The exact opposite of the guys who bullied me at my school, boys with trendy clothes and clean hairdos, hiding so much senseless violence and craziness.
Then of course my mind returns to Nick, and I shudder.
"Okay." I need a distraction. Weren't we leaving? "Are we catching a cab? Do you know how to get to this house?"
He nods and hums under his breath, his arm around my shoulders. I don't think there's been a single second he hasn't touched me since he appeared at my door this evening.
"Can't see Ev or Kayla." I squint in the dimness. Apart from the rumble of cars passing by less than thirty feet away, it's quiet. "I was thinking we could catch a cab with them."
"Come," he says and tugs me toward the old synagogue, away from the departing guests.
The technicians are turning off the last spotlight, and a woman in a smart navy blue dress is gathering the flower pots and ribbons. We walk toward them, and at first I think Jesse wants to ask them something, or help them pack up-which would be weird, but why not?
He doesn't stop. He takes me round the back, where the trees are thick and the shadows deeper.
"Where are we going?" I whisper, half expecting someone to jump from behind the trees and attack us. I'm tensing, even with his arm around me. I dig in my heels, my skin breaking into goosebumps. "Wait."
He slides his hand down to the small of my back and turns me toward him. "Trust me. Can you trust me?"
It seems light, as questions go, but it feels much heavier with meaning, as if he's asking me not just to trust him in this moment but in everything.
"I do." Weird how I don't have to think about it twice.
"Good. Because I need you, Embers. Need you now, can't wait." Stunned into silence, I let him walk me backward a few steps, his hands smoothing over my dress to settle on my waist. His big body bumps into mine, and even from that brief contact I can feel how hard and ready he is. It turns my blood to burning lava.
I suck in a sharp breath. The tips of my breasts ache, pressed to the wall of his hard chest. "JJ … "
"And before you ask, no, I've never done this before. Never wanted anyone this damn much. Like I can't control myself one second longer when I'm around you. Like I have to be inside you, right fucking now."
He presses me to him, to his swollen cock, and I bite back a moan. The feel of that hard rod of flesh, the knowledge of how aroused he is, is a bolt of fire straight to my core. His mouth seeks mine and I surrender, looping my arms around his neck and rising on tiptoe to taste him.
Salted caramel and sugared nuts, I think, pressing my breasts, my legs, every part of me to him, and he groans in my mouth, his tongue parting my lips and thrusting inside, his hips rocking against me.
He pushes me backward until my back meets something hard and knobby-a tree trunk, I realize before his hands roam all over me. He breaks the kiss to trail kisses down my neck, and he's whispering something.
"Only you," he's murmuring. "Nobody but you. Just you."
Over and over again.
He lifts my skirt and runs his hands on my thighs, tugging down my panties. They drop down my legs, and his hand wanders up.
"Oh God." I squeak as cool air rushes up my girly parts, and his thumb brushes over my clit, sending shocks of pleasure through me. I clap a hand over my mouth when I realize what had escaped me for a blissful moment: I'm standing in a park, with people less than twenty feet away, with my panties around my ankles and a man's hand between my legs. "We can't."
"Keep your hand over your mouth," he instructs me, his voice rough with desire, and he goes down to his knees in the soil and stones. I reach for him, trying to stop him, but he slips from my grasp and then his mouth is on me.
A low keening sound leaves my mouth, and I can't even bring myself to care, guests or not. Sweet pleasure is pooling between my legs, heaviness is gathering in my belly as the sensations wash through me. His tongue is doing wicked things to me, licking along my seam, parting me, reaching my center and then-
Stars go supernova behind my eyelids. His tongue is stabbing into me, thrusting into me, and I'm tittering on the edge, one hand still pressed to my mouth, the other gripping his shoulder so hard it's a miracle I haven't torn his shirt with my nails.
Then the pressure increases, pleasure spiking, and I'm vaguely, distantly aware he's using his hand down there now, too, stroking me deep inside while he kisses and licks, his firm lips soft, a counter point to his rough tongue. His mouth moves up, sucking on my clit, and the need sharpens, cutting me like a knife.
