When The Stars Align

by Jeanette Grey

  And his mouth—fuck, his mouth.

  She scraped her teeth over the wet flesh of his lip, anticipation and need crashing and combining in her abdomen, twisting together and shooting off sparks. The points of her breasts flashed hot.

  And just like that, she couldn’t take it anymore.

  After all this time, inching closer and closer to each other but never quite getting there, she was ready to wreck him. Couldn’t wait to get her hands on every inch of his gorgeous body, wanted to ride him until he screamed. Finally get that fullness and satisfaction to ease the ache that had been building and building. When she was done with him, she’d have him covered in bite marks and scratches and come. And—

  Shit. She tore herself away from him, shifting the hand on the back of his neck to his chest to shove at him, stealing an inch of space for herself so she could fucking think.

  That was the kind of stuff she did with her one-night stands. She picked guys who looked like they were ready for it, and she never made any pretense about what she was after. It never really mattered what they thought of it, anyway, because hell if she ever planned on seeing them again. But Adam was different. That night she’d tried to kiss him, he’d held her off with so much passion in his eyes. Everything about him had said that if they went down this road, he’d be looking for more.

  And even if it was just one night—for these next five weeks, they’d be living and eating and sleeping and working within spitting distance of each other. Manning a telescope together, their advisors and all these people here gossiping about them.

  She had to stop. Had to slow down.

  Except slowing down seemed to be the last thing Adam had in mind.

  His gaze was molten in the darkness, his eyes hooded, and he didn’t let her get very far. “God, Jo. I want—” He bit off the word, the same way she’d been nipping her own desires in the bud.

  It made her breath catch in her throat. “Yeah?”

  “I want you. So much.” His fingers flexed against her hip, like he wanted to hold her even more tightly but wasn’t allowing himself to. “I’ve been thinking about it. The whole time, ever since I got on that plane to come back here.” He shook his head. “Since the first time I saw you. I’ve tried not to, but I couldn’t help it. What I want to do to you—what I want you to do to me…”

  There was a hitch in his voice as he said that last part, and a flare of heat licked between Jo’s legs. Maybe they were on the same page after all.

  “Tell me all about it,” she said, tugging him down into a kiss that was even wetter and deeper than the first.

  It was a bitch move, because it wasn’t as if she gave him a chance to get much more than a word or a grunt out as she sucked on his tongue. With a hand wrapped in the fabric of his T-shirt, she tugged him along, walking backward toward his house. He got with the program fast, quickening their pace as he advanced. When she stumbled over a bit of uneven ground, he knocked her breath from her lungs by catching her. His hands slid from her sides to her hips to her ass, then lower, and she shrieked as he pulled her against him, lifted her up.

  And damn but she could get into that. With a hop, she let him take her weight. Clutched her binder with one arm and clung to his neck with the other. Folded her legs around his waist to put all of him in contact with all of her, and she ground against him, bracing herself against how sparklingly, impossibly good that felt. He was hard beneath his clothes, and big, too, from the feel of it, and all her plans were back on the table.

  “The things I’m going to do to you . . .” she mumbled, kissing her way to his ear, where she rasped her teeth against the lobe.

  He lengthened his strides, a raw noise tearing out of his throat.

  Clearly the man wasn’t a virgin. But there was something about the way he responded to her, a lack of artifice to the way he pressed into her touch, groaned and panted and made all these perfect little sounds… It made her feel like she was breaking him in. Like she was taking the cover off a cherry ride and finally giving that engine of his a chance to go.

  In a feat of coordination and strength that was way, way hotter than it had any right to be, he managed to get the front door to the guys’ house open without dropping her or hardly even jostling her.

  “Jesus fucking—” she started, kicking the door closed behind them.

  He cut her off with a stifled laugh and kiss and muttered, “Shh,” against her lips. “Tom’ll hear.”

