In the Raw

by Eileen Griffin

  The look on his face morphed from confusion to shock.

  I sucked in a breath when I realized what he thought I meant. “I’ve been with guys. I’m just not...out. To my parents. Shit, Ethan. They still think I’m straight even though I haven’t looked at a girl since third grade. My mother still tries to set me up with vapid socialites she deems acceptable to carry on the Lassiter name.”

  He settled his hands on his hips and rested against the counter. “Why do you care what they think? You shouldn’t have to hide who you are. I’m out and no one gives a shit one way or another.” The anger in his voice grew more tangible with each word he spoke.

  I sighed and leaned back against the counter next to him. “You don’t get it. You’re you. You’re not afraid of anything or anyone. My parents are overbearing, micromanaging assholes. Trust me, I get it. But they’re still my parents. I’ve been trying for as long as I can remember to make them proud of me but it’s never enough. I just don’t know how much longer I can keep it up when I feel like a part of me is dying.”

  He opened his mouth to interrupt but I turned toward him and held up my hand. “Hear me out. I’m not like you. I wish I didn’t care what people thought about me, but I do. Being around you makes me want more. And I’m trying, believe me. But I need time to talk to them in person before Reed can show them the picture. Can you understand that? I want to be the one to tell them. Not Reed, but me.”

  He was silent for a few painful seconds as he stared at me with a mixture of sadness and pain. When he did speak, it was in a low voice. “Does this mean you don’t want us to see each other outside of school? I can’t be around you all the time and pretend I don’t...” He closed his eyes and scrubbed at his face in frustration. ”Anyone who looks at us can see how much I want you.”

  I stared as he rambled on, his expression fierce.

  “I don’t want your name or your money or a job with your dad’s company. I’m a temperamental bastard and most of the time I don’t know why you and Claire put up with me. I’ve never met anyone who could wind me up like you can and you’re the only person I can’t stop thinking about. I want you more than I ever expected to. I have no idea where this is going or what’s going to happen past tomorrow. But I’ll be damned if I let Reed Jackson or anyone else fuck this up before it’s even begun.”

  I felt my heart pound hard at his words and warmth flooded my chest. “Ethan? You’re rambling.”

  He sent me his death glare. “Crap, Lassiter,” he snarled, “I’m trying to bare my soul to you like a civilized human being and you’re telling me to shut up? Christ almighty, you drive me crazy.”

  I felt the barest hint of a smile quirk my lips. It felt good to hear the words.

  “Ask me again what I want, Ethan,” I said softly.

  He stepped closer. “What do you want?”

  “You. I want you.”

  He closed his eyes, letting out a relieved breath. “Thank God. I was worried you were going to steal my dumbass move and run.” He pulled me close, wrapped his arms around my waist and buried his face in my neck.

  “You are kind of an idiot, Martin. That was some kiss you bailed on.” My voice was laced with amusement. I chuckled when he groaned and squeezed me tighter. “I never figured you for a cuddler.”

  He murmured against my skin. “I don’t think I’ve ever been one before. Don’t tell anyone. I have a reputation as a menial labor whore to keep up.”

  He tilted his head back and gave me the smallest of smiles. When my body finally relaxed against his, he loosened his hold. He groaned when he glimpsed the messy workstation we’d demolished behind me. “Oops?”

  He laughed, releasing his hold on me completely as he went to pick up one of the bowls we knocked over. “My cake is completely destroyed and my concentration is shot.”

  I picked up the cake tin off the floor and shook my head. “It would have been a perfect cake too. How about I help you clean up and we do one more practice run, together? Then you can buy me lunch. But no bars. No chicken wings. And no one else. Just you and me?”

  “What? Like a date?” he asked almost shyly. Had no one ever asked him out before?

  “Of course. You think you can charm your way into my bed without a real date first?”

