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“Fuck it,” he bites out.
Rocking forward, his lips slam against mine.
36
KINGSTON
I lean into Gabe, hands on his solid chest. The world disappears as my lips meet his. Urgency pumps through me, fierce and hot and overwhelming. Like I might die if I don’t kiss him. If I don’t learn what it feels like to have his arms around me.
There’s a moment of quiet shock. He doesn’t move, but from the light of his cell phone, I see his lashes lower.Ohmygod. This is happening.
I don’t let up.
I don’t back down.
Closing my eyes, I sink into the sensations. My lips feel clumsy and awkward because I’m still trembling and not in a good way. Yet.
His hands grip my shoulders, holding me in place, and I could weep from that support. At how easily and readily he understood what was happening to me. I don’t know what I expected from the cocky geek, but it wasn’t soft-spoken reassurance.
His lips move across mine, testing, learning, and then he tips his head and groans. It’s an amazing sound, deep, needy, masculine. There’s a growl of determination and also a hint of disbelief.
He’s not alone.
I just told him we can’t do this. That Katherine is it for me. But I’m sick of wandering around his apartment and then her apartment, feeling like a caged lion.
Happy, sure. Well fed. I get let out every day to romp and exercise, but then up I go again. Wanting something I can’t have. Freedom to explore my deepest, darkest desires.
Gabe nips my lower lips, and the sharp bite of pain brings me back to our kiss. I flex my fingers into his chest, then smooth them up over his shoulders. Holding on for dear life because he knows how to kiss. How to make me lose my head and my inhibitions.
A little lick across the seam of my lips, and I’m opening for him. Teasing back with my tongue into the hot recess of his mouth. Need floods through my veins, and my cock stirs. Almost as if he felt it, he jerks me closer, his hands sliding low on my hips.
I surge against him, loving the way his tall, lean body fits against mine. The way he holds me steady as he devours my mouth. He’s wanted this too. It’s almost shameful how hot my skin is and just how badly I’d like to strip us both bare.
Our brief time with Katherine between us wasn’t enough. It wasn’t ever going to be enough, was it? Not with chemistry crackling like this between us.
We separate slowly. He lifts his head, and I gasp for air. My chest heaves as I suck oxygen into my lungs.
I swear it could be pitch black, and I’d be able to see the fire blazing in those amazing blue eyes.
There’s not a hint of surprise on his ridiculously handsome face, and I appreciate that he doesn’t throw my words back at me. But I can’t help feeling like there’s an elephant squeezed into this elevator with us.
My heart thumps against my ribs. Once. Twice. I wait for the panic to return. The uneasy sensation I’ve lived with for so long doesn’t rear its head. How could it compete with all the hormones raging inside me?
“I came back for Katherine. Full stop. But,” I say, “I don’t regret that kiss.”
Not the least little bit.
“Me either.”
We stare at each other in the eerie silver-blue light, his hands on my hips, mine on his shoulders. I trace a thumb down the pulse bouncing in his neck. He swallows. I feel the tension in him, understand it so well because it’s mirrored in me.
He doesn’t say it, but I can almost read his mind.
I want to do that again.
So do it.
Energy crackles between us, alive with unspoken words. I might have come back for Katherine, but I found something so much more. In the shroud of darkness, where my deep-seated fear lives, I’m met with my darkest desires.