skin sending chills up my spine. “What about the crush part?” he hums into me and my freaking eyes roll back in my head. Jesus. This man and that voice and his scent and did I mention, Jesus?
“You first,” I say because I’m kinda a wimp right now. He already heard me, which means he already knows the answer and is enjoying the hell out of playing with me. Fine. I like being played with, so he’s lucky in that, but a little positive reinforcement goes a long way too.
His nose skims along the shell of my ear before trailing south. He plants a kiss right below my ear and my knees start to buckle. I feel his smile against my skin as his arm snakes around my back, steadying me.
“You want to know if I have a crush on you back?”
He plants another kiss and my hands fly up, clutching on to his shoulders, my nails digging in as he tortures me with his lips and tongue. I can’t speak, so I just nod.
“London Amelia Canterbury, I cannot remember a time when I didn’t have a crush on you. In fact, the term crush is woefully inadequate. I moved way past that back in high school.”
Damn. That’s it.
It’s official.
My heart just spring-boarded out of my chest and landed in his. And the strangest part of all, it doesn’t feel weird or too soon. It feels like years in the making. Like all that time in between then and now was just a buildup to this.
Without a second thought, I push him away. His face morphs instantly into one of hurt and surprise, but he’ll get over it. Hoisting myself up onto the counter, I grab the back of his head and drag him into me, kissing him like I have never kissed a man before. A groan slips past his throat and I greedily swallow it down, loving the way his desperation tastes on my tongue.
My legs intertwine behind his back and I pull him in even closer, pressing our bodies together so there is no separation between us.
His mouth glides down my neck as my fingers fist his hair. “London,” he growls against me. “How are you getting up to your parents’?”
“Huh?” I drag him off me, staring into his eyes.
“Buzz kill?”
I laugh. “A bit. You mentioned my parents while kissing me. But why did you ask?”
“Because your car is dented and unsafe to drive. And…” He swallows, his eyes on mine, suddenly hard as stone, but I don’t miss the uncertainty dancing in the background. “I’d like to drive you up.”
“You would?”
“Yeah. Would that be okay?”
Now it’s my turn to swallow. Putting yourself out there emotionally is tricky business. “Would you stay with us for Christmas?”
He puffs out a breath, running a hand through his hair. I feel him trying to pull away, but uh-uh, he’s not going anywhere.
“Christmas is hard for me.”
Shit. I can only imagine it is. “Will you think about it? I’d like you to. If that counts for anything,” I tack on.
“It counts for everything, it’s just…”
“What? Tell me, Miles.”
His mouth reclaims mine, and I hold him against me, hugging him while he kisses me. Letting him know he can trust me. Telling him without words that I’m already in so deep with him that the idea of him dropping me off and then leaving scares the crap out of me.
“I’ll think about it,” he whispers against my lips, but I feel hesitation now in his touch. He’s putting up walls that I want to knock down, but don’t know how. Partially because I understand his reservation.
Maybe asking him to stay is stupid.
The longer this goes on, the more time I’m with him, the more I want this man. I’m not sure there is a limit to how much. I want to learn him. Study up on all things Miles. Swim freely and openly in the ocean that are his eyes.
But underneath it all is a searing, ugly reality: Sooner or later we will have to part.
Chapter Fifteen
MILES
Life is short. That’s what keeps echoing through my head as I finish up the dishes as London puts away the leftovers. We didn’t have sex on my kitchen counter the way I had wanted to. Obviously my big mouth got in the way of that, but the truth is, cooking dinner and eating it was a nice distraction from the brewing maelstrom in my head.
My sole purpose for wanting to drive London north to her