Dear Roomie (Rookie Rebels #5) - Kate Meader Page 0,89
felt about this man who cared only about winning. No other subject at dinner gained traction. Every word from Durand Senior sucked the life out of the room.
“Listen, I’m sorry if I made things difficult between you and your father, but frankly, the man is a dick.”
“C’est vrai.” It’s true. She knew that much French. She knew that much Reid. “I’m sorry he ruined your dinner.”
“He didn’t. I mean, that sticky toffee pudding was amazing. But I think he ruined something. I think he’s made you miserable and it hurts me to see how much he hurts you.”
He shook his head. “Kennedy, you don’t have to defend me to him. It’s not your job.”
Then whose job was it? Bastian had tried but even he couldn’t make any headway. Nadine just rolled her eyes as if her husband’s cantankerousness was a joke instead of truly harmful. As far as Kennedy could see Reid was all alone here, bearing the brunt of familial pressure to succeed.
“You’re solid gold, Reid, you know that?”
He turned sharply, his lips parted in shock. “Kennedy—”
“You are! You completely undersell yourself. You know what I see?” She didn’t give him time to answer. “A guy who would rather hide his decency behind a scowl, who thinks his kindness puts him at a disadvantage and his big heart is a weakness. I will always defend you, Reid, because you won’t take the time to do it yourself.”
His big chest heaved with emotion. He looked baffled, those gorgeous denim-blue eyes soft and shining. “That’s not me,” he said faintly. “I’m not decent at all.”
“Push the seat back, baby.”
“The seat?”
“The seat,” she repeated as she leaned over, pressing her breasts against his arm and pushing the button that moved his seat back. In one swift move, she straddled him. “I don’t think I’ve truly demonstrated how flexible I am.”
“Kennedy, you don’t have to—”
But she stopped him with a kiss which had him responding with so much hunger, so much heat. A complete knee-melter. Good thing she was sitting over the thickest thighs in hockey.
Big hands pushed her dress up around her hips. Clever thumbs got to work, kneading, pressing, creating a sensuous friction. Eager to keep up, she unbuttoned his dress pants and unfurled the hard, beautiful length of him.
What a sight. Fully-aroused and all hers.
She mentally chided herself for that hers thinking. That would not do.
She needed to keep her wits about her. This was what she’d been telling herself for weeks: don’t get sucked in by the dog or the man or the rootedness of it all. Keep it to the realms of pleasure, maybe a stretch to friendship. That’s why she defended him against his father’s verbal blows.
She was being a good friend, nothing else.
She started to stroke but he was already hard and perfect.
Despite the circumstances—the front seat of a car, the aftermath of a bad night, the desperation in that kiss—there was a reverence in how he touched her. How he slipped her breast out of her borrowed dress and brought it to his mouth. She arched off him, her head touching the roof of the car.
Unable to stand the pleasure, she moved her hands down, touching, mapping, loving this beautiful, pent-up, hurting man.
He was less closed off these days, but still bound by his upbringing. By the lessons his father had taught him. That only through a rigid self-control could he be worthy of that man’s love.
He needn’t exercise that kind of restraint here. She was determined to rattle Reid’s cage.
While he was clearly determined to destroy hers.
She suspected he could hold out all night, could demonstrate that control, to make a point. To himself, perhaps. He had nothing to prove to her.
She curled a hand around his neck and nudged his mouth away from her breast.
“I need you inside me.”
His hand trailed down her stomach, over her mound, his palm encouraging her thighs to part further. Gladly they obeyed his silent order.
“You’re … wet.”
Of course she was. This was Reid. “Now.”
The crinkle of foil, the quick adjustment to secure their protection, then he lifted her like she weighed nothing and brought her down to sheath him, the push excruciating in its deliberateness, exquisite in the pleasure wrought from her inner walls.
Both the ones at her core and the ones surrounding her heart.
“Ohhhh.” Her moan didn’t sound like her. Each cell had come to life and was now tingling with the stretch of thick, glorious fullness.