  She didn’t really give a shit what his housemate did or didn’t hear while they were fucking, but she wasn’t the one who had to live with the guy, so she showed a little mercy, working to stay quiet while pushing her hips into his with intent. A perverse pleasure, but a pleasure all the same when she managed to make him whine, and louder than he meant to if his bitten-off curse was any indication.

  He hurried them down the hall. The instant he had them in his room, he slammed her up against the door, shifting a hand away from her ass to flick on the light. She blinked hard at the shock of brightness.

  The sudden vision of this man, all flushed skin and sinful lips, blond hair and eyes that she suddenly couldn’t read.

  He tore her binder from her and tossed it on the floor. His forearm slapped against the door beside her head, and she startled. There was a growl to his voice as he said, “You are so… fucking…”

  And she couldn’t help it. Her mind supplied all the words that should go with that. Bitchy, difficult, stubborn, such a pain in my…

  “Hot,” he finally finished.

  Just like that, it wasn’t any mystery at all to read his gaze. Their eyes had had time to adjust to the light, but his pupils were still huge, his nostrils flaring, and there wasn’t any mistaking the way he pinned her with his hips. That insistent hardness there, pressing exactly where she wanted it to be.

  But it wasn’t just sex, the way he was looking at her. Sex would have been easy. He had to go ahead and make it tender, too.

  “So sexy,” he said, his tone warm, fingers gentle as he ran them through the blue and black strands that had fallen into her eyes. “Your hair.” His hand drifted down, the broad pad of his thumb sliding across her bottom lip. “Your mouth.” He leaned in to kiss her. His teeth tugged at her piercing, and it sent lightning coursing all the way to her clit. “And this.” Stroking the tendrils of ink that crept above the neckline of her shirt, he kissed her deeper. “Teasing me all this time.”

  Maybe it was a fetish. Maybe this clean-cut, all-American guy had a thing for a girl with a little bite.

  But it didn’t feel like that. Not then.

  The reverence in his touch brushed against something she kept locked too deeply away, and she squirmed against the way it threatened to break free. She hitched herself up higher against his hips and looked him straight in the eye. Made her tone drip sex when that was only the beginning of it.

  “Maybe it’s about time it finally stopped teasing you, then, huh?”

  He paused for a second, and she held her breath. But then he grinned. Warm and open as he let her deflect. “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds so good.”

  With a little grunt, he heaved her back off the door again, supporting her weight as he turned and stumbled the half dozen feet or so to the bed. He dropped her onto it before climbing up himself, settling his knees to either side of her thighs, bracing himself on his arms so he hovered above her. Christ, his eyes were blue, his mouth red and bitten. It’d look amazing between her legs, his chin slick with her.

  Who was she kidding?

  It’d look amazing just about anywhere.

  Still smiling, he dipped to kiss her, drifting a hand down the length of her torso. When his palm curved around her breast, she closed her eyes, feeling her nipples constrict. Feeling the way he paused at what he found there.

  “No way.” He said it under his breath, but there wasn’t any missing it. Her lips curled up despite herself. If he liked the ink and the hoop through her lip, he was going to lose his shit over this.

  �
��Way,” she countered.

  Taking it for the permission it was, he scrambled to shove her shirt up. She helped him get it off, raising her arms, pulling her overshirt and tank top away as one. He leaned in to press his mouth to the center of her ribs, wet, sucking kisses that had an urgency to them, just like the nudges of his dick against her hip. When he peeled the edge of her bra down and got up close and personal with the barbell through her nipple, he groaned aloud.

  “You like?” she guessed, running her fingers through his hair as he stared.

  He buried his face against her chest. “Fuck. If I’d known this was under here, too…”

  She laughed. When had sex ever been this fun? When had a partner taken this kind of joy in looking? Touching? Discovering?

  When had she ever let them?

  Lifting his gaze, he circled the hardened peak of her tit with his finger. “Can I?”

  She gestured helplessly, because seriously? Was this guy for real? “Be my guest.”

