Been There Done That (Leffersbee #1) - Hope Ellis Page 0,105

were abraded by the coarse stubble below.

My nipples tightened against the silk of my bra.

Trapped in the glowing heat of those green eyes, I barely registered when he gently disengaged the glass from our grip and set it on the floor beside him.

“I don’t care about anyone else right now. This is about me and you.”

“There . . . there can’t be a me and you.”

I fought the inclination to pant, feeling my chest rise and fall faster than was merited for standing still.

Steady, Zora. Steady.

Warm weight settled on either side of my hips as his hands claimed my waist. His long fingers splayed wide in all directions, exerting delicious pressure.

“Z. There’s never been a time when there wasn’t a me and you.”

Before I could I sternly interrogate myself and my motives, I’d instinctively stepped closer between his spread thighs. My back arched as I steadied myself with my hands on the width of his shoulders.

Nick’s gaze fell to my cleavage, now only inches away from his face. From his mouth.

Not so in control now, I mused, exulting in the feel of his shoulders rising and falling with increased respiration. Maybe you don’t have all the power now.

His voice, when he spoke again, wasn’t all the way steady. Some measure of his cocksure attitude fled.

“It will never be over. Not when I still remember how you bite your lip when you’re worried and how you hide when you’re around too many people. I know you always saved your tears for me because you didn’t trust your feelings with anyone else. I remember being the first man to touch you, to discover what you wanted, what you like. I haven’t forgotten what kind of touch makes you wild.”

“I’ve changed.”

“I still remember how you taste.”

The breath in my lungs stalled.

Jesus. What did he just say?

He bit his lip, his gaze on my mouth.

We were both breathing like spent runners, worn down and winded at the end of a marathon.

On the other side of the partition, the band transitioned to a new song. The lead singer grooved her way into Smokey Robinson & The Miracles’ “You Really Got a Hold on Me.”

I gathered the courage to ask what I’d been wanting to ask since he appeared in my doorway weeks ago. “What do you want from me, Nick?”

His grip at my hips tightened, drawing me even closer to the solid wall of his chest. “Baby, I just want you to take what you want.”

Looking into his eyes, surrounded by those tensed, powerful limbs, feeling his proprietary grip, I remembered.

I remembered another Nick. Seventeen-year-old Nick. Seated. Not as powerfully built but impressive in size even then, his hold at my waist tentative as he searched my face in the darkness of his bedroom. “Whatever you want,” he’d said, with a hushed reverence that had only solidified my decision that yes, this was what I wanted, and who I’d wanted it with. “I only want whatever you want. You decide. You’re in charge.”

To this day, despite having been just eighteen the last time we were together, he still held the record as the best partner I’d ever had. He was the only man to apply himself so thoroughly to knowing me, and what I wanted. It’d been sublime, partnering with him. Long before we’d stumbled onto his mattress and made the mutual decision to go all the way, to consummate our commitment to each other, we’d been each other’s compass and roadmap.

He’d been my sanctuary.

And now, looking down into his dear face, somehow both the same and weathered with time, I contemplated if I could take another risk on the boy that I’d once loved with complete, selfless abandon.

I could no longer map the contents of his heart, or anticipate the contents of his soul. But there was no denying the echo of that same boy in the man before me, who gripped me as if his own life depended on my decision.

He was a man who would sit with me, holding my hand and offering comfort, in the same hospital where his mother overdosed.

Even if it pained him.

“I only want what you want,” echoed in my head, merging with his challenge to take what I wanted.

I looked into those evergreen eyes, not breathing, balancing on the edge of a precipice, of a decision that would alter both of us once again.

And I fell.

Our mouths collided.

Finally.

My hands sought the warmth of Nick’s scalp. Thick, silken layers of hair ran through the sieve of my fingers.