Page 50 of Dedicated

“Which part, the massage or the choking? Are you a secret masochist?” He ran his thumb along the midline of my neck all the way to the underside of my jaw and tipped it up until I saw stars, literally, the bright canopy above filling my vision. I swallowed hard again, my voice coming out husky. “Right now I’m good with either, but if you go the choking route, you should probably know you’re not in my will, though you’re welcome to my notebooks. I think my ghost would be cool with some posthumous fame.” I probably had a bit of a masochistic streak in me, but mostly I had a strong desire for Evan to keep touching me—in whatever form that came. If he wanted to throttle me some more, so fucking be it.

“I’d credit you in the liner notes of course.” His voice came to me as a distant drawl, and I felt a wash of heat across my throat when he brushed his open mouth over it. A whoosh of cold air followed as he turned me to yank my T-shirt up. I lifted my arms so he could pull it over my head.

“If you didn’t, I’d haunt you.” This might’ve been a good place to ask him again what the fuck we were doing or remind him of everything that happened the last time we screwed around, or even our commitment to not mix our public charade with some kind of private one. But I didn’t. I was too turned on by this amazingly strange thing that was happening between us and too desperate to see where it would go to say a damn thing.

Chapter 30

Have you ever had a moment when you’re sick of yourself? Sick of how your mind works, sick of always trying to think ahead, of trying to plan, of waiting for the other shoe to drop, and you want, for just one fucking second, to be different? I was at that moment. I had no idea what I was doing, but I couldn’t stop. Les’s warm body was a magnet for my touch, and as soon as I pulled his shirt off, my hands went roaming over his bare chest, examining the valleys between his ribs, tracing whorls of ink, rubbing his nipples to hardness against the pads of my thumbs. His breath stuttered when I pinched one.

“Hurt?” I asked, bending to chase the sting with a brush of my lips.

“Yeah, a little. Good hurt.” He shuddered through a nip of my teeth. “Addictive hurt.”

And wasn’t that almost a metaphor for the last six months?

Les twisted around to put his back to the rail, gripping it hard with his hands on either side, and I caged him in, caressing the backs of my knuckles up the side of his throat, making his head tip to one side and a soft hum of sound vibrate against my fingertips as his eyes fell shut.

“Maybe you’re not going to kill me after all, just rub me into a coma,” he murmured, a drowsy smile tilting the corners of his mouth.

I pinched his nipple again, and his shoulders jerked. “Or not.”

And then I kissed him, slowly, like I could trap the flavor of that sedate smile and hold it on my tongue. When I danced my fingers over the fly of his jeans, his eyes flashed open and widened, his pupils large in the darkness.

“Can I?” I asked, tracing the edge of his button with the corner of my thumbnail.

He gave me an abbreviated nod. “Right now? You can do whatever you want, sw—Porter.”

“Nice save.” I chuckled.

“Old habits.”

I yanked his button free and pulled down his zipper, finding his dick long and thick behind it. “What is it with you and underwear?”

“They get in my way. Obviously.”

I couldn’t disagree. It was sexy as anything seeing him half-undone, popping through his jeans as I reached my hand out and ran my fingertips over the head of his dick. I could tell he was trying to be stoic, but when I wrapped my hand around his silky shaft, so fucking warm and stiff, he exhaled in a hard gasp of air.

I stroked him faster, marveling at his body lighting up in front of me, writhing, pushing, pulling, and clearly aching for my touch. He threw his head back, and his chest rose and fell with sharp, panting breaths. Then I gripped him hard, squeezed up until the tip of his cock swelled and precum beaded along the slit. He winced at my roughness and staggered out another breath when I released him. Guess I was still choking him one way or another, and goddamn was it making me hard. I shifted my stance, my dick rubbing uncomfortably in the confinement of my jeans.

“Shit, yeah,” he whispered, lowering his chin to gaze down between us, then nodding to indicate my straining fly. “Let me see you.”

I obliged immediately, without even thinking about it. Did Les even know how much power he had over me? He eyed my exposed cock the same way he watched me play sometimes, a mixture of appraisal and appreciation. “Stroke it. Like you’re stroking me.” His fingers tightened around the railing, squeezing hard as he watched me stroke him and myself at the same time. “Yeah.Fuck.”One of his hands flew from the railing to ball up tight in my T-shirt, then released and dived under the fabric, gripping my rib cage firmly for a bruising second before drifting over me in a light caress that sent a tantalizing shiver up my spine. He slid his arm up through the neckhole of my shirt and clamped around my throat. Payback, I guess. Gradually, I inched forward until I could take us both in one hand, and his forehead bumped mine. We stayed like that for a handful of seconds, just listening to the pattern of our breathing speed up and coalesce in harsh exhales. It took only a fractional movement for his lips to meet mine. He licked the corner of my mouth where the cut was, then my lower lip until my tongue surged forward to meet his and taste him. Smoke and the salt of my own skin still lingered on his mouth. It wasn’t enough. None of it was.

Les growled when I pulled away. Actually growled with such a dissatisfied rumble that I laughed.

“If you’re about to flip out right now Porter, I’m gonna finish myself off and jizz on you anyway,” he warned.

“I’ll try to wait until after.” I released my hold on both of us, grabbed his loose waistband, and tugged as I turned toward the sliding door that led inside.

“Try to wait until never. Where are we going?” He was right on my heels, sneaking a hand down the back of my pants as we went.

“Bedroom.”

“What for?” Desire made his voice thick, but I could sense a hesitation in it, too. And hope.

“What the hell do you think for? Sex does happen in bedrooms, doesn’t it?”

“And on porches, living rooms, kitchens, outdoors…”