by Jessie Evans
I don’t know what’s happening to me, only that I have never wanted anyone the way I want Gabe. I want him to touch me the way he did before, to feel his fingers sliding beneath the waistband of my panties, pushing inside where I’m already wet and aching for him. I should be ashamed of myself for wishing Gabe would finger me during a family dinner, but I’m not. The strength of my wanting leaves no room for shame, only desire and determination.
By the time dessert arrives—a chocolate mousse with fresh raspberries—my mind is made up. Screw the promise I forced from Gabe and all the reasons why it’s a bad idea to get in any deeper with a boy who is a walking, talking contradiction. A boy with secrets, bad habits, a wicked way with words, and a confident touch that leaves no doubt he’s way more experienced than I am.
I want him, and I’m going to have him.
I’ve spent my life putting aside my own needs and cleaning up after other people’s mistakes. I want to make a mistake of my own. I know I’m playing with fire, but right now, I don’t care.
Right now, I’m ready to beg to be burned.
The moment dinner is over, and Gabe and I have wished his parents a good night and stepped outside, I reach for his hand, squeezing his fingers tight as we walk to his car.
“I don’t want to go home,” I say, heart racing. “I want to be alone with you.”
“I’ve already thought of a place,” he says, proving we’re of like minds as he pulls me in to whisper his next words against my throat. “All I could think about the entire dinner is how much I want to taste you. I want my mouth between your legs as much as I want to keep breathing. I’m going to make you come so hard you see stars.”
I shiver, despite the hot, humid night, but before I can think of what to say, Gabe opens the passenger’s door and guides me inside the Beamer, his hand firm on my arm. Even that innocent touch is enough to make my pulse race faster.
Faster and faster, until I can hear my heart beating in my ears as we pull away from Darby Hill.
Chapter Five
Caitlin
It is a long road that has no turning. -Irish proverb
The ride to Mr. Alexander’s office seems to take forever, an eternity in which I can think of nothing but the hunger in Gabe’s voice when he said he was going to make me come so hard I’d see stars.
I can’t keep my eyes off where his hands grip the wheel—his big hands, with the wide palms and those elegant fingers. I bite my lip, remembering the way it felt to have those fingers moving inside me, belly fluttering as I wonder what it will feel like to have his mouth take their place.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to take you home?” Gabe asks, turning left toward downtown. “I don’t want to be accused of breaking my promises.”
“Do you want to take me home?”
“Hell, no,” he says, voice husky. “I want you to put your hand down your panties.”
My breath hitches. “What?”
“I want you to touch yourself,” he says, glancing my way, the heat in his eyes enough to make me feel flushed all over. “You’ve done that before, right?”
I swallow. “I’m twenty years old. What do you think?”
“Show me how you do it,” he says, slowing the car a few miles per hour, making something inside me send up a wail of frustration, angry that he’s costing us precious seconds. “Touch yourself for me, Caitlin.”
My heart lurches, and my hand trembles as I reach for the hem of my dress. I’m shocked by how turned on I am, and even more shocked that I want to obey Gabe’s order. That I want to lift my skirt up around my waist with one hand as I slip the other—slowly, slowly, knowing Gabe’s watching out of the corner of his eye as he drives—down the front of my white satin panties.
My throat tightens and my eyes slide closed as I ease my fingers through my swollen folds, feeling the molten slickness of my own arousal, trembling as one knuckle brushes over my clit, sending a ripple of excitement sweeping through me, making my nipples tighten inside my bra. A part of me is mortified that I’m doing this in front of Gabe—especially while he’s still fully dressed—but another part of me is already flying, loving the rush that sweeps through me as he curses beneath his breath. The desire in his voice makes me feel powerful, beautiful, fierce and lovely, and in touch with the most primal part of myself—like dancing, only better.
So much better.
“I can’t wait to taste you,” he says, his voice ragged.
