When I reach the treehouse, I climb the ladder and pop my head through the door, searching.
She looks back at me, all wide-eyes and long legs.
“Hey,” I say, taking the hand that she’s offered me. I don’t let go when we’re face to face. “What are you doing out here?” I reach out to the hem of her sweater, adjusting it just so. She looks even better up close, the fan of her eyelashes sweeping down when her eyes track the gesture.
Her smile is soft. “I needed some air. Sydney wouldn’t shut up.”
“About what?” I abandon the sweater to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.
“You, actually.” I raise an eyebrow, and she continues, “How hot you are. How off-limits. How she heard you were secretly dating someone and that’s why you ditched the post-game party last night.” Her cheeks turn red and she looks away. “How she’d like to meet you in the Stairway to Hell and give you the kind of welcome you deserve.”
“Oh.” I grimace. “That’s…a lot.”
“She’s a lot.”
“What did you tell her?”
“Nothing.” She shrugs, this time reaching out to adjust the hem of my shirt. “I said I had to go get more ice from the freezer in the garage and ran out here. I saw you before, with your dad. You looked like you were about to bolt, so I figured I’d give you somewhere to run to.”
“I didn’t even know I was coming here today.” I run a hand through my hair, feeling the last of my agitation slip away. “Did you know about this?”
“You and your dad coming? No.” She rolls her eyes. “Well, they told me about ten minutes before you got here. You know, to keep me from ‘worrying’.”
“Sneak attack, huh? They seem to do that a lot.”
“Well, this is a surprise I can handle.” Her eyes are stunningly blue, up close like this. I watch as they drop to my mouth. “So, who are you hiding from?”
“Everyone.” I hook a finger under her chin, tilting it upward. “Well, everyone but you.”
She bites her lip on a smile. “Good.”
I snake a hand around her waist, leaning in to quietly confess into her ear, “You’ve been making me crazy from across the room.”
Her breath hitches when my lips graze her soft earlobe. “I know the feeling.”
She turns and we kiss slowly and carefully, like maybe we’re both wondering if this thing we’ve got going on still works in the harsh light of day, and the thing is?
It really fucking does.
Whatever this is, it’s doing it for me; night, day, any time in-between. Every time we kiss, I think that this hungry, desperate mania for her will start to fade, but it doesn’t. Not even close. I can feel it now, this crazy-hot thing sliding through my veins. It’s daunting, sensing how much I need to hold myself back, taking this slow when all I want to do is take.
“How long do you think we can get away with staying out here?” I ask, my hands sliding over the curve of her ass.
“Long enough to take off the edge?” she replies, and her words come back to me from the night before, about being horny. They’d turned my blood molten then, and the memory does it again, feeding this feral thing inside me. It’s still a surprise, knowing that Vandy has an edge. Mine is razor sharp and currently trying to stab her in the lower belly.
She places her hands on my chest and pushes me backward. There’s an old musty futon that Mr. Hall donated from the attic when they first built this place. Emory and I slept on it a few times when we were kids. My calves hit the edge of the cushion and I fall back, pulling her with me.
She lands in my lap, her legs, her thighs, straddling around me. I’m somehow both putty in her hands and so rigid that my bones feel like they could rattle with the slightest movement. She looks me right in the eye when she descends, pressing herself against my cock.
I suck in a measured breath, eyes falling closed. This could be fine for me. Just the weight of her against me, the pressure and the stillness. It’s hardly anything, but it’s almost enough to topple me right over.
And then this girl rises over me, dragging us together, and my jaw locks with my groan. “Fuck.”
She puts her hands on my shoulders and does it again, rocking into me. Her voice