  He set down the bowl he’d been holding. I smiled when he hooked his fingers through my belt loops to pull my body flush against his. Slowly, he leaned forward and captured my lips in a soft, sensual kiss. The frantic need to feel skin against skin was replaced by this simple moment of honest attraction and desire. As my body gently pressed against his, I felt all the confusion, hurt and tension of the past twelve hours fade away. I allowed myself to feel what I’d been craving since I’d first laid eyes on him. He slowly stroked my tongue with his as I ran my hands up to his neck. I felt his smile against my lips before he broke the kiss and bumped his forehead against mine.

  “That should have been our first kiss. No confusion. No indecision. And no running.”

  I tilted my head back to smile back at him. “Thank God, there’s no running. But I have to disagree. Our first kiss? In-fucking-credible.”

  He looked at me in shock before letting his head fall back as he roared with laughter. “Golden Boy has a golden tongue. In more ways than one. You never cease to amaze me.”

  I grinned sheepishly at him and ducked out of his arms to begin clearing up the disaster we’d made before Reed’s interruption. I’d have to deal with him and my parents soon. But not today. Today, I simply wanted to enjoy this moment with Ethan. No one, not even Reed Jackson, was going to screw this up.

  I stacked the dirty bowls and cocked an eyebrow at Ethan. “Ready to do this?”

  He paused while wiping down the counter and gave me his trademark smirk. “Let’s get this show on the road. The clock’s ticking and I have lunch to pay for.”

  I tossed a dirty washcloth at him as I grabbed some fresh supplies. “And then some, Martin. I have a feeling you’ll be paying all day long.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Ethan

  I sat across from Jamie, my foot bouncing impatiently under the diner’s table as he ordered lunch. He looked up from his menu at the waitress standing by our table and smiled.

  “I’ll have a Monte Cristo with fries, please.”

  His smile faded when I dumped more sugar into my iced tea. I jammed my straw in the glass and stirred roughly, too keyed up to sit still. “B.L.A.T., please. Extra avocado, extra bacon, sweet potato fries.” I rattled off my usual, raising an eyebrow when he smirked. “What?”

  “You have this intense look on your face right now. What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking... You don’t even want to know what I’m thinking.” I looked down at the paper straw wrapper, twisting it between my fingers. Like how inappropriate it might be to blow you under the table and how much bail would be.

  “You’ve been kicking my foot since we got here.” Amused, he slid his hand across the table. The touch of his fingers drawing lazy circles over my palm instantly calmed me. I let out a deep breath.

  “You okay?” His look of concern grounded me further.

  “Yeah, I’m okay. But if you stop touching me, I may be forced to crawl under the table.”

  Jamie chuckled and squeezed my hand. “Yeah? Did you drop something?”

  “Something like that,” I muttered as the waitress stopped at our table long enough to refill Jamie’s water and top off my drink. As soon as he let go of my hand to scoot his glass closer, my foot started bouncing again.

  Longest. Lunch. Ever. Why I’d agreed with his asinine plan when we could be naked right now, I had no clue. It’s not like I didn’t enjoy spending time with Jamie, but I worried about screwing up the dating thing. Sex I could do. I knew I could make him crazy and right now I couldn’t focus on anythin
g but the idea of making him feel good.

  “Ethan?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re doing it again.”

  I let out an exasperated breath. “Look, I know I said a date would be awesome. And it is. I mean, I should be thinking of lunch and just be happy to be with you. But instead, all I can think about at the moment is getting inside you as quickly as humanly possible.”

  Jamie stared at me, his mouth opening and closing in shock as a red flush spread over his cheeks and down his neck. Without saying another word he dug out his wallet, slapped two twenties down on the table and stood up. He grabbed my hand and dragged me from the restaurant, only pausing to shove me against his car for another round of groping and one of the best kisses of my life.

  Twenty minutes and the longest car ride known to man later, I was finally where I’d ached to be for three long years. Sandwiched between a wall and an equally needy Jamie. My moan echoed in the hallway outside his condo. His hungry mouth on mine grew rougher as I distracted him while he tried to get his keys out of his pocket. I shoved my hands down the back of his jeans as he pushed me harder against the wall with his hips. Beyond caring we were still outside and in plain sight of anyone who might walk by, I dug my fingers into his ass and he shuddered against me.

