Page 106 of Worth Every Moment

“Jacob’s ladder.” Seb's head jerks up, his eyes wide. I try to maintain a certain level of dignity as I explain my crazy logic. “It sounded… religious. You know. Holy. Like a stairway to heaven. So I went for that.”

With a look that’s somewhere between astonishment and admiration, he pulls me into a hug, his laughter still rumbling against his ribs. Against mine. I let him hold me for a moment, then pull back to look at him.

“Is it true?”

There’s a cheeky glimmer in his eyes and he raises a brow. “Why don’t you take a look?”

36

ERICA

He says it so casually, but a sentence like that crash-lands, evaporating the mirth in the air and replacing it with tension so thick, it crushes me.

Why don’t you look?

As he watches me, the amusement slides off his face, and flames lick my insides.Why don’t I look?

I could look, couldn’t I?

“Is there… you know…” I stammer.

“Is there what?”

“Some kind of ladder down there.”

He smiles, wide, his expression warm. He’s not laughing at me… I don’t get that impression at all. Rather, it’s as though he adores me, and me being me makes him smile. “No,” he confirms. “No ladder.”

I bite my bottom lip. “Shit, really? Because I’ll have to tell everyone I made a—”

He cuts me off with a kiss that simmers in my core. “I’d prefer if you didn’t tell anyone anything,” he says when he breaks away. “No more gossiping about my dick.”

He rests his hand on my hip, and he presses his forehead to mine. Intimacy caresses me like the softest kiss. We’re barely touching, but the longing I feel for him touches mysoul. “I’d have died if you hadn’t come back,” I whisper.

Sadness ghosts his smile. “No, you wouldn’t. You’d have picked yourself up and gone on to have an amazing career. You’re going to be huge. Even bigger than you are already. You don’t need me.”

My chest tightens. Maybe I don’t need him, but Iwanthim. And really, that amounts to the same thing. “I don’t want to wait anymore,” I whisper.

The comment doesn’t follow our conversation, but the low groan that Seb emits tells me he knowsexactlywhat I mean. “Me neither.” His breath heats my cheek, and a breathless gasp leaves my lips as a shiver of need runs through me. He gently pushes me away. “Sit on the bed.”

I stumble back at his command, dropping to the edge of the bed. From a few feet away, he caresses me slowly with his gaze, an appreciative flare widening his eyes.

I glance at his trunks, and the tented fabric betrays his hardness beneath. Scorching heat settles between my legs and my breaths turn shallow.I’m going to see his dick. My body rages between panic and arousal with uncontrollable uncertainty. He tears off his t-shirt and chucks it on the floor, reaching for the waistband of his trunks, but before he lowers them, he stops. Worrying that he’s having second thoughts, I glance up at him.

“Tell me what you want,” he says, his breathing heavy and his eyes darker than I’ve ever seen. The sparkle that’s normally there is absent, replaced with a heat that blisters. “Tell me what you want,” he repeats. “Let’s hear you say it. Take control, Lefroy. I know you want it.”

He’s there in his trunks, surrounded by a halo of dawn light that peeks around the curtains. His tanned skin is golden, his hair flecked with lighter strands highlighted by the sun. His abs, perfectly sculpted. My mouth waters. I long to reach out and touch him, but from my position on the bed I can’t reach.

“I… I…”

A glimmer of amusement sparks in his gaze. “Come on.” He tips his chin to coax me into a response. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

My stomach is in knots, but arousal steams in my blood, my clit pulsing as I watch him watching me. Waiting to take my orders.

“Take off the trunks,” I say, voice quiet.

“That’s my girl,” he murmurs as he tugs at the waistband, lowering it slowly, keeping his eyes on me the whole time. He’s bold. So confident, exposing his body like this. My breath catches as his cock, thick and hard, springs free, and his trunks fall to the floor, where he kicks them aside.

No piercings. And big. Really, really big.My mouth dries out at the sight of it.I don’t think my heart is beating at all anymore.Maybe I’ve died and taken that stairway to heaven already.