Chapter Fourteen
T wenty minutes later, after I’ve settled a very contented Aggie in front of Deadpool , Everett and I burst through the door to his apartment and he kicks it shut as he sweeps me into a kiss.
Not a nice kiss, but a hot, unrestrained, open-mouthed plunge of his tongue into my mouth.
I didn’t see him move in. I didn’t see his hands move, either, but there they are, one wrapping my neck and pinning my face to his, the other gripping my hip as he backs me against a wall.
I bury my fingers in his soft, dense curls.
His knee presses forward, nudging my legs apart so our hips collide.
I feel how he wants me, and god , how I want him, with his hot mouth on mine, his hand fisting my skirt so it rides up my leg, and his tongue demanding more, more, more .
In the dim streetlight that filters in through his windows, he moans as he kisses me, lost in his own pleasure, and I make it my new goal to elicit that sound as often as possible.
“Everett,” I pant out, eyeing the open bedroom door over his shoulder. “Should we—”
“Anything, anywhere,” he gusts out, equally breathless. “I just fucking want you.” Then his mouth is on mine again and he’s pressing into me and I did not see this coming—not the kiss, the cursing, or the hunger—but my body is miles ahead of my brain right now.
I find my way under his sweater, grateful his coat’s already open as I yank his tucked-in shirttails free in a frantic attempt to reach his body.
I mmm with delight as my palms meet warm, smooth skin, running upward over the slight swell of his belly, the harder edges that define his chest, all the way to his collarbones, where I let my nails sink in, drawing out another moan.
“You like that?” I say into his ear, before giving the lobe a good tug with my teeth.
“Ohmygod,” he pushes through clenched teeth. His chest is rising and falling so fast. Maybe even faster than mine. “Just let me live long enough to feel all of you.”
I shift my hips against him. “Does that mean I get to feel all of you, too?”
“God, I hope so.” He drags his teeth down my neck, biting and sucking as he goes.
He’ll leave marks, but then, so will I. It’s all so feral, which I’ve never experienced before so I didn’t know I’d be into it, but at this point, I think I’d be into anything Everett does.
The way he teases my skirt higher, but not high enough.
The way his tongue flickers across my skin until he finds a place where he wants to linger for a taste or to take another bite.
The way his thigh presses forward between my legs, giving us both something to grind against.
I study the contours of his chest with my hands, finding the places where soft shifts to hard and back again until I let my fingertips brush across his nipples, drawing out a shiver.
I pause, intrigued, and then touch them again.
His body jerks in response, and he lets out a stuttering gasp.
“Not fair,” he says. “Not fucking fair.” Then he’s flicking open the buttons on my coat, wrenching down the neckline of my tank top and the top edge of my bra, and taking my bared breast in his mouth, sucking hard and sweeping his tongue over my nipple.
My thoughts go blurry. My knees turn to jelly.
My head tips back and my eyes close as I free my hands so I can dig them into his hair, riding the pleasure of his mouth and his hands as his thigh inches higher so I can grind more firmly against it while he sends jolt after jolt of pure, unrepentant, high-voltage want through me.
As my knees buckle completely, I pant out, “Bedroom. Please. Now.”
Everett’s eyes sparkle as he draws back, letting his tongue drift across his lower lip.
“I thought I was supposed to take the lead,” he teases.
“Are you suggesting you don’t want to get in bed together?”
“God, no,” he says through a laugh, spinning me around and pushing me forward.
We stumble into his bedroom and fall onto the bed together, laughing as it creaks under our weight, but then we’re kissing again, and I’m hunting for his skin as he hunts for mine.
Our coats come off. Then he drags my cardigan off my shoulders to plant hot, wet kisses on my skin while I inch up his shirt and sweater.
As we kiss, touch, and pull each other closer, and as I draw another delicious moan from Everett’s throat, I toe off my shoes and they clunk to the floor.
Everett makes quick work of removing his shoes, socks, and corduroys.
I make quick work of dragging down my tights and skirt.
He takes off his glasses and sets them on the nightstand.
Sweaters and shirts fly to the floor, leaving me in my bra and underwear, and him in blue plaid flannel boxers.
Despite the manic momentum, as we lie down together, everything slows.
