Not You It's Me (Boston Love #1) - Julie Johnson Page 0,92

the sensitive skin of my stomach.

“You’re so damn beautiful,” he whispers, staring greedily down at me, drinking in the sight of his hands on me. I arch beneath him, bringing my mouth back to his as my hands find his waist and cling tightly.

“You ruined your shirt,” I whisper against his lips.

“I have more shirts.” His eyes are molten with pure, unadulterated passion. “But I’m fresh out of patience.”

My breath catches and I hold his stare, feeling a little reckless.

“Good.”

He moves so fast I barely process it, closing the space between us and lowering his mouth over mine once more. His lips are possessive, demanding everything I thought I could give and then more. He doesn’t let me look away as he kisses me. Our gazes hold as our hands explore unfamiliar territory, the moment filled with such intensity, I can’t tell whether my heart is pounding so fast out of fear or desire. I want to look away from him, to break his stare, but I can’t — I owe it to Chase, to myself, to see what this is between us, even if it scares the hell out of me.

Looking at me with fire in his eyes, he grabs my hand and leads me to a place I’ve never been before, where the brush of a fingertip against fragile skin, the hot exhale of a breath against an earlobe, is enough to set my very soul aflame.

And with Chase touching me, I finally understand. I finally get it — why little girls hold out hope for their Prince Charming, and still believe in fairy tales even when they’re seventy years old and he hasn’t arrived. I finally get why songwriters and poets spend their whole lives trying to put this feeling, right here — this stripped-bare, can’t-catch-my-breath, world-has-stopped-turning feeling — into words.

He pulls off my clothes, layer by layer, his mouth trailing kisses in the wake of his fingertips, and with each tangible barrier he removes, I feel another emotional wall crumble as well. The pure intimacy in his touch, the reverence in the way he looks at me — like I really am the only sunshine in his gloomy world — has me fighting back tears.

No matter what I try to tell myself, this isn’t just physical. It isn’t about the mechanical processes leading to a really earth-shattering orgasm, or a means to an end, or something I could feel with any good-looking Tom, Dick, or Harry I met at a bar. With Chase, I’m not filling a void, scratching an itch with someone I’ll walk — or, better yet, run — away from as soon as the sheets have cooled back to room temperature.

Because I want morning-afters with him. I want to know what his voice sounds like at dawn, groggy with sleep. I want to wake up in his arms, want his face to be the first thing I see when my eyes sliver open. I want to run my fingers through his messy bed-hair, and cook pancakes in our underwear, and spend lazy hours under his dark sheets, pretending the world outside doesn’t even exist.

I want to go to bed with him, and wake up with him, and do every inconsequential thing in between with him.

And even though that scares me out of my mind… the thought of letting someone like Chase slip through my fingers without ever experiencing those things is even scarier.

So, I kiss him back.

I push away the walls, those careful barriers I always keep in place to ensure things stay strictly sexual. I stop worrying about the fact that this — that he — might really mean something.

And I go all in.

Hard lips and greedy kisses, eager hands and tangled limbs.

His fingers trace my sides, hook on my underwear, and slide them down my legs, casting them away without ever moving his eyes from mine. My shaky fingers undo the buttons of his shirt, clumsy and careful, like I’m sixteen again and I’ve never removed a man’s clothes before. When I finally push it off his shoulders, freeing his chest from the confines of fabric, I inhale sharply at the sight of him in the mellow afternoon light — his skin glowing, bronze and sleek, the muscles so defined I ache to trace their curves.

“Gemma.”

Chase lowers his forehead to mine, breathing hard. His eyes are dark emerald ink, so intent I can actually feel them sliding over me, like water across my skin.

“Gemma,” he breathes again, and there’s desperation in