Trent bent over to take off his boots, Cora couldn’t help but stare. She’d never really been sure why exactly people used the peach emoji to represent an ass; her flat butt certainly didn’t look like a peach.
But now she knew. Trent had peach-ass perfection.
“You all right?” he asked, looking up as he yanked one boot off and then the other.
“Uh-huh.” She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth.
“I feel like you’re staring at me.” There was a hint of amusement in his voice. “Have I torn my pants or something?”
This was it, her crossroads. They were alone in this house, shielded by the bad weather—and really, what was more romantic than a thunderstorm? Was she going to chicken out again and go hide in her room? Or was she going to seize the opportunity to be wild and carefree and totally not like herself?
“Your ass looks like the peach emoji,” she blurted out. Immediately, she wanted the ground to open up and swallow her whole. “That…didn’t come out right.”
Maybe she was doomed to be celibate. Whatever gene other women had that made them sexy and sultry and all those good things was obviously lacking in her. No amount of etiquette school had ever really drummed the awkwardness out of her.
“How was it meant to come out?” Trent stood and nudged his boots to the wall with his foot. Water dotted his skin—highlighting the corded muscle in his neck and arms.
“Umm…” Cora smoothed her hands down the front of her stomach, something she tended to do when she was nervous. And right now she was more than a little nervous.
Trent was hot. Like, stick him straight on a magazine cover without any photoshopping kind of hot. His bright blue eyes tracked her every anxious movement, and the corner of his lip hovered somewhere between smile and smirk. He knew he was good-looking. Hell, he probably had women with much more finesse and sexual prowess throwing themselves at his feet every damn day.
Women who probably had the first clue about coming on to a man.
“I’m not very good at this,” she said, though whether it was to herself or to Trent, she wasn’t totally sure.
Maybe this was one of those cases where actions should speak louder than words? Her fingertips drifted to the hem of her T-shirt, and she toyed with it for a second—pros and cons dancing in her mind like sprites—before she peeled the fabric up and away from her skin. She bent her arms, hoisting the T-shirt over her breasts and then her head before releasing the wet fabric so that it landed with a thud on the floor.
“I would say you’re damn good at it,” Trent said, swallowing. His eyes were darker now, smokier. Or maybe it was the shifting of the clouds outside, while the rain thundered down, branches scratching against glass and thunder warning them there was more to come. “But I thought you weren’t ready.”
“Maybe I am now.”
Cora slowly toed off her sandals and nudged them to one side, mimicking what he’d done a moment ago. When she reached behind her, feeling for the clasp of her bra, Trent held up a hand to stop her. The disappointment was like a knife to her gut. She could see he was attracted to her—see it in his eyes, in the taut pull of his lips. In the growing outline of his cock behind his wet, clingy shorts.
The sight almost took her breath away. She was a puddle of wanting, of need and desperation and every other type of vibrating energy all twisted together. Her whole body hummed, like each cell was a tuning fork and he was the catalyst for it all.
“Wait.” He came closer, hands splaying out across her hips. His fingertips were cold from the rain, but her body was fiery hot. Molten. “You’re either ready or you aren’t. I don’t do maybe.”
She swallowed, fear and lust and anticipation a tornado of temptation inside her. Why did she feel so stripped back? So raw? Maybe it was because he wasn’t letting her skirt the edges of things. He wasn’t letting her get by without voicing her desires, clearly and distinctly. To speak up for what she wanted, which didn’t come naturally.
All her life, she’d been told what to want, what to chase, what her dreams and aspirations should be. But Trent wasn’t telling her anything.
He was forcing her to be active in her desires instead of passive.