Burn Down the Night (Everything I Left Unsaid #3)- Molly O'Keefe Page 0,101
never seen coming.
Silent, we walked into the condo unit and I was breathing hard. Not from the walk, but from him.
I wanted to ask him what this was between us. If he felt it, too. Like we were standing on the edge of something pretty great. Kind of wonderful. More wonderful, really, than I had the vocabulary for.
Talking about Dad had been stupid. I felt like I’d left a door open. Or I’d lost a key. Like if he wanted, Max could just walk in and ransack me. Take everything I had.
I tried not to let that vulnerability make me lash out.
I tried—and it was hard—to just be.
The shadows were dark in the condo and the crash of the ocean through the windows was the only sound in the room. He tossed the keys on the counter and sighed.
And I felt that sigh wrap around me. Lift me up. Hold me close.
“I’m going…I’m going to take a shower,” I said, inanely. Like some teenage girl terrified of putting out.
“Cool,” he said and I took off down the hallway into the bathroom. I just…needed a second to get my head on right. To ground myself. The shower was as hot as I could take it and I stayed in for as long as I could, so when I stepped out, the cold of the air-conditioning was a total shock. I dried my hair and wrapped the towel around my body.
He was in the bedroom. Propped up against the wall, in his plaid boxers, his legs stretched out across the bed. He was looking at something on his phone and he put it down when I came in.
“Anything from Lagan?” I asked and he shook his head, reaching out for me.
“You don’t need me to bring you Lagan,” he said. “You have Eric.”
“Yeah. I guess you’re right.”
He tugged on the edge of the towel and it fell off, revealing me in muted moonlight. His knuckles brushed my stomach and I twitched, ticklish and cold.
“God, baby,” he said. “You’re freezing.”
He untucked the covers and moved out of the way, pulling me into the cocoon made by his body and the blankets. I was instantly warm. My back was against his wide, warm chest and I shifted until my ass was pressed against his hips. I felt him under the cotton of his underwear start to stir and I had a corresponding reaction. My body loose and ready.
A soft kiss landed on my shoulder and his hand came around to softly touch my breasts. It was slow and very nearly tender.
And somehow deeply uncomfortable.
I reached behind my butt and found him with my hand, squeezing his cock through the cotton. He groaned and kissed my shoulder again, thrusting into my hand. But that was all. Me squeezing his dick and him rocking slowly back and forth with his open mouth against my shoulder.
“Touch me,” I said.
“Slow down.”
I didn’t know how to tell him that I didn’t know how to do slow. Or tender. I started to turn toward him, but his arms came around me like a cage and I lost my grip on him.
“Shhhh,” he breathed, like he could read my mind. “You’ve got one speed, Joan. One setting. Annihilate. That’s it. Burn it all. And I don’t want to be burned.”
“One date and you think you know me.”
“You think I don’t?” he whispered. His arm underneath me held me in his grip while his other hand slid down my body to my pussy. Yes, there we go. But he only put his hand over me. Cupping me. His fingers teased my lips, the pressure of his palm a reminder of that fist he’d made earlier. I sighed and arched back into him, encouraging more of that kind of behavior. But he didn’t take the invitation. He just kept slowly stroking me. Across my belly. My hips and thighs.
I wanted to tell him to stop. That I wasn’t a cat. But my mouth was dry and my body felt so good. His touch was so beautiful.
“There,” he whispered. “Just relax.”
I sighed, all of my muscles turned to feathers, and I was rewarded with his thumb slipping up high against me, finding the edge of my clit. I was all feathers and sexual tension. He chuckled, laughing again like he knew how I felt. But his thumb was making me feel too good to get mad at him for it. His thumb only rubbed in tiny little circles. Soft, barely there touches.