With our bodies still only dimly lit from the streetlight that comes in through his parted curtains, he takes me in and I do the same with him, savoring the newly exposed details of the man I’m already crazy about yet am still discovering, like the trio of dark freckles on the left side of his sternum.
The long, raised scar on his right shoulder, which he once mentioned was from falling out of a tree as a kid after his sisters dared him to climb it.
The slightly rounded belly I felt earlier.
Even something as ordinary as the tufts of brown hair under his arms. It’s all a revelation.
His legs slide against mine, soft and strong, and with more hair than I expected.
His knuckles tenderly brush over my shoulder and the subtle curve of my breast.
His eyes fill with admiration as he follows the path of his hand.
This is how it’s supposed to feel , I think. This is the real thing.
I kiss him again, before my emotions catch up to my thoughts and I psych myself out with the magnitude of what I’ve been missing and what I stand to lose now that I have it. He’s quick to respond, holding me tight against him as our mouths collide and our legs tangle.
For a while, that’s all we do: hold each other and kiss, allowing our bodies to grow accustomed to each other, learning the little dents, swells, and hidden spots that draw out a sigh or a moan.
He likes it when I play with his hair. I like it when he wraps a leg over my hip, as if he’s embracing me in two places at once.
We both like it when we open our eyes to find the other watching, at which point one of us always smiles, and the other can’t help but follow suit.
As our kisses deepen and our writhing grows more restless, skin, heat, and movement stir up a new frenzy.
He pops the clasp on my bra. The instant I’ve slipped out of it, he rolls me onto my back, kneeling between my legs and leaning over me as he guides my arms over my head one at a time and pins my hands to his pillow with a single fist around my wrists.
Then he studies me with his eyes and his free hand, his fingers splayed wide and firmly pressing into my skin as they travel over me.
In any other circumstances, this might make my anxiety spike, being stretched out like this, so blatantly displayed, with all of my flaws in full view, from my bony hips to my too-small breasts to the acne scars just below my collarbones.
But I don’t feel cataloged or inspected.
I feel like he’s learning me, the way my pieces come together to make a whole, and it’s the whole he’s interested in. Not the pieces.
As he secures his grip, I blink up at him, drinking in his smooth skin, the light dusting of hair on his chest, and the boyish face that lacks the hard edges and chiseled features of a classic romantic hero but radiates a warmth and gentleness I’m much more drawn to, even when he’s not being “nice.” His hazel eyes look bigger and brighter without his glasses, or maybe it’s the feeling within them that seems amplified.
The desire. The intention. I’ve always found him attractive, but now I grow breathless at his hunger and his beauty.
Can I? he asks with a look.
Yes , I say without speaking. Yes. Please. Yes.
He slips his free hand into my underwear, gliding his hooked fingers directly into me.
I gasp as I arch into his touch, instinctively jerking my arms down so I can brace myself on his shoulders or grip the sheets or.
.. or I don’t even know what, but he holds tight to my wrists, keeping my hands above my head as he watches me squirm beneath him, thrusting into his touch with a sense of abandon I never knew I had in me.
“I’ve imagined this so many times,” Everett says, his voice husky with desire.
“Is it, did you, I, um...” I give up, lost to the feel of his touch.
He bends lower to steal a kiss, tugging my bottom lip between his teeth as he pulls away.
“It was perfect in my imagination,” he says. “Somehow, this is even better.”
Then his fingers go deeper. My hips lift off the bed as my heels dig into the tangled sheets. I throw back my head and ride his hand until I can’t stand it anymore.
I want all of him. Now.
“Everett. Please.”
My voice is barely audible but he must hear me because he tells me not to move as he releases my wrists and withdraws his fingers from inside me.
In a quick succession of movements, he drags my underwear down my legs and frees them from my ankles, removes his boxers, and digs a condom from his corduroys where he finds them heaped on the floor.
I watch without moving, without speaking, taking in the full, unobstructed view of him.
We’re naked in more ways than one right now, and for the first time in my life, that thought doesn’t terrify me.
It fills me with wonder and affection, and by the time we’re kissing again as he guides himself inside me, filling me in a way that feels so good, and so right, I’m dead certain I finally know that not only is this what good sex feels like.
This is what it feels like to be falling in love.