Twenty-Two
Gray light filters through the windows, even breathing and soft snores rising and falling somewhere above her head.
The crocheted blanket covers her lower body, and a comforting weight rests on her shoulder.
After another moment of blinking into her silent apartment, Charlie remembers that she fell asleep on the couch.
And Wes is asleep beside her.
She’s lying on one of the throw pillows in his lap, and his palm burns where it rests on her arm.
Rolling onto her back, she studies him, head propped on his fist, glasses resting on the arm of the couch beside him.
His face is smooth and relaxed, mouth slightly parted, a faint stubble on his cheeks.
Shifting under his arm, she tries not to jostle him, but he mutters something unintelligible before jolting awake with a soft gasp.
“Sorry,” she whispers. One of her palms rests between his open thighs, her face nearly pressed against his chest.
He groans, running a long-fingered hand through his hair and down his face before stretching his arms above his head.
“You were shivering in your sleep.” He smiles blearily. “I didn’t want to wake you.”
Her chest aches at his consideration. When she sits up, the blanket falls around her waist, and her curls tumble down over her shoulder, her hair tie doing little to keep them contained.
“That’s okay.” She tries to pull her hair tie free and winces as it snags on the strands.
“My hair’s probably a bird’s nest right now. ”
“It will make a lovely home for a pigeon,” he teases.
She rolls her eyes, but she freezes when he reaches out a hand and begins gently combing his fingers through her curls.
“I’ve always loved your hair,” he murmurs.
“Always?”
He nods, lifting his gaze to hers. “It was very distracting.”
He traces his fingers along her jaw, his touch blistering her skin, and before she can move, before she can breathe, he brushes the pad of his thumb along her bottom lip.
“I really want to kiss you right now.”
Her mouth opens with surprise, her nerve endings sparking. Something taut stretches between them, something that began weeks ago, a persistent tug present through all their interactions, culminating in this moment.
Outside in the hallway, a door slams, voices rising and falling as her neighbors begin the new year. Inside her apartment, however, time stops. The silence, the tension, stretches, tightens. Both of them standing on the precipice of an unspoken thing that’s tenuous and fragile.
His thumb drags down her bottom lip before he pulls away. “I’m sorry. I know your rules—”
She clasps her fingers around his wrist, and his eyes widen when she guides his hand back to her lips.
Wes’s mouth parts in surprise, and she has to look away from that mouth she craves to feel against hers.
Boldly—much more boldly than even a week ago—she takes the tip of his thumb between her lips and sucks gently.
She doesn’t think about what possesses her to do this, to initiate a gesture that feels much more intimate than kissing. Perhaps she is tired of resisting, tired of pretending she’s not affected by his touch, his voice, him.
Wes sucks in a sharp breath, his lashes fluttering as he watches her with something akin to awe and raw desire, a delicious unexpected flush painting his cheeks.
She feels drunk with it.
She whispers, “Do it.”
He gazes at her mouth, the heat of his stare branding her skin, imprinting on her bones. Even if she were to pull away now, she can’t stop whatever this is. A part of her senses that the harder she fights, the worse it will be. Senses the inevitability.
“But—” He stops. Swallows. “Your rules.”
“I know,” she replies. “But it would only be just this once.”
His mouth—a mouth she now knows, a mouth she wants everywhere—curves up at the corners. Her body buzzes, a current of nerves running through her, electricity that can shock with just one touch.
“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” she says.
Something flickers in his eyes, and he swallows audibly. “Right.” He tips her head up, and he’s so close, his breath soft against her lips. “It’s just a kiss.”
She can’t speak, so she nods, and he presses his mouth to hers.
His lips are soft and pliant and full, and she feels an immediate sense of rightness. Because his mouth feels so much better than she ever imagined.
She leans into him, wanting to taste him, wanting more, and he opens her mouth with a soft moan. Heat shoots through her center, and he buries his fingers in her curls, a shock of unfamiliar pleasure zipping through her when he tugs gently.
Sinking into the kiss, she sighs into his mouth. When he runs his tongue along her bottom lip, she gasps, dizzy and breathless. This is entirely unlike every kiss she’s had before, unlike the prickly unease of Nash’s touch.
Pulling away first, she opens her eyes, their lips still close enough that she feels him tremble.
