19. Jensen #2
I was rock hard before she finished the sentence, heat flooding through me as I try to keep my breathing steady. Sloane Winslow is going to be the death of me, and she knows it. I can see it in the way she’s looking at me with equal parts challenge and want, daring me to do something about it.
I close the distance between us and take her hand, lacing my fingers through hers. Her pulse flutters under my thumb when I press it to her wrist. That infuriating just friends label is so thin right now it’s practically transparent.
“I don’t know much about romance novels.” I bring her hand to my mouth and kiss her knuckles, then her wrist, then the center of her palm. Her fingers curl against my jaw. “But how about I narrate all the things I want to do to you instead?”
Her pupils blow wide, and her breath catches. “Yeah,” she says, her voice rough. “That would work.”
I draw her closer, one hand sliding around to the small of her back, and marvel at how she fits against me so perfectly. The way she has from the very first night in Nashville. It feels as if we were made to be together.
“I’d start slow,” I murmur against her temple. “Kiss you until you forget your own name and you’re holding onto me like you might fall if you let go.”
“Jensen.” I fucking love the sound of my name on her tongue.
“Then I’d work my way down to your neck and that spot behind your ear that makes you shiver.” I demonstrate, and mentally pat myself on the back when she does shiver. “I’d take my time. Make sure you know exactly how much I want you.”
“How much?”
“More than anything else in the world,” I admit, too far gone to be embarrassed by my need.
She rises up to kiss me, and I relish the taste of her and the soft sound she makes against my mouth. Our kisses turn deeper, more urgent, until she’s pressed against me and I feel her heartbeat through her shirt.
“This is a story that could take all night,” I promise against her mouth.
“I’m counting on it,” she breathes.
I kiss her again and walk her backward toward the hallway, and for right now, this is enough. Even if I still don’t know how I’m supposed to let her go.
Inside the small bedroom, the lantern light from the main room casts shadows across the walls.
I take my time with her the way I promised I would.
I map the terrain of her skin with my mouth, from the curve of her collarbone and the soft swell of her breasts to the slight tremor that runs through her when my lips graze her ribs.
“Jensen.” She threads her fingers through my hair and tugs, pulling my mouth back to hers. “Stop teasing.”
“I’m not teasing,” I murmur against her lips. “We romance narrators call it savoring.”
She makes a frustrated sound that turns into a moan when I slide my hand between her thighs, feeling her hot and wet through the fabric of her pants.
I know how she likes to be touched. Started charting the map of her body in Nashville and have been adding to it since she let me in again, so I give her the slow pressure that makes her hips roll into my palm.
“Please,” she breathes, which shreds the rest of my control. Not because it’s new. But because every time she says the word, she gives a little more of herself with it.
We shed the rest of our clothes without grace, too urgent now for finesse, and when she pulls me down onto the bed, I go willingly, settling between her thighs with a groan that comes from a primal place I barely knew I could access before her.
“I’ll never get tired of this,” I tell her. It’s the truth, and maybe it reveals too much. But when her breath hitches, that alone is its own reward.
She wraps her legs around me, urging me closer, and I slide into her in one long stroke.
We’re past the part where I need to be careful.
She takes me like she was waiting for this.
The sound she makes—half gasp, half sigh—is better than a fucking angel choir.
The first time I heard it was in a Nashville hotel room, then in a rain-soaked tent, and in this same bed last night.
It gets me every damn time, a bigger rush than a stadium full of screaming fans.
We find our rhythm, her hips rising to meet mine, and I lose myself in the heat and friction and the desperate noises she makes against my neck. Or maybe those noises are coming from me.
“More,” she whispers, and I give it to her. Deeper and harder, my thumb finding the spot that makes her cry out and grab my wrist like she did in the tent because she’s afraid I’ll stop.
I won’t stop. She should know that by now, but I’m happy to prove it as many times as she’ll let me.
She comes with my name on her lips, her body clenching around me. The sight of her falling apart like it’s still a surprise drags me over the edge right after. I bury myself deep and let go, pleasure crashing through me in waves that leave me panting and wrecked.
We lie tangled together, her head on my shoulder and my hand tracing lazy circles on her spine. Outside the window, the last light has faded to full dark.
“Should I stay?” I ask as if I mean tonight in her bed rather than the one in the second bedroom.
I doubt Sloane realizes it, but I mean tomorrow and next week and longer.
Beyond this cabin and this mountain and everything I thought I knew about myself.
I’m talking about a version of my life that has her in it, full stop.
The one I can’t stop building in my head when she hasn’t given me any indication she wants it too.
Her blue eyes are dark in the dim light when she lifts her head. “You’re not going anywhere.”
I kiss her forehead and think about how right she is. I’m hers for as long as she’ll have me. And I’m going to hold onto that with both hands.