The waterbed had the smallest of a rock to it, allowing us to move together, his fingers drawing my leg over his hip. It was still creepy to me that we slept on a giant fluid-filled sac, but in moments like this, I could appreciate the motion of the ocean. I sighed, enjoying the ease with which we fit together, lips teasing and melding, my fingers splaying over his hard chest.
“I love your body,” I told him sincerely. “You’re so nice and hard everywhere.” I brushed over his nipple and enjoyed the sharp intake of breath he gave. Ah, the power. “I just wish I wasn’t groping Satan right now.”
“Think of it more like there’s a little devil inside all of us.”
“I wish there was a little devil inside of me,” I told him, teasing my fingertips lower to the waistband of his boxers.
He gave a soft laugh, nuzzling into my neck. “That wouldn’t be little then.”
“Of course not.” But truthfully, I didn’t actually mind that we weren’t going there. This was intimate, close, allowing us the time to tease and talk, and I was learning that I could be more aware of my body and my arousal than I had ever realized.
As Riley kissed me and rocked me on to him, I gave soft moans and realized that I trusted him. That’s what was different. I trusted his words, his feelings, his touch. That was actually a bigger turn-on than any porn star move guys had pulled with me. It wasn’t kinky, bold, or worthy of a scandalous bucket list, but it was more real than anything else I’d ever experienced.
And an hour later I discovered that I could come to orgasm just from kissing, clothes on, with nothing but whispered words of encouragement and a complete understanding of every inch of my body.
“Oh, God,” I breathed into his mouth, blinking in shock and wonder. “Riley . . .”
“Mm,” was his response. His tongue slid across my bottom lip as we cuddled. “Night, Pita.”
He sent me to sleep like that every night, though each time our fingers moved further into new territories, brushing over every inch we could with clothes still intact, and his lips started to stray down my shirt. By night four I was rocking onto him in nothing but my panties, my breasts pressing into his chest, my body alive and zinging, my heart full of a feeling I had never experienced before.
The first time his tongue touched my nipple, the first slide of a finger down into my panties, I felt like I had discovered something entirely new, that the simplest of touches could be the most electric, the most satisfying, when desire was so heightened.
I stroked him with fingers that trembled from my own hot need, goose bumps on my skin in the darkness of the narrow room, wanting to give him in return what he was giving to me. When I started to peel down his boxers, he didn’t object. It was the first time I’d seen him bare to me, his erection thick and throbbing beneath my touch. It was too dark to really see what he looked like, but I was learning his body by exploring every line, every muscle, every hair, and I did the same now, taking my time, from top to bottom, feeling, stroking, learning.
“Does it get your stamp of approval?” he asked.
Even though he said it in a teasing voice, I knew that it was an important question. Guys compared. They needed to know that they measured up, literally and figuratively.
“It’s perfect,” I told him honestly. I kissed the tip of his penis and then retreated, having learned how to do that from him. “You’re perfect.” I covered his mouth with my own and tried to show him with my lips how amazing I thought he was and how I had never been happier in my entire life than I was with him.
He groaned, gripping my hips hard, bringing my body into grinding contact with his dick. “Jess?”
“Yeah?”
“Would you be okay with it if I fell in love with you?”
My heart squeezed and I paused, my mouth a hairbreadth from his, as I took in his words, as if I could breathe them into my mouth, my heart, my soul.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “I’d be very okay with it.”
It must have been the right answer, because without warning he flipped me onto my back and kissed down the front of me until suddenly he was kissing between my thighs and I was burying my head into the pillow as I cried out.
I wasn’t even naked, his mouth working me through cotton, yet I was more open to him than to any other guy I’d been with.
And I knew without any doubt that he was
Chapter Sixteen
Friday was my day off and I was having dinner on Riley’s lap. We were in the kitchen sharing a grilled cheese sandwich I had made, along with a pickle that I couldn’t resist doing suggestive things to.
“Seriously?” Tyler asked, eating a bowl of cereal. “You guys are making me throw me up in my mouth.”
“It’s payback, asshole,” Riley told him, shifting me on his legs so he could see his brother. “For a year I’ve been forced to watch you and Rory hang all over each other.”
“Six months,” I corrected him, kissing his temple. He was adorable when he was wrong. He was adorable when he was right. And I was as bad as every girl who’d come before me and fallen head over ass in love.
“Six months,” he repeated. “Either way, Tyler can suck it up.”
Tyler couldn’t really argue with that. But he did roll his eyes and say, “I’ll give you five bucks, Jess, if you sit in your own chair.”
Hell, yeah. “Deal.” I jumped off Riley’s lap and held my hand out.
“Fuck.” Tyler grumbled, but pulled out his wallet and gave me a five.
Riley laughed. “Dude, you should know better. This is
“Thanks, baby,” I said, because he made it sound like a compliment. I dropped down into my own chair and tore off a piece of the sandwich and popped it in my mouth. “So what do you want to do tonight?”
“Movies?”
“Nothing scary.”
“Uh, hell, no, nothing scary. I won’t make that mistake twice. Having you crawl up my asshole has never been a particular fantasy of mine.”
“I wasn’t that bad.”
“You ran into my room crying because you thought there was a demon in the house.”
“You’re exaggerating!” I said, laughing. “But only a little.” My phone lit up and the ringtone was “Gangnam Style.”
“Oh my God, whose ringtone is that?” Riley asked.
“It’s my brother’s. Because this song is almost as annoying as he is.”
“Are you going to answer it?”
“No.” I hit Ignore. Why was my brother calling me? He never did. He knew I was supposed to be in West Virginia and out of cell range. I started to worry that maybe something had happened to my parents. That’s the only reason I could think of for him to call. “Maybe I should have answered,” I said, frowning.
“Did he leave a voice mail?”
“No.” Did anyone leave voice mails? But then my phone buzzed for a text. I opened it and my heart sank when I saw the picture he’d attached. “Shit.” I didn’t even have to read what he’d written to know it would be a threat, but I did anyway.
Yep. That was a threat. Technically blackmail. I stared at the picture that he had clearly lifted off of my Facebook page. Someone had posted it and I hadn’t been on my page in days so I hadn’t noticed. It was me dancing with the guy at the party at the Shit Shack. I had a beer in my hand and a goofy, drunk expression on my face. My cleavage was exploding, and his hand was lower on my hip than I remembered it being.
I was so busted.
“What’s the matter?”
