Page 69 of Want Me
I lifted a brow. “I had no idea you were so fancy.”
“This water tastes…green or something. Like it’s straight out of a river.” Eric gave me the bird as he handed me my glass and tipped his up.
“You can get some next time whenyougo.” I grinned and took a sip, which tasted just fine to me, then set it back on the counter and picked up the box of rice I’d been holding, eyeing it now because I couldn’t remember why we’d gotten it aside from the fact that rice was a pantry staple. I mean, were either of us actually going to make it? The likelihood seemed slim, and it wasn’t even the quick-cooking kind. “Did you put this in the cart, or did I?” I asked, shaking it at him.
“I did.”
“Gonna cook me something fancy? Wine me and dine me?” Eric and Ihadgone out on some legit dates before to nice restaurants, but it really wasn’t our style, and the best part had honestly been seeing how hard we could get each other and how much we could get away with right in the middle of the dining room. It turned out to be trickier than anticipated unless the tablecloths were long, which most weren’t. Our most memorable venture had been the fraternity’s formal a couple of months ago at a country club where Eric had managed to give me the biggest stealth orgasm I’d ever experienced via a combination of filthy talk and conscientious jacking so erratic that a healthy 50 percent of that release was purely due to the thrill factor of having people mere feet from us. I’d felt a little guilty over whoever was on cleanup duty that night because I’d shot straight up on the underside of the table and no doubt it’d dripped all over the club’s fancy parquet floor.
“Maybe.” Eric’s lips tilted in a crooked smile. “I’m not afraid of weaponizing cooking. Gotta keep you satisfied in every way. And I can make averymean pot roast.”
“Where were these skills at the old house?” I asked, completely glossing over the whole bit about keeping me satisfied because Jesus did he ever, and if he wanted to add in cooking on top of it, I was all for it.
“You think I’d trot something like that out just so everyone else could badger me the way they did Jesse?”
He had a point. Jesse was an awesome cook, and I couldn’t count the number of times we’d tacked on a request that he make enough for the rest of us if we spied him in the kitchen. And he’d always do it, too, grumbling all the way even though I had an idea he’d actually liked doing it.
“You’re the only one I want to cook for,” Eric explained, and it was clear from his expression that the answer made perfect sense to him.
“You’re not gonna hear me complain.”
“Really? I’ve never known you to pass up an opportunity.”
I tossed the box back onto the counter and lifted my chin. “C’mere,” I demanded, knowing full well he’d come when he was good and goddamn ready and not a second before. But it was the flash of heat I caught passing through his eyes at the command that I was after in the first place.
Eric tipped his head back and kept his eyes fastened to mine as he drained his water glass in long gulps that by some black magic immediately became innuendo and drew my attention to the steady bobbing of his Adam’s apple. Then he set the empty glass in the sink and took a couple of prowling steps toward me until I could reach out for his wrists and reel him the rest of the way in.
“About to complain right now?” He lifted his hands to either side of my face, one palm warm with body heat, the other cool from holding the water glass. The tantalizing disparity in temperature made me bite my lip.
“Maybe,” I said, but I wouldn’t. I had no real complaints, hadn’t in months and months. What protests I did make were little more than desperate pleas when he worked me into a frenzy. And they, in turn, worked him up, too. I understood him as well as he understood me, and what had once felt like a careful dance between us was now more intentional, more confident, our wants and needs slotting together in a balanced give-and-take that was so damn incendiary and satisfying I still couldn’t believe this was my life sometimes.
There was an additional factor, too, one that I’d underestimated at first, hadn’t been able to grasp onto the nature of what it was, exactly: the way we told each other everything, the quiet moments that came between the inferno of our chemistry, when we were just doing mundane things like grabbing a bite after class or hanging out at a bar with friends. An errant touch, a look between us that was somehow like understanding and promise at once.
Intimacy. Trust. Reciprocity.
His lips hit mine like the spread of sunlight through an empty room, warming and brightening everything in its path, and I exhaled a sigh because goddamn I loved kissing him. How every time our mouths met it was both familiar and different. This time unhurried and sultry, like a string slowly pulling taut between us. Eric neverneededto tell me he loved me, though he did, because I could feel it in moments like this as sure as the damn sky was blue.
I tipped my head back as Eric’s lips moved down my throat with just enough pressure that I felt the sting of blood rushing to the surface before he released the skin and moved on. Movement from the corner of my eye caught my attention, and I tilted my head to peer out the kitchen window with half-lidded eyes, already lust drunk and drowsy. “There’s a guy standing out there.”
Beyond the tiny cement pad billed as a patio, a man stood on the swatch of grass that stretched behind the building about ten feet away, talking on his phone as a small dog on a leash he was holding sniffed the ground. When he turned his head and looked directly toward our window, my groin stirred, a brief kindling of arousal that increased in strength the more I thought about it and the longer he kept looking, until it became like a hive of bees zooming around my stomach. Nerves and intrigue all at once.
Eric shifted so he could see, sliding his hands behind my shorts and stroking my cock as he said, “You like that.”
I nodded. It wasn’t a question, and fuck yeah, I liked that, liked that this rando might see me on my knees or my back or bent over—however I ended up—with Eric working me over in his ruthless, mind-bending way that was guaranteed to liquify my bones. I took in a slow breath and let it out, my pulse tearing through my veins so hard I could feel the thundering tempo in my cock as a wet spot formed on my boxers. My dick twitched hopefully in Eric’s grip, and he released my shaft, diving deeper to cup my balls as he licked up the side of my throat. And then the guy snapped the dog’s leash and moved on. Damn.
When I was breathless and panting, and my heart slamming against my chest so hard it seemed it should’ve have filled the air around us with its racket, Eric lifted my shirt off before sliding a touch down my arms and planting my hands on the counter.
“Up against the counter? I’d have thought you’d get more creative than that,” I teased as he ran one hand down the midline of my torso and let it drift lightly, tauntingly over the fabric straining at my groin.
“Mmm.”
That murmur, damn that murmur, all velvet-soft promise of devious things. My nuts tingled every time he did it, like they were warning bells chiming before the door to my libido was blasted wide. Swallowing hard, I gripped the counter tighter as Eric’s fingers moved lower to the top of my thigh, where he pulled up the leg hem of my shorts and slid his hand inside, fingertips lightly caressing the gulley where my leg met my groin. My back arched violently, and I tilted my hips slightly, pushing into his touch.
“You’re looking a little flushed, baby. You hot?”
“Sweltering. I swear I fucking turned the thermostat down but…” I trailed off when I recognized the dark twinkle in his eyes. He angled a look at the glass I’d set down on the counter, condensation dripping down the side as the ice within melted.Oh yes, oh fucking yes, please.
I think I said that aloud—at least part of it—because next he dipped those long, quick fingers into the glass and fished out a gleaming wet cube.