My eyes squeeze more tightly closed, my breath coming faster as I dip my hand lower, dipping into the well of heat between my legs.
“Fuck it,” he says. “I don’t want to wait.”
His fingers close around my wrist and my eyes fly open. He tugs my hand from my panties, bringing it to his mouth, slipping my index finger between his lips and suckling, moaning as his tongue sweeps up and down, licking my arousal from my skin. The firm pressure of his tongue and the light suction of his mouth send a jolt of excitement speeding through me.
I’ve never thought of a finger as an erogenous zone, but in Gabe’s mouth, it is. It feels like every nerve-ending in my body has relocated to my finger and every one of them is celebrating being closer to Gabe’s lips, his tongue, his teeth that drag lightly over my skin as he pulls one finger from his mouth only to insert the next.
He licks me clean with a thoroughness that makes it clear he loves the way I taste before threading his fingers through mine and squeezing tight.
“This is it.” He swings the car into a deserted parking lot, into a space marked “Reserved for the Law Offices of Aaron Alexander.”
He brakes hard; my pulse leaps in my throat.
This is it. We’re here.
We slam out of the car and Gabe takes my hand, leading the way toward a white door with red trim. He punches a code into a number panel beside the door before jerking it open and half dragging me up a long, narrow flight of stairs. Our feet pound on the polished wood, mimicking the thudding of my heart against my ribs, and all of sudden, everything feels so much more real than it did in the soft darkness of the car.
I’m really here with a boy I barely know—a boy I’m not even sure I like, at least not completely—and I’m really going to let him do things to me that I’ve never let anyone do. After only a few kisses and a fake date, I’m going to tear down walls I’ve kept firmly in place for years. It’s crazy, out of character, and, if I’m not careful, I just might prove to be more like my big sister than I ever dreamed.
Anxiety dumps into my bloodstream, fear that I’m getting ready to do something I’ll regret, something I will never be able to take back, no matter how much I want to, making me freeze at the top of the stairs. I’m parting my lips to tell Gabe I’ve changed my mind when he turns, cupping my face in his hands.
“Don’t be scared,” he says, as if he can read my mind. “You can trust me.” He holds my gaze as he draws me across the room. “I swear you can.”
I catch glimpses of a small desk, a larger one, and some sort of sitting area in the far corner, but it’s hard to focus on anything but Gabe—Gabe’s lips, his breath mingling with mine, his fingertips digging lightly into my neck as we kiss.
He spins me in a half circle and the backs of my legs hit the couch, my knees almost buckling before I steady myself. “Gabe, wait I—”
“You don’t have to touch me. We don’t have to fuck,” he says, hands sliding down to squeeze my hips through my dress. “This won’t go any further than you want it to. I just want to taste you, Caitlin. I’ve been dreaming about it since that night in your friend’s car.”
Before I can tell him I’ve been dreaming about it too, his mouth covers mine and his tongue slips between my lips and we’re kissing the way Gabe and I kiss. Like it’s the last, best thing we’ll ever do. Like our lives depend on getting closer, kissing deeper; like there is nothing that matters but this moment and the pleasure we can steal from it.
Pretty soon I forget my nerves, forget the reasons this is a bad idea,
forget everything but the way he makes me feel shot through with lightning. I shove his suit coat off, digging my fingers into his shoulders as I lean back, pulling him down onto the couch. We fall onto the cool leather, Gabe on top, his hands smoothing up my bare legs as we continue to kiss like it’s the only thing that matters.
He urges my thighs around his waist and his hard on presses between my spread legs, making me cry out because it feels so good. So good, so right, so thrilling to know I’ve made him this way. I’ve cracked his cool exterior, made him crazy with wanting me, made his breath catch, and a wild, feral sound rumble low in his throat as I lift my hips, grinding my heat against him through our clothes.
He cusses against my lips and a moment later my dress is off, and my bra, too. They are simply on my body one second and gone the next, without me remembering shifting to help Gabe dispose of them.
