her thighs. Every fold of her pussy grew slick and sensitive, rubbing against the dampened cotton of her underwear.
And now here he was, leaning so, so close, and everything was getting worse. Arousal wound through her body as slow and sinuous as the music playing in the background. Which was “Special Affair” by The Internet, because of course a sexy-as-shit song would start playing right now. Of course it would.
She shifted slightly in her seat, hoping the action was subtle, but apparently it wasn’t.
“You’re wriggling, Eve.”
“Well,” she huffed, “you could be a gentleman and not point it out.” But there was no irritation in her voice; she was too breathless, and too desperate, for that.
“I could,” he agreed, before continuing to ask questions that made her bare skin feel electrified. “Are you uncomfortable?”
“I—” She shifted just so and the cushion beneath her became a sweet pressure between her thighs.
“Oh,” he said softly. “Not anymore.”
She looked up at him sharply and saw, in those cool eyes, a white-hot understanding. One so certain, it made her wonder what he saw in her face. “Jacob—”
“What do I fantasize about, in your head? Tell me. You might be closer to the truth than you expect.”
Oh. Oh, gosh.
It had occurred to her occasionally over the past week (mostly when he looked at her chest for a moment too long): Maybe Jacob is attracted to me. But she’d dismissed the thought every time, because Jacob was too sensible for inconvenient feelings, and because they’d barely even liked each other for five minutes, and because—because she was attracted to him, so clearly her perception couldn’t be trusted. She’d chalked it all up to wishful thinking and attempted to move on.
But now common sense was slapping her in the face with a list of facts a mile long, starting with him calling her Sunshine and ending with the way his tongue slid out to wet the curve of his lower lip. His eyes were hungry on her, his focus dizzying. Not just wishful thinking.
Not at all, apparently.
If she was smart, she would end this conversation now. After all, she wanted him, which meant he couldn’t possibly be good for her. Eve’s wants, Eve’s choices, were always mistakes.
But she did have a habit of making those mistakes. So it was no surprise, in the end, when she opened her mouth and gave in.
“I think you fantasize about me.” She’d seen it in her mind’s eye a thousand times, now. Had heard the shower turn on from down the hall, and imagined his grip harsh and punishing over his flushed cock. Imagined him gritting his teeth as he came in his own hand and breathed her name.
She’d just never expected, in a thousand years, to say as much to him. And she’d never expected to have him reply—“Yes.”
He came even closer to her in the semidark, and then the knees of their crossed legs were nudging together, and his good hand created a dip in the mattress as he leaned on it, and his forehead bumped hers. Eve’s eyelids fluttered shut as his breath, still biscuit-sweet, ghosted against her mouth. “Yes,” he said again, “I think about you. I’ve been trying to stop. I haven’t—I haven’t even touched myself because that would make it wrong, Eve, really wrong, but I’ve been thinking and I haven’t been able to stop.”
Her breaths were quick and so, so loud over the background hum of the music, but his were quicker and louder and that turned her frenetic, nervous lust into something slower and more sure. He’d pushed out his words as if his throat was thick with this forbidden need, as if he didn’t even want to say them—like he was clinging to them desperately with bloodied hands but they escaped on an uncontrollable wave anyway. She was being wanted, if not completely then too passionately to deny, and it settled over her like a blanket of snow and a wall of midsummer heat all at once: bright and fresh enough to suck the air from her lungs, but languorous and sensual, too.
“We should do something about this,” she said.
“No.” But he didn’t sit back, didn’t stop touching her. He touched her more. He leaned an elbow against the high sofa cushions, because his wrist couldn’t support him, and then he used his other hand to—to touch her cheek, a barely there caress.
She shivered.
“It would be a terrible idea,” he went on steadily. “I’m too hard, at present, to remember why it would