Page 10 of Make-Believe Match
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I sent the bartender a frantic signal that I needed to cash out, signed the tab with a hasty scribble, and grabbed Lexi by the wrist. Pulling her through the crowd, I glanced at the table where my brothers were sitting with their dates but decided they did not need to be informed of my whereabouts for the next fifteen minutes.
Speaking of which, I did some quick calculations in my mind as we moved for the back exit.
Nine hundred seconds.
That’s all I had to give this woman the finish that had been eluding her for half a year. Not gonna lie, a sliver of self-doubt was threatening to penetrate my confidence. My skills had never let me down before, but I had a sudden vision of Icarus flying too close to the sun. A sweat broke out on my back.
No. This was no time for uncertainty. The stakes were high, but I knew what I was doing. I was a little out of practice, since I’d been in a bit of a dry spell lately, but once I got going,I had this.
Throwing the bar’s door open with my shoulder, we burst outside into the warm, humid late summer air. Neither of us spoke as I pulled her in the direction of my car—rented, since I’d flown in from Boston earlier in the day. Lexi had long legs, but not as lengthy as mine, and she took two quick steps for every one of my determined strides. It was a good thing she wasn’t in heels.
When we reached the large black SUV, I looked around. The gravel lot wasn’t well-lit, we were parked completely in the shadows, and I didn’t see anyone lurking, but I knew that in order for this to work, Lexi needed to feel completely comfortable. I turned to her. “Do you want me to move the car somewhere less visible?”
She glanced around. “You think we’ll be caught here?”
“No.” I pressed a button on the fob and unlocked the doors. “And to be honest, in thirty seconds, I’m not going to care, because my face will be buried between your thighs.”
She inhaled sharply, her chest expanding. Her nipples poked through the material of her little white dress. “Then let’s stay.”
“Give me one minute.” In what I now saw as the universe doing me a solid, the smaller-size class of SUV that I’d reserved hadn’t been available at the airport, so they’d given me a Chevy Suburban that comfortably sat seven people in three rows of seats and featured a hefty amount of cargo space once you put the second and third row seats down. As I did so, I sent a quick prayer of thanks to the guy who’d talked me into going with the bigger vehicle rather than the compact.
I opened the door for Lexi and watched her crawl across the fuzzy, flat surface. The bottom of her dress rode up a little higher, exposing more of her skin and making my heart pump faster. The crotch of my jeans was tight as fuck.
But this wasn’t about me. Not right now, anyway. And if there was a ghost of a chance itcouldbe about me later on, I knew what I had to do.
Close the deal.
I got in after her and pulled the door shut. Stretching out diagonally in the rectangular space, Lexi leaned back on her elbows and started to laugh. “I don’t know what to do.”
“You don’t have to do anything.” I knelt between her legs and braced my hands on either side of her. My lips hovered just above hers. “Are you okay? You still want this?”
“Yes,” she said.
My favorite word.
I lowered my mouth to hers, tasting the salt and lime from her margarita on her lips, and then on her tongue. For the moment, I kept my hands off her body, eager to earn her trust, willing to be patient. I wanted her to want this. To want me. So instead of groping her like a teenager—which is what the animal in me wanted to do—I used only my mouth.
But I’m pretty good with my mouth.
I teased her lips open with mine and stroked between them with my tongue. Then I pulled back, brushing my lips across hers with a whisper. When she grabbed my head with one hand and sealed our lips tight again, I changed the angle of the kiss to make it deeper. I caught her lower lip between my teeth. I moved my mouth over her jaw, down her neck, across her collarbone. I caressed her throat with my tongue in a way that foreshadowed what I might do with it on other, more sensitive body parts.
“Oh,” she whispered softly.
Only then did I slide a hand up her thigh. Beneath her dress. I picked up my head and looked at her. “Yes?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
When my hand reached the apex of her legs, I rubbed my thumb softly and slowly over the thin material of her underwear. The softness beneath made my blood rush faster. “Yes?”
Another nod. “Yes.”
I hooked my fingers over the stretchy band around her hip. “Can I take these off?”
She brought her legs together and I dragged the panties down her legs, tossing them aside. Then I knelt between her feet and put my hands to the backs of her knees, slowly lifting them. The bottom of her dress slipped down the tops of her thighs and rested on her hips.
Scooting backward, I lowered my head and pressed gentle kisses on her thighs, in between which I spoke to her in a low but commanding tone. “If you want me to stop, you say so. If something feels good, you say so. If there’s something you want—more or less, slower or faster, softer or harder or deeper—you say so.”