“You’re beautiful.” He sits back on his heels, eyes flicking up and down my body, a pained expression on his face. “You really are.”
“You’re not bad yourself,” I say, reaching for his tie and working the knot free.
“No,” he says, capturing my hands in his larger one. “If I take anything else off, I won’t stop until it’s all off. And that’s not what tonight is about.”
“What is tonight about?” I ask, a shockwave of desire rocketing through me at the thought of Gabe and I naked together, though I know I’m not ready, not really, no matter what the lustful voices in my head are trying to tell me.
“It’s about convincing you I’m the best way to spend your summer.” His palms mold to my ribs as he kisses down my neck to the hollow of my throat, soft, hot kisses that make me gasp for breath and my nipples pucker in the cool, conditioned air.
He keeps trailing kisses down the center of my chest while his hands come to cup my breasts, holding one gently in each hand, carefully avoiding the places where I’m dying for him to kiss me, touch me. He continues to kiss me everywhere but there, his soft lips feathering back and forth across my ribs until my nipples are pulled so tight the sensation is almost painful.
Only then—when I’m squirming and moaning and there can be no doubt in his mind how much I crave his attention—does he take me in his mouth.
I cry out, driving my fingers into his hair and fisting tight, urging him closer as he licks and sucks and bites. Bites.
But even the biting is perfect, a flash of pain that adds to my pleasure until my breath comes fast and the world goes soft and red at the edges and there is nothing but his mouth and his tongue and the way I ache for him, burn for him, need him to spread me wide and do whatever he wants to do to me as long as he takes the ache away.
“Please, Gabe,” I breathe, clawing at his shoulders. “Please.”
“Please what?” he says, flicking his tongue across my nipple, making me flinch and cry out again. “You know what I like, Caitlin. You know I like you to beg for it.”
“Please fuck me with your mouth,” I say, the words spilling out without hesitation or anger. I’m too far gone to care what he wants me to do, so long as he gives me what I need. “Please make me come, Gabe, please. Please!”
“Lift your hips,” he says, his voice tight as his fingers fist in the sides of my panties.
I obey and Gabe makes my underwear vanish and then he is between my legs, spreading my thighs with his warm hands, mumbling something I can’t make out, but that sounds pained and reverent and sweet all at the same time.
As sweet as the first kiss he places to the center of me, one sweet, warm, tender kiss that threatens to unravel me completely. And then the kiss becomes a swirl of his tongue and sparks shoot from my core, sizzling across my skin, and my head feels like it’s going to float right off my body and there is no more “me” to unravel, only a quivering mass of heat and need that arches closer to Gabe’s mouth, shamelessly begging for what I crave.
I bite my lip and squeeze my eyes shut, not knowing what to do with all the things he’s making me feel, all the sensation and emotion and the fear that I’m spiraling so far out of control I may never be the same again.
I only know that this is beautiful and wicked and perfect and I’m higher than I’ve ever been before. Higher than when Isaac and I sneak Irish whiskey into the midnight movie in his flask. Higher than the times I used to smoke up with Aoife, back when I was thirteen and she was seventeen and I wanted so badly to be grown up, to be old enough to start my own big adventure, the way she had started hers.
But my big adventure never came.
Instead I got big responsibility and bigger bills and the weight of an entire family on my shoulders when I was still too young to vote. Instead, I got to lock up all my longing for new things and fresh experiences and stick to choices that were safe for my family.
Now, that’s all falling apart, my resolve crumbling to pieces in this man’s hands. Now, there is Gabe and his kiss and his smile and the way he looks at me like I’m the most beautiful, fascinating thing he’s ever seen. Gabe, who dreams about giving me pleasure, and is more than delivering on his promise to make me see stars.
