“Fuck.” He squeezed his eyes closed as if painfully trying to restrain himself.
“What . . . what about you?” I asked, almost afraid of the answer. But also to keep him talking, because I was about to become a puddle on the floor from watching him alone. “When’s the last time a girl . . .”
His gaze blazed into mine and then he took a step closer—so close he could’ve reached out and pulled me into his arms, if he’d wanted.
“Made me feel good?” he muttered. “The other night . . . with you.”
“God, Blake . . .” My head rolled back and my breath became fluttery. “What are you saying? We didn’t do anything besides kiss.”
“But I went home knowing how your skin and your lips felt against mine and that . . . almost satisfied my fantasies for the night.”
A whimper burst from my lips. “You’re not the only one.”
His eyes widened and he moved even nearer.
His fingers slipped up my arms, making the hairs stand on end. “Truth or dare, Chloe?”
As we stared each other down, I couldn’t have answered any other way even if I tried.
“Dare,” I whispered. My heart was pounding against my rib cage.
“I . . . dare . . . you . . . to close your eyes.” He paused and waited for me to slide them shut. Then I felt his warm air against my lips. “And just feel.”
I gasped and my lids fluttered open.
“Keep them shut.” His voice was like a command and I responded by slamming my eyes closed.
My body began trembling. I was craving him—craving his touch. My heart was in my throat as I waited to see—to feel—what he was about to do.
Also because it was very difficult for me to give up this amount of control.
“You’re so pretty,” he said as his hands wrapped around the back of my neck and his lips grazed my throat. “Let me make you feel good.”
It was a foreign feeling to have my eyes closed to the surrounding world and just experience someone’s touch. His lips closed around my ear and I felt emboldened and alive, much like that night at the club. As his fingers slinked down my arms to my waist, I pressed my chest against his. My nipples were erect and my breasts felt dense and full.
As if he’d taken the hint, his thumbs brushed across my buds and I sighed in relief.
His fingers traveled beneath my shirt to my bare skin. “Do you like when I touch you here?”
“Yes,” I said. “Please.”
He groaned, and just as his hands fully cupped my breasts, his mouth captured mine in a bruising kiss. His tongue slashed past my lips as his finger moved across my back to unhook my bra.
“So sexy.” In one swift motion he lifted off my shirt and then tugged off my bra. I stood before him naked from the waist up. “God, Chloe . . . you look amazing.”
I kept my eyes clenched tight. It was easier that way. If I opened them, I might’ve chickened out.
His mouth kissed and licked down my throat to my collarbone. “Can I keep touching you?”
I nodded and then suddenly had a moment of unnerving uncertainty. The last measure of my control crumbling. “Can anybody see us?”
“The windows are covered, remember?” His mouth swiftly moved down and captured one of my nipples—maybe in order to keep my mind off the previous subject. “You’re safe with me.”
My knees nearly buckled from the sensation of his hot mouth on my skin. When he moved to the other side, I moaned and grasped at his hair. I didn’t remember ever being this turned on in my entire life. I ground my hips against him, needing to get closer.
“Ah hell,” he blurted out, and then slowly backed me against the wall. The brick felt cool against my fiery skin. All I could hear was the distant sound of the traffic buzzing by on the street and his heavy breaths at my neck. I felt secluded, protected, and unbelievably stimulated.
As his hand hovered on the button of my jeans, his lips found my ear. “Can I touch you everywhere?”
I was momentarily petrified, my knees quivering, but that gave way to my blazing arousal. All I could do was nod—my body was so bombarded by sensation.
I whimpered as he unzipped my jeans and then his hand slipped down the front of my underwear. I was so completely wet and nearly mortified that he’d soon discover that.
“Oh damn,” he grunted out in a tortured voice. “You’re so turned on, aren’t you?”
“Completely,” I said, letting go of any shame.
He pushed my jeans to my knees and then his fingers nudged inside the edges of my underwear. “Did I do this to you?”
I was shuddering and panting. “Yes.”
He swore as his fingers found my center and the sensation was like being suspended off the edge of a cliff. My heart was thrashing and my pelvis was pulsing and all I wanted was to take that leap of faith. With him.
A low growl emitted from his throat and the sound was so visceral I almost let go right then and there. Almost. But still I hovered over the precipice of my own orgasm, nearly embarrassed by how long it had been and how easily I was giving up control from the simple brush of Blake’s fingers.
“Have you been thinking about me in bed at night—like I’ve been thinking of you?”
I quavered as his fingers continued brushing over my nub and then slipped firmly inside me. “Every . . . single . . . night.”
He groaned and sucked expertly on my nipples. “This moment, right here with you, is my fantasy come true.”
“Oh God . . . Blake.” There was an upsurge deep in my belly, like sparks sending a heated footpath up and down my legs and then biting at my center.
All it took was another swipe of his thumb for me to fully and completely detonate. He grasped on to my waist as I shook and mumbled and kept my eyelids firmly shut.
Blake kissed my neck and ear and lips as I became more fully aware of myself and my surroundings. With my lids still closed, mortification began to bear down. I was basically naked, up against a wall with Blake—in my employer’s place of business.
“Open your eyes,” Blake whispered against my lips.
I did so, reluctantly. I found him staring at me in wonder, his eyes bright and clear.
His thumb traced against my throat. “You’re beautiful.”
chapter ten
Blake
It’d been a miserable day. That morning, I’d found my mother passed out on the couch, an empty bottle of wine hidden in the wastebasket. When I began rummaging around, I also found vodka hidden in the back of the cupboard above the stove.
I stood over the sink dumping the contents of the bottle as a storm of emotions swirled inside me: shock, anger, and defeat.
After I drove my brother to school, I nudged my mom awake. “Have you started drinking again?”
“Don’t you dare accuse me of anything,” she snapped.
But then I held up two empty bottles of vodka and immediately saw a flash of mortification in her eyes, before her face fell into her hands. As the realization sank in that she’d been caught and had most certainly fallen off the wagon, she began blubbering and mumbling incoherently.
We’d been here before. Several times. But the sting of it was no less wounding. Though I was beginning to become numb to this feeling of loss I’d experienced practically my entire life, this time was particularly painful, because we had come so far and I had given up so much to get here.
It was always so difficult to hear my mother’s gut-wrenching sobs.
I handed over her cell phone and encouraged her to call her sponsor and attend an AA meeting today. “The counselor said this could happen, Mom. It’ll be okay. You just have to do the work to get to a good place again.”
“I will,” she said, not meeting my eye. “I promise.”
I was so distracted at the construction site that I cut my finger with a putty knife. Thankfully it was Friday and I was supposed to meet Chloe tonight to put the final touches on the runway.