He exhales shakily. “There.” He watches her like she holds all the answers, wearing a smile she hasn’t glimpsed in years, so different from his signature self-assured smirk. “How was that?”
Her palm is pressed to his chest, and she can feel his heart pounding.
Slowly, like he’s afraid he’ll spook her, his fingers trace the bones of her wrist before he laces their fingers together.
Her apartment fades away. He shifts closer, tilting her chin up again, and her skin tingles with anticipation, her body blooming with heat.
She wants this. She wants more. She wants him.
Just this once.
Shifting onto her knees, she initiates this time, pressing her lips to his. His body tenses with surprise.
Pulling away, she whispers, “I think you can do better than that.”
It’s as if her words release him from an invisible leash.
Capturing her mouth again, he kisses her like a man starved.
When he groans, she chases it greedily, surging forward, slinging her leg over his thighs, straddling his hips.
His fingers tangle in her curls, deepening their kiss before he drags a hand down her spine, and when she arches against it, rolling her hips over him, he moans into her mouth.
“Fuck, Rogers.” His lips explore her throat, his teeth grazing her pulse point. “Tell me to stop, and I’ll stop.”
A small whimper escapes her when he pulls her shirt down with his teeth, his tongue dragging over her collarbone.
“Don’t—” she gasps. Because she needs his hands everywhere. “Don’t stop. Please.”
Just this once.
If she weren’t so turned on, she’d be embarrassed by the plea. When he cups her breasts, heat pools between her legs, and when she tightens her thighs and rocks her core against him, the pressure from his arousal is obvious, delicious, enticing. A moan spills from her lips.
Sliding her hands up his chest, she wraps them around his neck.
Breathing him in, she luxuriates in his palms sliding down her waist, his fingers gripping her hips, pressing her against him.
She rakes her fingers through his hair—his fucking hair—and relishes the small groan he lets out when her nails scrape across his scalp.
She wants him closer, wants to make the small sighs he’s breathing into her mouth louder, wants him to take care of the incredible ache between her legs, wants his body on hers, his skin sliding over hers.
His palms skate under the thin material of her shirt, dancing up her rib cage, as his lips explore more of her throat.
Just this once.
She claws at his sweatshirt, desperate for the skin underneath. Tugging it over his head, she spreads her hands across his broad chest, trying to touch as much of him as possible.
Grinding her hips against him, she whines, “Wes, please. I need—”
He responds by freeing her shirt from her body, and she’s topless in front of him for the first time. She hardly has time to process this before his mouth claims a taut nipple, pulling fire from her veins and a moan from her lips.
“You were saying?” he growls against her skin before flipping her onto her back.
He settles between her legs, pressing himself to her center, her hips cradling his, and she loses herself in the feel of him.
She gasps at the sensation of his hard length, at his groan when she writhes her core against him.
“So sensitive,” he breathes, nipping her jaw. “God, I love how responsive you are.”
He drags down her leggings, pulling her underwear with them, before kneeling between her legs, his gaze traveling leisurely over her, and she’s certain she will erupt into flames from the raw heat in his eyes. She never knew she could feel so desired.
He grins—she needs that clever mouth everywhere—before pressing his mouth to her stomach, dragging his hands, rough with callouses, over her breasts.
As he looks up at her from between her legs, a question in his eyes, his hands grip her hips. “I want to taste you.” He presses an open-mouthed kiss to her hip bone. “Please, Charlie? Let me make you feel good.”
She needs him, needs this.
Just this once.
Just this once, she pretends this isn’t an experiment, pretends this is real, that he wants her just as much as she wants him.
“Yes,” she breathes. “Please.”
He smiles, somehow radiant and achingly sinful at the same time. Desire blows out his pupils, and he dips his head, nipping the inside of her thigh.
“So pretty, Charlie,” he murmurs. She fists the blanket, her body trembling with need. When his finger traces the sensitive nub, dragging over her slick folds, she whines, bucking her hips, needing more.
“Please, please, please,” she babbles, unable to help herself.
His palms, hot and commanding, gently spread her open, and her mind blanks when he finally licks the very spot she craves.
His groan vibrates against her clit, and she doesn’t have time to feel self-conscious because she’s already shaking.
“Don’t hold back for me,” he rumbles.
Gripping his hair, she thanks whatever god blessed him with this exquisite feature, as lovely and silky as she always imagined.
“How do you like it, Charlie? Use your words.”