrates. He feels it too.
He can’t catch his breath either. He doesn’t move when I do, when I clamber onto his lap like I have every right to be there, like I freaking straddle him all the time. He does ask, quiet and almost unsure, ‘What are you doing?’
‘Testing that theory again,’ I offer, the same excuse as last time. Like a comfort blanket for someone so insanely out of their depth. ‘The results were inconclusive, remember?’
His breath hitches again. His heart pounds in a racing beat that I imagine, if I were to press a hand to my chest, would perfectly match my own. ‘Here?’
I nod. I feel brave here. I’m too scared to go anywhere else, scared I’ll scare myself off. ‘Is that okay?’
‘Is that okay?’ he repeats, he laughs. He drops his head back, shaking it as he fucking giggles at the sky. When he looks at me again, he’s utterly serious. ‘You really have no idea, do you?’
‘No idea about—’
Lips, rough and desperate, abruptly press to mine, and I forget I was even speaking – I damn near forget my own name as Heath erases the word okay from my vocabulary.
He swallows my gasps, my thoughts, my entire fucking consciousness until I am nothing but the puddle of warmth in my gut and the goose-bumped skin he caresses so reverently.
He kisses me like it is the one thing in the world he was made for, and, God, I hope I’m returning the favor.
‘Fuck, Daniela.’ He bites my bottom lip like he’s mad at it. Rough in a way that makes my thighs clench, he shoves up my skirt and palms my bare ass, slapping one cheek like that’s making him mad too. ‘You gotta tell me to stop, baby.’
The mere suggestion makes my stomach twist. I clutch him so tightly, my nails carve half-moon marks into his shoulders. ‘I don’t want you to.’
His groan is as tangible, as arousing, as the calloused fingers digging into my flesh. Snapping the waistband of my thong, he swallows my whimper. ‘What do you want?’
I think it’s pretty obvious. My panties are soaked, and I know he knows it because when his fingertips graze the wet fabric, he makes an unholy fucking noise.
He uses my hair to guide me backwards, to give himself a better view, and he thrusts his hips upwards, grinding the hard bulge tenting his jeans against me until my eyes roll to the back of my head.
Three thrusts. That’s all I get before he tugs my hair hard enough to get my attention.
A silent demand. And it’s confirmed for me, all of a sudden, that I am, in fact, not broken.
That there isn’t anything wrong with my libido, that there never was, that it was some other factor that wasn’t right.
Because there is very little I wouldn’t do right now to satisfy it.
I’ll even admit it. ‘I really, really want you to make me come.’
Heath goes still. As his head shakes, it flops backwards so he can curse at the sky. He curses me. Almost unintelligible, he mumbles that I’m going to be the fucking death of him.
‘The things I would do,’ he rasps in my ear, as he follows the curve of my ass until he finds the edge of my panties, ‘to get my mouth on you right now.’
My lungs all but disintegrate. I’m sure that whatever those things are, I would do much, much worse.
‘But we can’t do that here.’ He only disappoints me for a split second. The next, he’s nudging my thong aside and making me gasp with light, teasing touches. ‘We don’t have time. I can’t wait. This cunt can’t either, can it?’
‘I can’t.’