I’m not so sure about that.
He goes on, leaning in again. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”
I can feel my face go red. “Now you’re just being cheesy. You don’t need to be cheesy with me.”
“Aye,” he says, “I know I don’t. But it’s the truth. Do you know how long I’ve waited to tell you the truth? I’ve jacked off every day this week thinking about your perfect lips around my cock.”
And somehow my eyes go wider still.
Oh my god.
What the hell?
“Speechless?” he asks after a beat. “I like that.”
I turn my head and see if anyone else is in earshot of this. It may feel like we’re alone but I know we’re not. James is at the other end of the bar still and I sense from Linden that this is the main reason we’re to keep it all secret. Again, whatever this all is.
I have no idea.
But I feel like Linden’s going to show me and do so without mercy.
I swallow hard, my stomach fluttering with nerves and bubbles that make me want to laugh or cry or do something. Scream, even.
“What about the pact?” I ask him.
“What about it? We could just call this stage one.”
He leans in closer now and I know if anyone is watching us it’s going to look like it’s more than just a harmless whisper.
“Sort of like a try before you buy type of deal?” I joke weakly.
“Oh, we’ll be trying,” he murmurs, his breath coating my neck and making my hairs stand straight up. I close my eyes as he quickly kisses me beneath the ear. “We’ll be trying multiple.” He kisses a spot lower. “Multiple.” And lower. “Multiple times.”
Oh dear lord. I want nothing more for him to continue but I flinch away, trying one last minute attempt at self-preservation or at least clean panties.
I put my hand on his forearm, wrapping my fingers tightly around his muscle so he knows I’m being serious. He finally pulls back and looks at me. A soft look comes over his eyes. “Am I being creepy?” he asks.
I can’t help but let out a relieved laugh. There is the Linden I know.
“Kind of,” I tell him. His face falls slightly so I quickly add, “But it’s just because this is just so…this is so huge. This is huge, isn’t it?”
He cocks his head and grins, nodding his head. “Well, the ladies seem to think so.”
I roll my eyes, even though I know he is huge. He has to be. I can still feel it pressed against me.
“I’m serious,” I tell him. “One minute we’re just friends and the next…”
“The next I’m kissing you. And I realize I’ve been a fool for not doing it sooner.”
I nod, knowing just how he feels, and say, “I just don’t know what you want from me. From us.”
He frowns. “What do you want from me?”
What do I want from him? Really?
“I want,” I say slowly, thinking. I take a sip of my drink and let it roll around on my tongue. I have no choice but to be honest. “I want to know why that kiss felt so good. I want to know what else I’ve been missing.”
“That’s all I want too,” he says.
“And it’s worth risking our friendship over?”
A grave expression comes across his face and he briefly looks down the bar. “I think we’ve already risked it, baby blue. The minute we kissed and it became more than a kiss, that’s when our friendship, as we’ve known it, ended. Now we just explore the next step.” He reaches over and brushes a strand of my hair behind my ears, his touch both firm and gentle. “All of this, you and me, is brand new, you’re right. Let’s just take this one small step at a time.”
“These small steps include sex, right?” I joke and then blush even more because I can’t believe I’ve said that. I mean, I’ve joked about stuff like that before with him but now that it’s about him, about us, and it’s real, there is a potency to everything I’m saying.
He scrapes his teeth along his bottom lip and says, “I’d kiss you right now if I could, if the whole world wasn’t watching. Right on the lips. So hot and sweet you’d think I was honey. I’d make you want to drown in it.”
I have to say, I’ve never really been with a vocal man before but I’m starting to like it. A lot.
“Yeah?” I answer rather dumbly. Two cannot play at this game. I completely concede to him and decide to let him do all the talking from now on.
He leans in as if to tell me a secret. “I want nothing more than to get you out of here and bring you back to my place,” he murmurs, his voice so rough and dangerously low. “I’m going to take my time, slowly peeling off your shirt, your bra, kiss your nipples until they are so hard that you’re begging me to bite them. Then I’ll take off your jeans, inch by torturous inch, enjoying the show of your thighs before I reach your panties. I bet they’re ridiculously wet. Even right now, I bet they are soaked. I bet they’d taste good too. Then I’m going to fuck your wet pussy so good that you’ll wonder how you survived this long without me.”