  He made another little noise that threatened to turn her inside out and cupped her flesh, shifting to get his mouth on her, and Jesus. She let her head fall as heat zipped down her spine, another rough surge of wetness making her ready to move this all along already. She didn’t want to rush him or anything, but she was dying here.

  Without dislodging his mouth or interrupting that thing he was doing with his tongue, she shifted to prop herself up on one elbow, reaching behind herself to undo the clasp of her bra. She flopped back down and pulled the straps off her arms, and he seemed to like that even better, helping to tug the thing off before sucking her piercing between his lips again.

  She’d always been a fan of equality, though, both between the sexes and between her breasts. Her nipple was getting oversensitive, so she redirected him to her other one. He went at it with nearly the same enthusiasm, if perhaps a bit less curiosity. Arching into the warmth of those probing lips, she ran her hands down the length of his spine until she could get at the hem of his top. With what seemed like real reluctance, he separated himself from her flesh long enough to let her get his shirt over his head. But when he made to dip toward her tits once more, she rolled her eyes and stopped him, pressing a palm to his chest.

  His big, broad, rippling chest.

  “Uh-uh,” she tutted. “No fair. My turn. I wanna see.”

  It shouldn’t have been possible for him to smirk and seem shy all at the same time, but Adam managed it. Like he knew exactly how good he looked—and he damn well should, considering how hard he must have worked for it—but like he was self-conscious about it anyway.

  She hummed, running her hands over his pectorals, tracing the lines of tight abdominals with her fingers. “Yeah.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You pass inspection.” She gave his side a teasing slap and pulled him down toward her mouth. As he kissed her, nice and wet with tongue, he cupped her curves, tweaking the barbell he seemed to like so much between his forefinger and his thumb. She laughed. “That is really doing it for you, isn’t it?”

  “You have no idea.”

  Actually, she had some, because she’d developed a brand-new kink in the time since he’d pulled off his shirt. As they kissed and kissed, she ran her palms over miles of perfect skin. Smooth muscles and shoulders, damp with sweat. A smattering of hair between his nipples and trailing down toward the good stuff.

  She cupped his ass and pulled him against her, and he got over his preoccupation with her boobs faster than she’d thought he would, releasing her nipple to slam his palm into the mattress. Steadying himself as he ground his hips into hers.

  “Oh,” he groaned into her mouth. He trailed a hand down her side, slipping fingertips into the waistband of her shorts. Finally. “Can I?”

  “Carte blanche,” she assured him. “If there’s something I don’t like, I promise you’ll know about it.”

  He snickered as he opened the button and pulled her zipper down. “Really? Considering how we met, I find that kind of hard to believe.”

  “Sarcasm? Now?”

  “What better time?”

  And then she wasn’t laughing anymore as he dipped his fingers into her underwear.

  Roommate or no, she had managed to squirrel away the occasional pocket of time to take care of herself, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Her body felt like it was on a knife’s edge from the first blunt nudge of his fingertips against her clit. Just that glancing touch was so slippery and slick, and she was gasping for it.

  “That’s right,” he said, soft and low against her throat. His other hand plucked at her piercing, turning her into a shivering mess in the sultry air. “Though you might have to give me some directions here.”

  “Want me to draw you a map?”

  He chuckled, leaning in closer, and the rush of breath across the row of studs through her ear had another burst of electricity winding her tighter. “Think I know the general lay of the land.” He proved it, too, rubbing with just the right amount of pressure, wringing another cry out of her—too loud, but she couldn’t help it. “But feel free to point out any specifics.”

  He shifted, changing the angle of his wrist so he could get a finger up inside, and oh, her own furtive efforts to take the edge off had never been this good. His thumb stroked her clit, and she sucked in a breath.

  “Harder. Rub—”

  Fuck, the boy took direction well.

