“Sorry,” she breathes, but her kiss says otherwise.
I tug the sweatshirt back down, reluctantly finding a small tether of self-restraint. She’s half-naked and I’m in nothing but a flimsy pair of pajama pants.
“Rowan, no. I want you to.”
She hasn’t asked me to touch her there since before our make-out session two nights ago. I haven’t asked why and I never planned to. Hannah is in control here and it’s been that way from the start.
Pulling back, I meet her eyes. “Are you sure?”
Something flickers in her gaze and she looks away. “Actually I?—”
“You’re allowed to change your mind,” I cut in, clearing more hair off her face.
She brings our foreheads back together, sagging side to side in a lazy shake. “No, I—I wanna know whatyouwant.”
“All I want is for you to feel comf?—”
“I do. I’m comfortable. I’m safe. God, I feel so safe when I’m with you.” A hard kiss that tilts me off my axis a bit. “But I need to know what you want. I promise I won’t break, I just…I need to know.”
My heart cracks at the rawness in her voice. Mine doesn’t sound any better. “Of course you won’t break, baby.”
“Then tell me. Please. What doyouwant?”
I level our eyes again, mine searching hers for any morsel of fear or hesitation. Nothing. All I see is a desperate need to know how much I want her. And trust. So much trust it wrecks me.
“One condition, Hannah. If you don’t want the same, you say no. You don’t hold it in here”—I tap her temple—“okay? You don’t pretend with me. Ever.”
She bobs her head twice, legs clenching over my lap to let me know how badly she aches right now.
“Say it, sunshine.”
“I promise.”
I stare at her long. The need for her thrums through my veins, pulsing a path into every limb. She waits as the seconds tick by. Waits until her body can’t take it anymore.
Expression eager, she begs, “Rowan, please. I need to?—”
“I want my face between your thighs.” I’ve been living off the secondhand taste of licking her off my fingers anddamn,I want to experience it from the source.
Hannah’s grin spreads slow, feline as she removes her legs from my lap, crosses them on the step below without breaking eye contact. She leans back on her palms and wets her lips—pure sin in a sweatshirt.
“On your knees, soldier.”
40
tough times, big guy
Hannah
Rowan fallsto his knees in front of me. Moonlight bounces off his shoulders, chest bare, pajama pants slung low on his hips. Every inch of ink, every scar, cast in a twinge of shadow. But his eyes are bright and locked on me.
“Uncross,” he grits.
I want him like this. Controlled, confident, a little unhinged, and looking at me like he can’t live another second without getting a taste.
My hoodie lifts to the uppermost part of my thighs when I do as he asks. Knees flanking his ribs, he glides a hand up my leg until his fingers wrap around the lace.
“Lift.”