Chapter 12 #3
She was so preoccupied with chastising herself for being Teen Beat enough to have her crank turned by well-defined abs that she glanced back up at his face a few crucial seconds too late.
There was no way to spin it: he’d caught her straight-up gawking at him.
He slowly lowered the hem of his shirt, his eyes going hot and dark. She felt like she was drowning in them, a prehistoric animal trapped in an asphalt lake, unable to escape even if she wanted to.
The song ended, and there was a moment of heavy silence. Merritt dimly wondered if it would stay that way, since nobody had gone up to the jukebox since Niko had reset it. Nobody else was up there at all.
But then, she heard three soft chimes, followed by Nina Simone’s voice, warm and crackling like a fire, crooning from the speakers: “Baby, you understand me now…if sometimes you see that I’m mad…”
She held Niko’s gaze as the strings swelled around them.
Slowly, without breaking eye contact, he held his hand out to her.
She glanced down at his outstretched palm, then back to his face.
He was studying her with an expression she’d never seen on him before, nervous and determined all at once. Her heart stuttered in her chest.
Before she knew what was happening, she slid her palm over his, their fingers interlacing as he gently drew her closer.
To her disappointment, he stopped short of pulling her all the way into him, keeping them a respectful distance apart, like they were being watched by a stern middle-school dance chaperone. He placed his other hand at the indent of her waist, and she rested hers on his shoulder.
Though they were barely touching, she felt every point of contact acutely, his skin so overheated from exertion that she was afraid it might singe her through her dress, through his shirt, through their palms. From the way his muscles tensed and shifted when she touched him, it seemed like he could feel it, too.
She let him lead, her feet mirroring his as they lazily wound their way through the bar.
Her gaze settled somewhere to the left of his head.
She didn’t trust herself to look into his eyes.
It only half worked: she found herself distracted trying not to get jealous of the tiny, perfect ringlet kissing the outer edge of his ear.
He raised their linked hands, slowly spinning her—though instead of turning her fully, he paused halfway, with her back to him, wrapping his arm around her and guiding her against his chest at last.
She settled into him with a heavy exhale, his stubbled cheek brushing against her smooth one, his heart hammering against her spine. It was so overwhelming she had no choice but to close her eyes.
They were barely dancing at this point, just swaying in place.
Her arms were still crossed against her stomach from the half turn, so she unraveled herself until her hands were covering his, guiding them tighter around her.
His chin nestled into her shoulder as his body pressed flush against hers.
He was unmistakably hard against her, and she shivered, the feel of it sending a jolt straight to her core.
She shouldn’t be doing this. But in that moment, nothing short of a natural disaster destroying the bar around them could get her to pull away.
She wasn’t sure who initiated it this time, but somehow, she got turned back around so they were facing each other again.
She didn’t think twice before closing the gap between them and snaking her arms around his neck, his hands sliding down her back until they paused just above the curve of her ass.
She pressed her cheek to his and tried to keep her breath steady. God, he smelled so fucking good. She should say something, anything—pull away, make a joke, defuse the situation—but her brain was wiped clean.
It had been too long since she’d been this close to someone she wanted this badly, and she’d forgotten how to behave.
Forgotten why she would even want to. Her better judgment was being held hostage by his trembling hands on her lower back, the tension thrumming through his body, the jagged edge to his hot breath against her ear.
All she knew was if she let herself look right at him, she was going to kiss him, and she wasn’t going to stop until she devoured him completely.
In retrospect, the situation was still under control until she let herself press her mouth behind the corner of his jaw, gratified by the rough brush of his stubble against her lips, his sharp inhale, the way his fingers clutched at her dress.
Once she was there, she couldn’t resist lightly raking her teeth over the tender skin of his throat, darting her tongue out to taste him.
He tilted his head back and let out a soft oh.
That oh knocked the wind right out of her.
If that oh were a place, she’d sell her house and take up permanent residence inside it.
It was so helpless, so heavy with desire.
But as much as it thrilled her, it also sent her crashing back down to earth.
Until that moment, she’d been partially in denial about the extent of the power she held over him.
Now that she was faced with the evidence, she didn’t know what to do with it. It was too much. It was all too much.
The song drew to a close, and she dropped her hands from around Niko’s neck, pulling away abruptly. She still couldn’t bring herself to look at him.
“I—sorry,” she mumbled, before bolting down the stairs and out of the bar.
The cold air outside was a much-needed slap in the face. Merritt slumped against the brick wall, her knees giving out, gulping down as many sharp, cool breaths as her lungs could handle. She very rarely regretted quitting smoking, but at that moment, she would’ve murdered someone for a cigarette.
