His to Love (Fireside #1)(13)

After he paid our check and escorted me out of the restaurant, his hand firmly clasped in mine, we began our slow walk back in the direction of my hotel.

“I told you about me,” I said, eyes facing forward. “Where’d you go?”

“DC,” he finally said after a long pause. “Went to law school there.”

I frowned, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. “You’re a lawyer?”

He nodded slowly, just once. His eyes were guarded though, and I felt my shoulders slump. He was hiding something from me, and I knew I should ask, call him out on it, but then Tyson pulled me toward him until I stumbled, and I braced myself with one hand against his chest.

His firm chest. Hard. Muscular. A chest I saw just that morning but now was touching through his shirt. All rational thought fled as the familiar feelings of being so close to Tyson again overpowered any other thought.

“Came home to help with my grandpa’s law firm,” he finally said. His voice was husky, a bit gravelly. His words vibrated against my ear as he lowered his head. “I never thought I’d come back to Detroit, but I can’t say I’m disappointed to get to see you again.”

His head dipped further, his lips brushed against my ear.

“Tyson,” I whispered.

“God, I fucking missed you, Blue. I didn’t even realize how much until I saw you again.”

And then there was no more room for talking. His hand holding mine dropped to my waist, and his other hand slid to the back of my neck. With a slight tip of my head, our lips brushed against each other.

I inhaled, shocked at the feel of him. For the first time in ten years, he was in front of me, holding me, touching me, almost kissing me, and my body responded on instinct.

I licked my lips, my tongue tasting his as I did, and a noise escaped his lips. His hand on my waist tightened. My hand on his chest slid up and over his shoulder. My fingernails dug in and I lifted up onto my toes.

And then he was kissing me.

His lips slid against mine again, tasting me, teasing me. I returned his kiss, pressed against him as he held me tight. When he stopped the teasing, his mouth opened and I responded. I had to. There was no other option for me except to give him everything I had.

He was the only one I ever wanted to give anything to.

“Damn,” he whispered against my lips. “Didn’t forget how good you tasted, either.”

I laughed softly and leaned in. “Kiss me, Tyson.”

“Babe,” he said. He listened, though, and his mouth opened, his tongue slid inside mine, and we were suddenly kissing on the sidewalk, hands roaming over shoulders and skin. He swallowed a whimper that escaped my throat as our tongues tangled together, and everything, along with everyone who could see us, melted away.

I felt caught up in a dream, a memory. The best memory of my life because this kiss was not like the ones we shared before, and at the same time, it was. His hold was stronger, his kiss surer, but everything in me remembered exactly what Tyson felt like…everywhere.

“Blue,” he gasped, pulling away. For a brief moment, I thought I saw regret in his dark blues, before he blinked and it disappeared. “We need to stop.”

“I think we need to take this somewhere else, not stop.”

He stepped back, wrapped an arm around my waist until his hand was at my lower back, and then he ushered me the several blocks back to my hotel. Even with my long legs, I still had to hustle to keep up with Tyson’s hurried strides all the way to my hotel, into the elevator, and then down the hall to my room.

—

With all of our rushing, my head began spinning, thoughts running in circles, and I imagined all the things that would happen as soon as we reached my hotel room. A room where just that morning, I woke up next to Tyson.

One we got there, both of us breathing quicker than normal, excitement fled and nerves took its place.

“Would you like a drink?” I asked Tyson and headed for the small kitchen. “I know I have some wine and I think beer. There’s also water and some soda.”

“Blue,” Tyson said, his voice close at my back. “Nothing has to happen tonight.”

I curled my fingertips around the edge of the counter. “I know.”

I did. He would never force me to do something I didn’t want. The problem was I did want it. I just didn’t know if it was smart. Or if I wanted to be smart. Slowly, I turned my head to look at him, and I saw the same indecision in his eyes that I felt.

Yeah. Tyson wanted me, but he didn’t think it was smart either. I didn’t know what to think about that, so instead of asking, I opened the fridge, handed him a beer, and grabbed one for me.

