“They’re my friends,” I said.
“I’m your friend,” he told me and I couldn’t help it, I stared.
At his words, the good butterflies trounced the bad butterflies and the bad ones retreated to Siberia.
“Vance,” I whispered, my emotional Rottweiler deciding to take an inappropriately-timed nap and my anger started to melt away.
“Stop bein’ angry,” he repeated his earlier command but in his soft, silky voice.
I kept staring at him a beat. Then it wasn’t just my anger melting away, my body melted into his.
“Okay,” I whispered.
At my whisper, his lips turned up, his head came down and he kissed me. I kissed him back. I wound my arms around his neck and pressed into him and his hand at my bottom came up, then went down again, this time inside my pants and I liked the feel of it there, as in really liked it.
My mouth opened under his and his tongue slid in. I realized in some hazy recess of my mind that somehow managed to be unaffected by his kiss that this was actually going to happen.
His mouth moved away from mine and slid to my jaw then to my neck and his hand at my behind went deeper.
“Vance,” I whispered against his neck.
“Yeah?”
“We have to talk about something,” I said, thinking perhaps I should share my virginal status. It might turn him off and, if that was the case then I had nothing to lose because, if it did, and he didn’t understand, then I didn’t want to be with him anyway. If it didn’t turn him off, it might make things go easier for the both of us.
His head came up and he looked at me, his lips still turned up at the ends.
“Princess,” he pressed his h*ps into me at the same time his hand pulled mine to him and I felt his hardness. It freaked me out and made my belly flutter at the same time. “The time to talk was at dinner.”
I opened my mouth to say something but he kissed me again, lots of tongue, his other hand going up my shirt and sliding along the skin at my back. It felt good, good enough for me to go with it.
He ended the deep kiss and kissed me lightly, once, twice, again and I pulled the ponytail out of his hair and slid my fingers in. His hair was silky thick and that felt good too.
“Vance, seriously –” I whispered, my fingers tangled in his hair then I lost my train of thought when his hand came out of my pants. He pulled away and then both hands slipped my t-shirt up. My fingers untangled from his hair, my arms rose with the t-shirt and then it was gone.
Um…
Yikes.
“Two seconds,” I said, beginning to feel the edge of desperation.
He wasn’t listening to me; he was staring at my body. One of his arms held the bottom half of me to him at my waist while his other hand explored my side, my ribcage and then up. He cupped my breast over the bra, his eyes watching his hand then the tips of his fingers traced the lace across my breast.
My desperation disintegrated and with it my ability to breathe in a normal rhythm.
All right, well, whatever. So he discovered I was a virgin at the last possible second. Who cared? People were starving in Africa; there were bigger things to worry about.
But I’d worry about them later.
I leaned into him, pressing myself against him with his hand between us at my breast and I kissed him.
May was right; people had been doing this for ages and instinct kicked in. It went from slow and sweet to hot and hungry in a flash.
Our lips disengaged, my mouth moved along his jaw, my tongue tasting under his ear. I put my hands in his jacket, pushed it off his shoulders and it dropped to the floor. Then I did the same as he did with my t-shirt and tugged off his turtleneck.
“Dear Christ,” I whispered when I caught a look at his chest and abs, his stomach muscles tight and defined, “maybe I will work with Luke and Mace if I can get as ripped as you.”
He pulled me into him then his hands began roaming my skin and his mouth went to my neck.