My heart swarmed with more happy memories. “I haven’t had a bed picnic in…” I shook my head. Maybe since before Mom had died.
Beckett put the tray down on his side of the bed, sliding under the covers. “Snack?” he asked, waving a package of Pop-Tarts.
I shook my head. “Not yet. Maybe later.”
He stacked the pillows so he could sit up against them and the headboard before pulling me closer so my head rested on his chest. He pulled a book from the tray, opened it to the middle, and just as I was about to complain he hadn’t brought a book for me too, he started reading aloud.
I realized it wasn’t just any book, but one of my favorite comfort books—On the Ropes. It was a swoony, friends-to-lovers story with a retired boxer and a filmmaker by Kathryn Nolan. It had a great message about community and a smoking-hot sex scene in a car at the famous PhiladelphiaRockymuseum steps.
“What are you doing?” I breathed out.
He raised a brow, lips quirking. “I would think it’s obvious, darlin’. I’m reading.”
“But you aren’t starting at the beginning.”
“I’ve already read the beginning. And as beat up as this copy is, I’m assuming you’ve read it a few times too. So, I figured I could start where Ileft off, and you’d still be able to follow along.”
I swallowed hard, and this time it wasn’t because my throat was sore. This time, it was because I knew the book well and was aware of just where we were at in the story. My cheeks flushed as he started in just before the steamy scene. And when he got to the hottest part, I couldn’t help my body’s reaction to not only the words but to Beckett saying them. I shifted against him, starting to pull away, but the arm he’d draped around me tightened.
“You’re making it hard to read, darlin’.”
“It’s just weird…not only knowing you’ve been reading romance for years but having you read ittome.”
He looked down, lips quirking. “Not ashamed, are you?”
“No!” I snapped back. “There’s nothing shameful about romance.”
“Do you get turned on by them?” he asked, setting the book on the other side of him.
I shrugged, my cheeks flushing.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said, lips widening into a full-blown smile. “Me too. There was this shower scene in one that had me hard as a rock.” I inhaled sharply. “And the entire time I was taking care of myself, I was wishing it was you there, in the shower with me, doing just what that couple had done.”
Sore throat? What sore throat? I felt nothing but heat and desire. Nothing but want at his words so casually spoken. So casually offered. Beckett had always been that way, making sex and desire and lust seem normal. Not mundane, but acceptable.
“This scene. The way he’s working her up, making her come apart. I like that too.” He studied me with a heated look full of the desire I felt. “Shall we try it ourselves?”
My mouth popped open, and he chuckled before reaching over to push my chin closed and skating his thumb over my lips. “I’ve heard the dopamine release that comes with an orgasm is good for the immune system. An elixir, even. Might make your cold feel better quicker.”
My heartbeat ratcheted up a notch, slamming into my ribs with a thud, thud, thud. A sensual pounding that thrummed all the way through me.
“There’s no scientific evidence either way,” I managed to tell him.
I was flat on my back with him above me in a flash. His hand skated down my T-shirt, finding the hem and gliding underneath it. My skin lit up like sparklers going off wherever he touched.
“Let’s test the hypothesis,” he said.
I put my hand over my mouth and spoke from behind it. “I’m serious, Fireball. No kissing.”
He stared at me with eyes that looked like he’d already eaten fire. They were ablaze with want. Passion. Desire.
“Fine, no kissing…on the mouth,” he said and then proceeded to touch me everywhere else with fingers and lips and tongue. He traced patterns along my ribcage and over my belly, and in a flash, my shirt was gone, and he was paying homage to my breasts, igniting me from the inside out. The fire in his eyes leaped wild and free through me, my body responding to every stroke and lick in a way I’d never realized it could, never quite believed was possible, even when I read about it in my stories.
“Beckett.” The word tore from me. A whispered plea. For more. For less. For this feral climb to the summit to last for an eternity. For the cataclysmic release to wait a little longer, just so these perfect minutes with him could be dragged out. So I could savor them for a lifetime.
He grinned up at me, slowly moving downward, taking my sleep shorts and underwear with him and leaving me bare right before he put those long, muscled fingers to use once more. Before he put that delightfully sexy mouth to work again on my hip bones, my thighs, and finally, where I longed for him most.
The moan I let out sounded otherworldly, as if the veil had been crossed.