Next Man Up (Making the Score #2) - Tawdra Kandle Page 0,61

to watch me?” Tossing me a flirtatious smile, she climbed off me and stood alongside the bed. Tilting her head, she treated me to a slow, sultry wink and then turned her back to me.

I rolled to my side to get a better view, and what a view it was. Zelda unbuttoned her jeans and began to slowly ease them down her legs. Peering at me over her shoulder, she shook her hair so that it streamed down, shielding her face, and undulated so that her ass moved enticingly.

Her jeans slithered down to reveal brief black panties. Like her bra, these were plain, but it wasn’t what was there that mattered—it was what they revealed. Cut high on her legs, they showcased her rounded rear. My hands itched to cup those globes.

Zelda turned around and snapped the elastic of her underwear. “Do I keep these on?”

“Absolutely not. Take them off.” My voice was hoarse.

“Alrighty, then.” With a saucy shake of her head, she slipped off her panties.

My mouth was dry, and my heart was thundering. I wished so fucking much that I could sit up and pull Zelda onto the bed with me, roll her beneath me and thrust into her body.

As though she could hear my thoughts, Zelda crawled back onto the bed and lay one hand alongside my cheek. “We’ll figure this out. Don’t worry about what you can’t do anymore—think about how much you still can do.” Her fingers trailed down my chest to the button of my jeans and undid them. “You tell me what you need. If you don’t, I’ll just go by the seat of my pants.”

“Hard to do since you’re not wearing any,” I mumbled, trying to keep from groaning again.

“You’ve got a point.” With finesse that impressed me, she managed to get my jeans and boxers off me and on the floor before she wrapped her fingers around my length.

“Zel.” I cleared my throat. “Before we, ah, go any further, I want to ask you two things.”

She frowned slightly. “Okay. Fire away.”

“First of all, I just realized I don’t have any condoms. You know I haven’t had a need for them.”

“That’s okay. I have them.” With a slightly self-deprecating half-smile, she added, “I make it a rule to always be prepared.”

“All right. Good. I mean, I wasn’t saying we shouldn’t—I know I’m clean. And I assume you’re on birth control.”

“I am. And I’m clean, too.” She paused. “Did you want to . . . not use one?”

“I was just saying that if we didn’t have one . . .” I trailed off. “But you do, so no worries.”

She studied me. “What was number two? Your other question, I mean.”

“Oh.” This one was actually tougher. “I was just going to ask if maybe you could come up here so I can kiss you.”

Something changed on Zelda’s face. She softened, and there was a mix of indecision and conflict in her eyes. I wondered if she would refuse, if that was crossing a line for her. But after a few seconds, she scooted closer and lay down next to me, both of us facing each other.

“Hi,” she whispered.

“Hi,” I returned. “I’m sorry that everything about this is so—that things don’t just happen. That I need you to help me undress. That I can’t just kiss you, without asking you to come to me.”

“Hey, don’t you dare apologize.” She ventured one hand to my head and combed her fingers through my hair. “It’s fine. I’m not one of those women who won’t talk about sex while I’m doing it. I like to talk. I like to be open. So this is . . . perfect.”

I opened my mouth to say something else, but it was lost as Zelda closed the last couple of inches between us and covered my lips with hers.

It had been four years since I’d kissed Zelda, and although I did have some memories of that night—I hadn’t been lying to her earlier—I couldn’t clearly remember what it had felt like.

Her lips were soft, and at first, the kiss was innocent and gentle, as though she was asking me a question that neither of us quite understood. But the moment that she touched me, something new and wild zinged through me, spreading out to every inch of my body.

Every inch. I hadn’t felt any sensation in my legs since that fall night three years ago, but I would have sworn that in this moment, Zelda’s kiss reverberated through nerves that had gone