The front door creaked open, the voices inside growing louder. With effort, she craned her head to confirm what she already knew: it was Niko.
“Hi.” His voice came out in a rasp, his eyes in shadow from the lone bulb above the door.
“Hi.”
“You’re still here.”
“Yeah.”
He had something dark and shapeless in his hand, which he held out to her. “You forgot your bag.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
She pushed herself off the wall on still-unsteady legs and reached for it, wrapping her fingers around the strap. When she tugged on it, though, he didn’t release his grip, allowing her to pull him closer, his eyes never leaving her face.
Maybe she let go first, or maybe he did, but either way, the bag served its purpose and tumbled to the pavement, forgotten, as her hands flew up to cup his jaw.
He laced his fingers through her hair to cradle the back of her scalp, resting their foreheads together, his breathing as ragged and heavy as hers.
They paused there. They could still stop now. His eyes searched her face, looking for permission, probably, as if this whole night—as if the whole fucking time they’d known each other—hadn’t been leading up to this.
Finally, she was the one who tilted her face the last few inches to press her lips to his, brief and chaste.
The suggestion of a kiss. In seconds, he had her backed against the wall, nipping at her bottom lip before coaxing her mouth open for a kiss so hot and hungry that she thought she might collapse if she weren’t pinned upright by his body.
He kissed her like he knew this might be his only chance, like a starving man at a feast who’d forgotten how to pace himself. It should’ve been too much, but it wasn’t. She matched his intensity without holding back, his unchecked desire chasing hers to feverish new heights.
She moaned into his mouth, and his fingers tightened in her hair before he brought one hand down to grip her hip.
She hitched her leg around him as high as her dress would allow, his hand sliding down to her thigh and jerking her even closer, making her gasp.
She rolled her hips against the prominent bulge in his jeans until it was his turn to groan in response.
Last one. This is the last one, she lied to herself again and again, coming up for air just to dive back in for more. They could’ve been standing there for five minutes or three hours for all she knew.
His hands roamed her body, exploring without outright groping, though she would’ve let him do whatever he wanted as long as he kept touching her.
For her part, she’d been halfway up his shirt practically since they began, skating her palms over the firm curves and ridges of his torso, her fingers memorizing the exact distribution of the soft hair scattered across his smooth, warm skin.
Niko braced a forearm against the wall and buried his face in her neck, nibbling and sucking his way down to her collarbone as she raked her fingernails across his scalp, murmuring his name over and over to prevent herself from blacking out from sensation.
She realized with a start that she’d been straddling his thick thigh, grinding at an angle that had waves of pleasure building at the base of her spine.
Fuck. She knew she had it bad, but not humping-his-leg-to-completion-fully-clothed-standing-outside-a-bar bad.
She eased off his leg and took a deep, shaky breath. As if reading her mind, he pulled back and brought his forehead to hers again.
“Come home with me,” he breathed, tilting her chin up to reclaim her mouth, long and languorous this time. She let herself melt into the kiss, buying herself some time to respond.
As much as she wanted to tumble into his handmade bed and spend hours or days or weeks letting him fulfill the filthy, skillful promise of his kisses, there was still a large enough part of her that remembered she shouldn’t, though she couldn’t quite remember why.
“I can’t,” she whispered, then laced her hands around his neck and kissed him again before he had a chance to react.
He didn’t protest, but her words had the cooling effect she knew they would. He savored her, sucking her bottom lip between his teeth one last time, then took a heavy step back, resting his hands on her shoulders to steady himself before dropping them back to his sides.
He looked dazed and wild-eyed, his curls standing up in all directions after the way she’d been manhandling them.
He ran his fingers through them a few times—whether to tame them or to tame himself, she couldn’t tell.
Merritt trapped her own hands behind her back, pressed flat against the wall, to fight the temptation to reach for him again.
“Okay.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t suppose you’ll let me walk you home, either.”
She shook her head slowly, the crevices of the bricks massaging the back of her scalp.
He knelt to pick up her bag, scooping up the stray coins and tampons and receipts that had spilled out of it, and handed it back to her.
She was struck by a wave of déjà vu, which quickly turned to regret as he released it easily this time.
She knew she needed to say something.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, though.”
“Tomorrow?” He blinked.
“At the meeting.”
“The meeting.”
It was hard to tell if he was actually comprehending what she was saying or just repeating it, but it didn’t matter. She knew exactly how he felt. Her brain was so scrambled, so blood and oxygen deprived, that she was surprised either of them was forming complete sentences.
Merritt drew herself upright, turned her back to Niko, and walked away on jelly legs, summoning every scrap of self-control that had eluded her earlier to prevent herself from taking one last look over her shoulder.