  When he pulled back to pant for breath, I bit his lip sharply and shot him a wicked grin. I slid my hands out of his jeans up to his back, groaning in frustration when my fingers ghosted over the rough material of his shirt. “Jesus, Lassiter. You have way too many clothes on.”

  His eyes narrowed as he stared at me, face flushed and lips swollen from our kisses. “You do realize we’re still outside my condo, right?”

  “Details.”

  He finally pulled his keys out of his pocket, almost dropping them as he cursed impatiently. I shifted, our bodies slamming into the door in a tangle of groping hands and hungry mouths.

  He broke free long enough to jam the key into the lock. As soon as the door swung open, I shoved him inside, kicking the door closed with my foot. I tugged his jacket down his arms, pulling back from his mouth only long enough to tear my sweatshirt over my head. Nothing was going to stop me from feeling him bare against me.

  I tugged at his T-shirt impatiently and growled. His hands fell flat against my chest and he pushed me back. We stared at each other, both breathing unsteadily. Even through the shirt I still had on, I could feel the heat radiating off his body. The slight tremor in his hands sent my need into overdrive. “Take. This. Off,” I growled.

  “Bossy,” he murmured. His heavy-lidded eyes looked amused until I tugged my own shirt over my head and tossed it onto the floor. I crossed my arms waiting for him to follow. Jamie licked his lips as I stared him down.

  “Take it off. Or I’ll take it off for you.”

  He slowly raised his hands to the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head. The faint light coming from the kitchen illuminated his bare chest and shoulders. I had to touch and taste his pale skin and lean muscles. Stripped down like this, reduced to a basic level, Jamie Lassiter was beyond beautiful.

  I tugged him close by his belt loops and ran my hands over his chest. My palms followed the sprinkling of hair that trailed down over his flat stomach to his waistband. The heat from his skin calmed all the nervous energy I’d felt earlier. All the static and jumbled thoughts disappeared. As I held him close, all I could think about was the fact I was finally standing in Jamie Lassiter’s apartment. He stared at me like he’d won some kind of damn prize when it was me who’d won. Overwhelmed, I sighed and pulled him closer. I am in so much trouble.

  “You okay?” he asked softly.

  “Yeah. So much better than okay.” I brushed my lips over his, moaning when he deepened the kiss and closed the distance between us. His height made us equals, something I loved. I’d been with both men and women, but nothing was as sexy as how this man felt against my body. I didn’t have to stoop down for a kiss, worry about being too rough, or temper my strength with Jamie. We were equals.

  When he slid his hands up my arms, I shivered when his thumbs traced my ink lightly. The graze of his fingers across the crease of my elbow raised goose bumps.

  “You have no idea how much I’ve wanted to touch you,” he said softly. When he bent his head to brush his lips over my collarbone, I leaned into him, needing to feel as much of his skin as possible. I rubbed my thumbs over his nipples as he shivered and made a low sound in his throat. My skin heated and my jeans felt impossibly tight. I made him feel like this.

  “You have no fucking idea how much I’ve wanted to taste you,” I murmured as my lips traced his ear. My teeth tugged at his earlobe as his breath stuttered. His arms slid around my neck, pulling me closer. “Delicious,” I purred as he dug his fingers into my hair and tugged gently. I pressed wet kisses down his neck, breathing in his clean scent.

  “Jesus, Ethan.” He groaned and ground his hips against me. I slid my hands down to cup his ass, boosting Jamie to sit on the small table next to the door. Avoiding a lamp and a pile of unopened mail, I stepped between his jeans-covered legs. He tipped my face up to his and his mouth slammed onto mine as the table rocked under us with a squeak.

  “Are you trying to drive me crazy?” he panted when we finally broke the kiss to breathe. His hands dug into my hips as I rocked against him. “When you kiss me I can’t think straight.”

  A low, amused sound left my throat as I slid my hands down his sides, thumbs tracing his ribs. I smirked and brushed my lips over the constellation of freckles scattered across the top of his shoulder. “Welcome to my life. Since I saw you I’ve been a walking hard-on.”

