Pitch Perfect(55)
“I know. I’ve done it before.”
“Are you going to now?”
“I don’t know.”
It wasn’t exactly an invitation. “What are you worried about?”
“Right now? My breath, mainly.”
Tucker laughed. “And otherwise?”
“I worry about a lot of things.”
“I’ve learned that about you. But now there’s no other man in your way. Now you can be with who you want to be with. So what are you worried about?”
“Is it too soon?”
“Emmy…” He cupped her chin in his palm so she couldn’t look away. “As far as I’m concerned, it couldn’t be soon enough.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
What was she doing?
Tucker’s fingers caressed the sensitive skin along her jaw and followed the upward curve of her face until he was holding the back of her head, his hand buried in her hair.
He’d told her she could say stop whenever she wanted, but she didn’t want him to stop. She never wanted him to stop, and finally she could let him follow through without the guilt.
Tucker kissed her cheek softly, and she let out a little sigh. He paused for a moment, but when she made no other sound aside from the exhalation, he continued the task at hand.
His delicate kisses moved with practiced slowness from her cheek to the dip where her jaw met her neck, and there he gently licked her skin. The shocking warmth of his tongue on her made a thrill shoot through her, piercing her groin and taking her from mildly aroused to downright horny.
Emmy no longer wondered what she was doing. She wondered instead how she had gone this long without doing it.
She raised her palms to the front of his shirt and clasped two handfuls of the cotton into her fists, tugging him closer. Since he couldn’t physically come nearer to her with her legs in the way, she parted them and made room for his body between her thighs.
The heat of his skin was evident even through their two layers of clothes, and once his body was flush against hers, his kiss moved from her neck to her lips. He seized her mouth in such a way she momentarily questioned if he really was the nice guy he seemed, because no nice man should kiss with the owning, demanding power Tucker was using. The way his lips parted hers and his fingers clawed at her hair was needy and insistent, full of something far more primal than she’d expected from her mild-mannered pitcher.
She was intoxicated by it. Wanting her had made him this crazy, and she wanted to know how wild he could be.
Her mouth yielded to his kiss, lips opening so his tongue could meet hers, teasing, playfully nipping with his teeth, deepening the kiss each time she hesitated until she was sure she might melt into a puddle on his floor. He had a robust taste of dark coffee and something else that was masculine and entirely Tucker. She’d kissed him before, but never so much and so deeply. It was as though this embrace were an abyss and he was willing her to fall into it with him.
Releasing her hair, he braced one hand on either side of her against the counter and leaned into her so she was forced to bend backwards, the countertop meeting the small of her back.
“Tucker,” she mumbled when he pulled away briefly. She had no other intention, nothing specific to say, she just wanted to hear how his name sounded now that she had the taste of him all over her lips. Delicious. It all sounded delicious.
This time she closed the gap. Her hands still fisted in his shirt, she dragged him back down to her, reclaiming his mouth and returning the fevered passion with which he’d kissed her. He pushed closer, his crotch seated against hers and the rigid presence of his cock unmistakable along her inner thigh.
Emmy wanted to say his name again, as an invitation or a call to arms, but her tongue was too tied up with his to make time for words. He growled into her mouth when she arched her hips towards him, and in response she let a moan rumble in her throat.
She wasn’t going to say no, and if he was waiting for her to stop this, he had another thing coming. It had been months since she’d last had sex—yet another sign things with her and Simon had shifted gears into the platonic—and she’d been denying herself Tucker all that time.
To let him know what she was thinking, she pulled back abruptly from the kiss and looked him in the eyes. His cheeks were flushed, and the skin around his mouth was red from their rough kisses. She was willing to bet his morning stubble had done a number on her skin, but she didn’t care. None of it mattered except for getting him out of his stupid pajama pants and getting them both back into those beautiful cotton sheets.
“Yes,” she said breathlessly, trying to remember the last time a kiss had made her dizzy with need. To drive home her words, she let go of his shirt and grabbed his ass with both hands, tugging him so close they both gasped. “Yes.” This time there was a growl to the word.