How to Date the Guy You Hate by Julie Kriss Page 0,25

was I bringing up the C-word right now, when I had my best shot at getting properly laid since that party five years ago. With—again, honesty—the man who still held the title of the hottest guy I’d ever seen.

“I don’t need to talk about it,” I said. “What I need is to forget about it.”

For a second he was surprised, even though I’d texted him to come over here. Then the frown left his mouth, and his expression relaxed. He understood me so perfectly in that moment that I felt a rush of pure anticipation come over me, mixed with nervous fear. This seemed more intimate than when I’d taken him on on the basketball court. That had been aggressive and fun, with a lightning crackle of sex in it. Now he just looked at me, dropping his gaze and slowly taking me in. He took a breath, and I knew from the soft inhale that he was turned on. By me.

“Okay,” he said.

He took a step toward me, and I panicked again. “Not in my bed,” I said.

He just shook his head and kept coming forward.

“And no staying over,” I said, watching him. “And—”

He reached me and pressed me into the counter, using his hips against mine. His hands came up and brushed my jawline, his thumbs pressing gently into my skin. “How about this?” he said in a low rumble in my ear. “I make the rules.”

I closed my eyes and stopped talking.

I felt his mouth on the skin just below my ear, his breath warm, his stubble rasping me lightly. He dragged his lips slowly over me, taking in every contour along the bottom of my jaw. I could smell him, a heady clean man-smell, could feel my own pulse against his fingertips. He angled my head again and put his mouth on mine, sucking my bottom lip between his teeth, flooding me with heat. I opened my mouth, and he pressed his fingertips harder into my jaw, pressing me open as he kissed me deep and hard.

Oh, God, Jason Carsleigh was the best kisser on earth.

He broke away after a long time. “Fuck,” he said softly. He dropped his hands and slid them under the hem of my sweater, dragging his fingers up over my skin to cup my breasts through my bra. “I remember these,” he said in my ear.

I was floating, on some kind of high, my body wired to him, my memory going back to the feel of him against me in the park and his fingers between my legs. “You do?” I gasped. His hands on me were hot, his thumbs slow and expert on my nipples. I felt it everywhere.

“Fuck, yes,” he said, dragging his thumbs over my nipples again as I made a little whimper.

“Jason—”

“Ssh,” he said in my ear. “You talk too much. I’m making two rules.”

Wordlessly, I nodded. I would agree to anything as long as he kept rubbing my nipples like that.

“First,” he said, dragging his teeth lightly along the side of my neck so I squirmed and grabbed fistfuls of his sweater, “what happens right now is done when it’s done. We both want to. We’re gonna do what we’re gonna do. No strings.”

That sounded good. I nodded again, pulling up on his sweater now, dragging my hands down to touch the perfect skin of his stomach.

“Second,” Jason said, inhaling a light breath as he felt my hands on him, “you give in and let go. Completely.”

Completely? part of my brain thought, the remaining sliver that was still rational. Then he tugged down the fabric of my bra beneath my shirt so my nipples were bare and rubbed them again, and I remembered that this was what I wanted. To let go. Of everything.

“Yes,” I said, and leaned up and kissed him.

He pressed me back into the counter, and I felt him. Hard thighs, hard hips, hard everything. I squirmed against him as he dropped his hands from my breasts—it was agony—and tugged open the buttons of my jean skirt, letting it drop to the floor. In a second quick motion, he pulled my shirt off over my head and threw it away.

We weren’t going to go slow, then. This, I liked. His gaze was dark on me, his lips parted, as if he was as worked up as I was. Maybe he hadn’t been with anyone since Charlotte. I didn’t care. Right now, he was mine. For however long it took, I was going to