Heart Thaw (13 page)

He laughs against my upper arm, and it’s infectious. I giggle back, and keep giggling when he drags his mouth down my ribs and rubs his slightly prickly chin on my skin.

“It tickles!” I screech, and roll away from him.

He grabs me, fingers flexed and dusts them over my already charged skin until I’m gasping and begging him to stop.

“Oh my God, please stop! Please! I’ll do anything!” I shriek, not caring how insane I sound. “Please!”

“Anything?” His voice is a warm, sweet whisper. “Be careful what you’re offering. I’ve had a few long, obsessive years to think about all the things I want to do to you.”

My eyes pop wide. His mouth quirks into something like a smile.

“I’m not holding back anymore, Sadie. We waste a fuckload of time when we get together. I feel some crazy shit for you, and I’m just going to say it. I’ve wanted you so bad, I’ve had to stop myself from driving to your dorm on a daily basis for the last few months.”

“Trent—”

“Don’t,” he interrupts. “I’m glad I have you in bed, because I know it’s hard to say no to the chemistry. But I’m after more than a quick lay with you. I don’t want a fuck-and-go like last time. And trust me, this hurts to say, because I have a feeling you’re going to run scared, and I know I could at least get sex out of this.” He smiles, but it’s pure bravado. His hands, running slowly over my arms, tremble like he’s nervous. “Sadie. Let’s do this for real.”

“What does that mean?”

My voice is dry and light as dandelion fluff.

He rolls onto his stomach and hammers a pillow with his fist. When he lifts his head, his hair is sexily rumpled, and his eyes are narrowed with frustration.

“There you go analyzing everything again.”

“That’s normal, okay? You don’t just jump into a relationship anyway, but especially not if you’re you and I’m me. We have a lot more than just the two of us riding on this.”

I pull my shirt back on and tie it snugly, even while my inner vixen screams and moans and rolls on the bed naked with naked Trent and laughs in my uptight, prudish face.

He tosses the pillow to the side.

“Don’t.” He catches my hand and pulls it to his lips, licks my fingers, and makes me giggle again. “Don’t. C’mon. Come here by me.”

He holds his arms out, and I can’t help but climb into them.

His mouth gets to work kissing and sucking and licking, and when he doesn’t talk, I don’t think. I just feel, and it feels perfect. He peels every item of clothing off with excruciating slowness until I have nothing but some scraps of purple lace covering me. He keeps one hand on me and uses the other to undo his jeans.

I bring my hands down to his waist and push once, twice, until they slide down far enough that the elastic of his underwear is half down his perfect ass.

“Are we going to make things weird between us? By the way, our sisters will know. They’ll take one look and know,” I mutter.

“Like they have any business judging,” he scoffs, his dark eyes dancing. “PS, you’re always weird around me. They’d only know if you suddenly stopped being a weirdo.”

He tugs at the clasp in the front of my bra, his fingers dangerously close to undoing it.

“Weird? Weird how?” I demand, half sitting up.

He puts both his hands on my shoulders and pushes me back down.

“Weird like you’re always looking at me like you want me. Like you’re gonna jump my bones at any second.”

He chuckles and licks up one side of my neck and down the other. I sink my hands into his black hair and moan even though I don’t want to let him hear how damn turned on I am.

“You’re an asshole, Trent. If anyone is looking weird at anyone, it’s you. Looking at me.”

He pulls back and stares at me.

“Oh, most definitely. I never said I wasn’t one hundred percent weird about you. The thing is, I
want
your mom to catch on. I’m hoping she might be on my side.”

He tugs on my bra, his fingers getting desperate.

“You’re going to use my mother against me?” I ask, not bothering to keep the shock out of my voice. “What kind of monster are you?”

“You have no idea, baby,” he says with a wicked grin. “Get this bra off for me.”

“I thought you were handy. Didn’t you redo this whole house? How can a guy lay tile and rewire ancient electric, but he can’t even undo a—”

I bite my lip because he slides the fastener open and the girls jump out like they were waiting for him. He smiles with gleeful triumph and dips his head down, sucking one nipple, then the other into his mouth and working his tongue over them like he’s determined to bring me to my knees.

Metaphorically. Since he’s already got me flat on my back.

His hands run up along my ribs. He takes his time, spreading his hands wide so his fingers run slowly over my skin, making my hips jerk to attention. I’ve never been with anyone like Trent before. Most of my other boyfriends preferred it quick and kind of boring.

I seem to be a magnet for vanilla guys who love a good missionary toss with the lights out every Saturday night.

Which is the polar opposite of Trent.

He takes his time. His mouth melds over my skin and his tongue explores like he wants to taste every single inch of me. He keeps his hands busy, and I love the rough slide of them wherever the hell they travel on me.

When I was with Jace, I used to think about other things while he was on top of me—class, commuting, weather, work. But being with Trent doesn’t allow for that possibility. Every time I think I’m as wet or tortured with need as I can possibly get, he moans low in his throat or flicks his tongue over my skin, or just
looks
at me with those animalistic eyes.

Eyes that say they want to eat me alive. Eyes that say he’s ready to take me however I want to be taken. Which sure as hell isn’t missionary.

The part of me that’s so damn sick of being undecided loves the way he unties things I have cinched tight in neat bows. I flip him under me and straddle him. He slides his hands up and down my thighs.

“You’re beautiful, Sadie.”

“Do you want me?” I ask, my voice shaky with a need I can’t control much longer.

I shouldn’t have bothered asking, because the truth is, I want him so damn badly, it’s morphed into a need I can’t say no to. I watch his neck move when he swallows.