I wail behind my hand as my whole body tightens and contracts in a spasm that's near pain, riding the first wave of release. My back scrapes on the rough bark of the tree, and I'm sure an insect is crawling up my leg, but then the second wave hits, pleasure through and through, and my knees bend, unable to hold me.
Before I fall, Jesse is up on his feet, his arms around me. "Whoa, kitten." He's holding me up, my legs like jelly. "God, you taste good. Like cream and sugar. I thought I was going to come from your taste. Shit."
I blink at him, out of it completely.
He suddenly grins. "I was that good, huh?"
I laugh and swat at him. Hard to do when he's the one holding me up. "You're insufferable."
"But you like me anyway."
I'm pretty sure he's teasing me, but I nod anyway, because it's the truth. "Yes, I do."
"A lot."
"Yeah."
"Cross your heart?"
"Yes." I frown, my face pressed to his muscular shoulder, some of the haze clearing from my mind. "And you? Do you like me?"
My heart thuds heavily while waiting for his reply.
"I do," he says, quietly, easily, and I smile against the scratchy material of his shirt. "Very much."
Jesse Lee has admitted he likes me. Which is just a technicality-speaking the words out loud when he's been showing me as much-but it makes it more real somehow.
Not that it means anything. I mean, liking someone isn't unusual. Friends like each other.
Friends don't go down on each other, a smug voice whispers in my mind. They don't kiss so much either, and they don't roll in the sheets naked together.
Speaking of naked … My panties are lying somewhere on the ground, and it feels weird to be bare down there. Bare and wet from coming, and as he presses into me, his erection rubs against my slightly bruised mound, sending electric jolts to my insides, making me clench painfully.
For shame, Amber. You just came so hard you almost passed out.
But this man is like a drug. The more time I spend with him, the more I want him, and the way he's moving his hands over my curves, the way his cock twitches …
"Embers." My name is spoken in a growl, sending shivers over my skin. "Need to fuck you."
No idea why these few crude words make me moan and burn for him so badly. "So do it," I breathe, hitching one leg up, around his thigh and fumble at his fly. His hard-on is tenting the front of his pants.
His hand is already there, unzipping and pushing the heavy cloth down. His breathing is unsteady, shallow and fast, as he reaches into his pants and pulls out his heavy cock, and like every time, the air leaves my lungs at the sight of it. Big, flushed dark, the head wet and glistening, a thick vein throbbing on the side.
I want to touch, and when I trail my fingers over its length, over the hot, silky skin and the weeping slit on the soft crown, he hisses between his teeth.
Next thing I know, I'm pushed back against the tree, my dress bunched up around my waist, and he's kissing me hard.
This boy sure likes kissing me.
"Never kissed anyone before." That's what he said the first time we kissed, and that's so sweet and sad and powerful, and-
He pushes into me, his cock breaching me slowly and surely, sliding into me. I let out a breath, taking him in, all of him, until he's seated inside me, his pelvis pressed to mine. It's overwhelming, and I squirm, needing something I can't name to ease the incredible feeling of fullness, and I can hardly believe he fits inside me, so thick and long and hard like steel. I whimper, gripping his shoulders and rocking my hips.
"Fuck, kitten..." He finally starts to move, his eyes trained on my face. "God, you feel fucking amazing. Is this … ?"
"Do it, JJ." I rock my hips again and gasp at the pleasure.
"Goddamn." His hips snap forward as he drives into me once, twice. "Christ."
My mouth falls open, a cry rising in my chest, and he clamps his lips over mine, swallowing down the sound. He cups the back of my head, keeping our mouths fused as we move together, rocking and rubbing. Mouths crushed together, tongues clashing, we race toward the end, the drag and pull of his hard cock against my inner walls maddening. Pleasure sparkles at the base of my spine, and I moan in his mouth.
He breaks the kiss, gasping, his hips jerking wildly, his cock impossibly big as it pushes deep into me, filling me to the brim. Pushing me over the edge.