By the time he cups my bottom in his hands and pulls me even closer, burying his face between my legs with a moan, I’m so close to the edge that the slight vibration is enough to send me over. I come with a ragged cry, back arching as I reach down to fist my hands in his hair, holding him close as my orgasm rips through me in long, rending waves, tightening my belly until it almost hurts, but doesn’t because this is exactly what I needed.
I float back to earth so blissed out I hardly know who I am. I can’t remember the last time I felt so stress free, so light and happy and flat out thrilled to be alive. And it’s all because of him.
Him. Gabe, the boy who’s shattered my carefully ordered world, and is cradling me amongst the wreckage.
Chapter Six
Caitlin
Face the sun, but turn your back to the storm. –Irish proverb
“I want to see that smile every day.” Gabe’s voice penetrates the pleasure haze, making my eyes flick open.
I glance down between my thighs to see Gabe pushed up onto his elbows, watching me with an intensity that’s unnerving, especially considering I’m still spread wide in front of him. I cross my arms self-consciously over my breasts and start to bring my legs together, but he stops me with two fingers on my right thigh.
“Don’t,” he says softly. “Not yet.”
I let my thigh fall slowly back open, shocked to find a hint of desire whispering through me as I move. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible to get turned on again after coming so hard my bones are still mush, but apparently…
“I want to make you come every day, at least once a day,” he continues, tracing a lazy pattern on my thigh with his fingertip. “I want to give you the best summer of your life, and by the end of it, I want you to have enough money that you won’t have to work when you go back to school.”
“Why?” I ask, my voice deeper, huskier. “Why do you want to help me?”
“Because I like you.” He meets my gaze, a vulnerable look in his eyes that makes me think he’s telling the truth. “I think you’re smart and kind and hard-working and the sort of person who deserves better than the hand you’ve been dealt.” His lips lift on one side in a lopsided smile. “And you’ve got a delicious naughty side, and I like stealing things with you.”
I take a deep breath, trying to think clearly despite the fact that I’m naked and the feel of Gabe’s fingers teasing across my thigh is making me tingle all over. “What’s in it for you? Aside from the fact that you get off on breaking the law?”
“I also get off on turning the tables,” he says. “On lifting someone like you up, while tearing the bad guys down.”
He pauses, gaze shifting back between my legs. “And I get off on you. It’s killing me not to be inside you right now.”
I try to bring my knees together again, but he stops me with a hand on each thigh, spreading me wider, making my breath catch.
“No,” he whispers. “Stay. I like it.”
“You like to torture yourself?”
“Sometimes.” He sighs, a sad sound. “But next time I want more, even though I know it’s a bad idea.”
“It is,” I agree. “For me. But I thought one night stands were your thing.”
“Where did you hear that?” he asks, looking amused.
I cross my arms farther, covering more of my bare chest. “Sherry did some asking around at the club. Her friend tends bar there. He said you leave with a different girl every time you come in.”
“Not since the night I left with you,” he says.
My eyebrows pull together, and I do my best to ignore the way my pulse is picking up, responding to the feel of his thumbs pressing into my thighs. “So what? I’m supposed to believe you’re falling for me, or something?”
“Maybe” he says in a humorless tone. “Which is stupid because I can’t get involved with anyone right now. And I can’t promise you more than the summer, no matter how much I might want to.”
“I never asked you to promise me anything,” I say, so flustered I don’t know what else to say.
A part of me is glad tonight means more to him than just another one night stand—it certainly does to me. I’m not in love by any stretch, but I had fun with Gabe tonight. I enjoyed hanging out with him and could quickly become addicted to his kisses, his touch, to the way he makes me feel beautiful and special and able to relax and let go for the first time in my life. He’s unpredictable, but I feel safe when he touches me.
Considering he’s the most dangerous thing to enter my life since Aoife ran off, taking her drug dealer connections with her, it makes no sense, but it’s true. I feel safe with Gabe, and even safer knowing all he wants is the summer. I can’t very well turn into my sister or mom if Gabe’s leaving at the end of August.