“Can I ask something?”

“Are
you
going to overanalyze now?”

I lean over him and follow his eyes, which work hard to stay locked with mine.

“Maybe.” He digs his fingers into my skin hard before he loosens his hold. “Is this gonna be one time, and then you avoid me for months?”

I want to say something sexy, something that will show him how mature and in control of all this I am. How I’m about to seduce him.

What I wind up saying is, “We’ll probably hook up on New Year’s.”

His eyebrows collide in the center of his forehead.

“What?”

“New Year’s,” I repeat, sounding dumb to my own ears and feeling so damn naked, I cross my arms over my bare breasts.

“New Year’s?”

He shakes his head and scowls.

“Right. I mean, are you coming over?” I falter.

I should slip off him and...what? Hide under the covers of
his
bed.

This is the problem with us. It’s all too intimate and too damn uncomfortable at the same time.

“To your mom’s?” he clarifies. When I nod, he just stares. “Are you seriously asking me if I’m coming to your mother’s house to fuck you on New Year’s?”

“We don’t have to...have sex...
there
.”

I grab for my bra, but it’s half under one of his pillows. He intercepts my wrist and holds tight.

“Wait. Don’t get dressed and run. Talk to me.”

“No,” I snap like a child. Like I’m the younger one. “Damnit, Trent, everything I say when I’m around you makes me feel like a fucking moron.”

He takes both my wrists in his hands and closes his fingers around them tightly.

“Maybe  you should just stop saying such moronic shit?”

I whimper with self-disgust and try to move away from him, but he holds tight.

“Let me go.”

“No,” he growls, rolling over so I’m pinned under him. He looks down at me, the spikes of his dark hair just brushing my forehead. “What’s this about New Year’s? Was this a plan?”

“New Year’s just...it just makes me horny!” I explode, then try to wriggle away from him. He presses his hips down, anchoring me to the bed. And against his hard-on. “I hate you,” I whisper.

“Not all that much, if you’ve got plans to ride me into the New Year,” he laughs. And then he shakes his head. “Fuck, Sadie, I never know if I should be flattered or offended when I’m with you.”

“You bring out the worst in me,” I murmur, closing my eyes and my mouth tight to avoid present and future embarrassment.

Maybe my old thought process from childhood will hold true: if I can’t see Trent, he can’t see me.

“If this is your worst, I’m holding out for some good behavior. Because I
like you a lot
right now,” he says against my ear, and starts kissing me.

Hard, like he’s letting me know he’s not going away. And he gets more intense until I kiss back. He licks and sucks, moving his tongue and teeth over my lips and even biting.

It makes me yelp, the nip of his teeth on my skin, but it also brings a flood of...
want
. Want that makes my thighs slide against each other because I’m hot and slick. His hand moves down between our bodies, and I don’t stop him for the second time today.

He slides his fingers against me, and I stop thinking, which I know damn well is dangerous.

Stupid.

Bound to have consequences I’m not foreseeing right now, because I’m not thinking about a damn thing except how good Trent Toriello feels pressed naked against me. I wrangle him out of the last few stitches of his clothes and roll back on top of him.

It’s broad daylight on Christmas morning, and I’m straddling my best friend’s little brother. That’s one version of this anyway.

The other version is that it’s broad daylight on Christmas morning, and I’m straddling a sexy, intelligent, funny guy who makes my heart—and body—do things I didn’t know it was capable of doing.

“Do you have a condom?” I ask, biting my lower lip.

He reaches a long arm out and pulls the top drawer of his bedside table open. Oh, he doesn’t have
a
condom—he has
an arsenal
of condoms. Which just makes me think,
“We could do it nonstop from now until the New Year.”

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” I say one last time, giving Trent a wide open opportunity to convince me we should stop.

He licks his lips and runs his hands over my body, looking me up and down like he’s getting his fill in case I jump off this bed and get dressed.

“I didn’t get myself anything for Christmas,” I say softly when I realize he’s not going to say anything that may ruin this moment.

“Was there something you wanted?” he asks, and I know without understanding why that he would do anything for me.

Suddenly, I know exactly what I want. The only thing I want. It might be the most cliched response in the world, but it’s the truth.

It’s the undeniable truth.

“You,” I whisper.

I fold over onto him and feel his arms go tight around me. I kiss him until we’re both panting, then I slide my hand down. He’s rock hard, and I fit him against me, ready. I roll the condom on, gulp down one last deep breath, then press against him and bite my bottom lip hard. I rock my hips back and forth and give myself a few seconds to stretch around him.

“Trent,” I sigh.

“Sadie.”

His voice catches roughly. He coasts his hands up my legs, and he doesn’t stop until his fingers rest on my hips and this thumbs pet the sensitive skin at the top of my thighs.

I slide forward and our moans tangle. Every time I’ve been on top with other guys, it was an awkward, jerky embarrassment. But Trent and I click like we were made to fit together any way we need to.

I arch my back, sinking him deeper into me, spreading my legs wide to let him fill me as completely as possible, then keep a steady, sweet rhythm that immediately makes me gasp and shake. I feel full of power, radiating sexiness that I can’t quite control. When I open my eyes and look down at Trent, he’s staring at me, his eyes wide, his mouth pulled in that tight grimace that tells me he’s riding the line between pleasure and torture with me.

I buck harder, leaning forward so I’m pressed against him at a new angle, and it makes all the difference. Tremors radiate from low in my body, and I feel myself get slicker. Trent turns his head to the side and gnaws on his pillow, the veins in his neck standing out. His arms are tensed, and he’s pulled his legs up, his thighs pushing against my back and forcing me closer.