“Want to watch a movie?” I asked once we popped the tops on our beers. I watched as he tipped the beer bottle to his lips, followed the slow movements of his throat as he swallowed, and kept my eyes pinned on his mouth when he licked a drop off his full bottom lip.

“Movie’s good.”

Nerves fluttered and swirled inside me, like I was sixteen all over again, making my heart beat faster as I slid past him and headed toward the living room.

Tyson’s steps were quicker than mine though, and he beat me to the couch. When he sat down, he took control over the remote, something that made me smile. With his other hand, he wrapped my waist and pulled me down so I was forced to sit next to him, and I curled into his side.

It felt so natural, so soothing, I didn’t move away.

With my beer in my hand, I let Tyson flip through the channels until he came across a Tigers’ game and he set the remote down.

“Thought we were going to watch a movie.”

“Movies suck, and there’s a game on.”

I took a quick drink from my beer, hiding my smile. “Of course. Because the Tigers could lose if you don’t cheer for them when you’re not there in person. They can tell, you know.”

He took his beer, tapped our tops together, and put it to his lips. I could hear the smile in his voice. “Seems you do remember the important things.”

So we sat like that for the next couple of hours, long after night had fallen and my eyes grew heavy, but I was enjoying this too much. This quiet peace between us where it felt like we’d gotten our past on the table, then silently decided to let it go and move on.

The question though, was move on to what?

It felt incredible to be around him again, like a part of me that had been missing had now been found. He helped me forget about the stuff with my mom. I hadn’t once thought about the request from my parents earlier today. The man next to me consumed my thoughts as his thumb trailed slow, gentle circles along my shoulder, on and off for the last hour. We barely spoke, except during commercials, because I definitely remembered that one did not speak during a Tigers game. That teasing circling on my shoulder sent shocks of desire to everywhere else in my body. And even though I was fighting to stay awake, I didn’t want Tyson to leave. I didn’t want him to head to wherever he was going to go when he left here, without getting another taste of him.

I wanted to feel him.

Turning, I shifted into him so my hand wrapped around his waist and I looked up. His hand on my shoulder tightened and his head dipped. We looked into each other’s eyes, and with each passing moment, electricity sparked and zapped in the space between us.

He still looked conflicted.

I was past caring. My hand tightened on his stomach, slowly drifted higher to brush over his hard chest, and I watched his pulse increase at the base of his throat.

“Blue,” he said. It was a warning or a plea. I didn’t know, and I didn’t care.

Curling my legs beneath me, I sat up so I was on my knees and leaned forward. “Kiss me, Tyson,” I said.

He swallowed thickly, making me think he was going to push me away, when one of his hands dropped to my waist and the other slid to the back of my neck just like before. Then he tugged me forward until I was almost draped over his lap. He shifted, and my thighs spread to the outside of his until I was straddling him.

My hands went to his cheeks.

His hands pulled me forward.

Then his lips fell to mine, and he stole my breath the moment he touched me. There was no slow, passionate buildup; there was only fire and heat and intensity that I couldn’t ever remember feeling before.

I pressed my chest against his and ran my hands down his neck to his shoulders. I held on while he devoured me, tasting every place he could find inside my mouth, holding me firmly against him so I couldn’t move away.

Not that I wanted to.

I was exactly where I wanted to be.

My hips shifted, and I moaned into his mouth. He was hard beneath me. A bulge so thick it was noticeable through his denim and the lightweight cotton of my yoga pants. I didn’t even care that I wasn’t dressed sexily. That my hair was in a disheveled ponytail that only got worse as Tyson’s fingers dug into my scalp. As if he possessed mind reading capabilities, his fingers moved higher until he pulled the holder out of my hair and black strands fell to my cheeks, framing my face, and blocking out anything besides Tyson.

“Holy shit,” he murmured. His hips pressed into me, mine pressed down, and we rocked together, moving against each other while our hands explored each other’s bodies through our clothes. But I know he could feel every touch of my hands on him like I was touching his bare skin because that was how my body responded to his touch.