  “Yes,” she moaned. She clutched one hand in his hair, had the other on his arm, begging him, pleading with him through her touch to stay right there, just there… “Adam—”

  Her voice broke off in a rasping curse as her body snapped, pleasure flowing through her in waves, an echoing void like delirium blanking her vision to everything. He nursed her through it, keeping close as she came back to earth. Shifting over to kiss her mouth, nice and soft and wet and slow.

  “Jesus,” she panted, trying to catch her breath, releasing her hold on him to let her hands flop beside her head on the pillow. “Damn I needed that.”

  Adam chuckled, nosing at her cheek and pressing gentle kisses to the spot beneath her ear. He was pretty sure he’d needed that, too. Sure, he was still hard enough to pound nails, and he hoped like hell there was going to be a second act. But it’d been so long since he’d had this. Not just sex, but a chance to be close to someone, to touch and be touched. He’d missed it.

  That he was getting to do this with Jo only made it better.

  God. That first day of the program, he’d tried to describe what it had been like to meet her. His fascination had been clear from the beginning, and Jared had seen it on his face. He’d asked Adam if she was cute, and Adam had frowned, told him she was more hot than pretty.

  How had he been so wrong?

  Lying here beside him, naked to the waist and with her shorts undone, she was beautiful. Her body was lean and wiry and yet still soft in all the right places. Strong. Small firm breasts that fit perfectly in the palm of his hand, and the metal. The ink.

  It made him a little dizzy, looking at it all, made his cock throb. When he’d first seen the barbell through her nipple, he’d been ready to lose it against her thigh. He loved the bite of her lip ring against his tongue. He hadn’t had a chance yet to get a good look at her back, but he was going to, goddammit. The marks on her neck didn’t connect to anything on her front—all that flesh was clean and smooth. He could just imagine the tattoo that must run the length of her spine, though…

  But it wasn’t even just that. Jo was always so careful, so coiled. She hid herself away. He didn’t have any illusions that she was showing him everything now, but there was an openness to her he’d never seen before. It felt like he was getting closer. Like the secret core of her lay but a few layers deeper. And he’d peel them all away. Coax her apart with his lips and hands, if she’d let him.

  Slipping his fingers free from the soft, wet warmth inside her, he grinned. “Glad I could be of service.”

  “No, seriously.” Her eyes were glazed in a way
that filled him with pride. “You don’t understand. I have a roommate. Do you know how hard it is to get a minute to yourself when you have to share a room with someone?”

  Actually, he did. His first two years of college, he’d taken an awful lot of long showers.

  Then he stopped. Thought about what she’d really said and had to stifle a groan against her cheek. The vision of her touching herself, forcing herself to climax did it for him the same way her piercings did. She wouldn’t be easy on herself, either, would she? Wouldn’t take the time to enjoy it.

  And then she made it even worse. “I mean it. My vibrator is so lonely. It’s crying in my underwear drawer right now.”

  “Fuck.” It was almost a whimper.

  She hesitated for a second. When she spoke again, it was with a flirty edge to her tone. “That really gets you going, huh?”

  “You have no idea.” And this was stupid, but… “Don’t suppose you’d let me see that sometime, would you? You, uh, using that?”

  She laughed, a free, wild sound. “Crap. You’re a dirty fucker underneath it all, aren’t you?”

  “What can I say?” he panted. “I like what I like.” And he was learning all kinds of things about what that was right now.

  Needing a second to recover from the image of her working a toy between her legs, he rolled over onto his back, the heated skin of his spine hitting a stretch of mercifully cool sheets. She came right along with him and fit herself to his side. And screw getting a minute to put himself together. It probably shouldn’t have surprised him, but she dove in without any preamble. Reached over to wrap her hand around his cock through his clothes, and he shuddered all over. The sudden, unexpected touch punched a sound of need out of his lungs.

  “And what would you like me to do with this?” she asked, giving him a rough stroke.

  “Anything you want to.” And he meant it, by God. She could just jerk him off, and he’d be happy. And if she wanted to give him more than that—wanted to let him feel her mouth or take him inside—it would be gravy.