  He laughed, the low husky sound sending a shiver down my spine. “Have you seen yourself? You’re the walking ad for bad boys everywhere. The ink? The piercings? The don’t-give-a-shit-what-anyone-thinks attitude?”

  I pulled back to look at his face. Really look, beyond the eye-fucking I’d been doing since he’d found me earlier at school. Jamie’s usually tamed hair was mussed from my burrowing fingers, the short blond strands sticking up. His eyes, dark and heavy lidded with desire as he looked at me, were beyond anything I could have imagined. His swollen lips from our kisses and the flush covering his cheeks deepened when I pulled back.

  “I give a shit when it’s important. You’re important. You know that, right?” I wondered aloud. He shuddered and closed his eyes, letting out a deep breath. “This is pretty fucking important.”

  When he opened them again the look in his eyes, fire and heat and so many nameless things I’d never seen before, burned brighter.

  “And then you say something like that. Come here,” he murmured, sliding his hands up to cup my face as his thumbs rubbed over my stubble-roughened jaw. He kissed me with new purpose, lips desperate as he gripped my thighs with his knees. My needy groan echoed his as I felt his cock grind against my stomach.

  I took a deep breath to steady myself as I dipped my face down to nip the join of his shoulder and neck. After years of only taking what I’d wanted on my terms in empty one-night stands, I wanted more. I wanted to make him crazy, give him pleasure and watch him lose his quiet control.

  I wanted Jamie Lassiter naked, writhing and moaning my name.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Jamie

  If I kept a running list of things I never pictured happening, today would be top of the list. Watching the top of Ethan Martin’s crazy mess of black hair move down my chest as his mouth left heated, wet kisses would’ve been another.

  His teeth tugged on my nipple and sent a shock of pleasure through my body as my hips bucked hard. My embarrassingly loud moan had him smiling against my skin as he slid his hands down my body to dig his fingers into my jeans, which sat low on my hips. God, had anything ever felt this good? I’d had a few quick, fumbling experiences with a couple of guys during my first y
ear in school but nothing had ever come close.

  I expected frantic heat, hungry hands and desperation after his words in the diner. I felt all of these things and more as he kissed down my abs. I hadn’t expected this overwhelming need to be tempered with gentleness, however. The way Ethan touched me was almost reverent. A wet kiss to my navel sent heat curling through my stomach as he tugged at my belt, pulling my body to the edge of the table. A needy Ethan was a sight to behold. His hands shook as he moved, the sight pushing down any nerves. I made him feel like this, desperate and hungry.

  “What do you want?” His voice was rough as he kissed my exposed skin and unbuttoned my jeans.

  What did I want? You. Just you. Now. All of you. Not just this, which felt amazing. I wanted everything from him. Not just his body but his heart.

  All rational thought left my brain when he turned his head, nuzzling my dick through the soft fabric of my boxers.

  “Shit.” I grunted, arching to brace myself against the wall. My flailing arm knocked the lamp and it shattered on the floor.

  “Whoops. Hope it wasn’t a fancy antique.” Amused, he held my gaze as his lips grazed the tip of my dick where it poked up past the waistband of my boxers.

  “Don’t worry about the lamp,” I said as he pulled the waistband down and reached inside to cup my balls. I curled my body over his as a shock of pleasure shot through me. Every single encounter I’d had thus far had been quick and clinical, the bare amount of contact to get both of us off. Ethan touched me like no one else had, his hands greedy to feel every part of me. I slid my hands into his hair, tugging gently as he kissed the underside of my length. “It’s an ugly...” I moaned. “Fucking.” My moan turned ragged. “Lamp.”

  I tightened my fingers in his hair, breath catching with frustration at his mischievous look as he dragged his tongue from base to tip.

  “Ethan,” I moaned, my breathing ragged. No one had ever reduced me to this mindless need. With him I didn’t feel self-conscious. I didn’t feel the anxiety I’d felt before when I’d feared someone might discover I was with another man. Every single thought I had was focused on how he slowly drove me crazy.