Pulling into traffic, I start toward her place. “Thought I was going to have to take another jabby finger-beating for sneaking that kiss.”
I catch the roll of her eyes and then change lanes.
“What? No. That kiss was nice. Like you said, perfect boyfriend kiss.”
“I’ve got skills, babe.”
We’re stopped for a light when I glance over, ready for whatever cut-down she’s about to deliver to my ego. But there’s something in the way she turns away that puts my spidey senses on alert.
“What’s with that look?” Shit, maybe she really did think my kiss was bad. That first time I wasn’t fucking trying. But that kiss tonight was nice. Better than nice. Hell, it was harder than I’d expected to stop because it was so nice. “You still think I suck at kissing.”
“What?” she croaks, then covers her face with her hands. “Umm… no. You definitely don’t suck.”
“So what’s with all… this?” I wave my hand in front of her face.
A deep breath and then she’s adjusting in her seat so she’s facing me more. “God, like your ego really needs any more inflating.”
Now she’s got my attention. “It really does. Just one more pump, please.”
I’m being an ass, but she loves me anyway. And I want to know what’s up. After a little huff of breath, she looks out the windshield and sighs. “Your kiss is actually so very good, I was maybe a little… disappointed The Blip left after the first one.”
This time it’s my brow pushing up. I sit a little straighter. “Why’s that?”
Yeah, I know. But I want to hear her say it.
Instead I get a swat on the arm and her muttering under her breath.
Damn, she’s cute.
“Sorry, missed that. What were you saying?”
Swat, swat.
“So you were hoping for another taste of the good stuff before we left the bar. One not-quite-real kiss and you’re hooked, huh?”
Her arms cross over her chest, but she’s not fooling me. Not when she can’t fight that smile to save her life.
“Please. I wanted one more kiss. One. I haven’t had a decent kiss in forever. And I just thought… if I had a good excuse… maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to try out one of your other signature kisses. That’s all.”
That’s enough to keep the smile on my face for the rest of the ride back to her place.
I luck out with a spot on her block and walk her into her building. The guy at the desk, Saul, I think, waves and tells us to have a good night. I’ll be back down after Cammy’s inside her apartment, and chances are he’ll bring up the game before I go.
In the elevator, I look down at Cammy’s hand by her side and kind of wish I could hold it again. Just because it’s nice. Nothing else.
When we get to her door, I use my own key but then stop Cammy before she goes inside.
“Not coming in?” she asks.
And damn, I want to. But something tells me it’s a better idea to go home.
“Not tonight.” But instead of backing down the hall with the promise to call her tomorrow, I lean into the frame of the door and give myself permission to look at her like the woman she is instead of the friend who means more to me than the world.
There’s a blink of confusion in her eyes as they meet mine, but it’s gone with the catch of her breath.
This woman is my best friend, but I’d be lying if I said that sound didn’t get to me.
Snaring my favorite wayward curl, I tuck that blonde rebel behind her ear and let my fingers linger there.
“What are you doing?” she whispers.
Sliding my hand around the back of her silky neck, I let my mouth fall into the hooked smile that’s always gotten results with the girls.
“What do you think I’m doing?”
Cammy
“Oh my God. You’re going to kiss me.” My heart starts to skip, my eyes racing over him from that sexy-as-sin smile I’ve seen him use with other girls, but never on me, to the sort of casual stance that somehow makes his already impossibly broad shoulders even broader, and the eyes that look like they’ve got a secret behind them… one that I’ll be very lucky to learn.
He’s totally going to kiss me.
His other hand comes up to cup my jaw, thumb brushing feather light over my cheek as his fingers thread into my hair. The sensation of being held like this is overwhelming. Intoxicating. So very good, I’m afraid to breathe for fear it will signal the end and this gentle, intimate touch will go away.
But then he’s tipping my head back. And the eyes that were locked with mine lower to my mouth. “What’s one more, right?” he says quietly, deep voice rumbling low as he closes the distance between us. “A last little bit of kissing fun between friends, yeah?”
“Yeah,” I breathe, and I want him to kiss me. Maybe all passionate and devouring like he’d mentioned. But just thinking about it has this giddy squeal working up my throat and my hand pops up between us. “Wait, give me a second. I don’t want to be giggling when you do it. If this is the last one, I want it to be good.”
Rux keeps his gentle hold on me, his gruff laugh sounding as I try to push the smile off my face, but when it won’t quite die, I sigh. “You’re the best, Rux.”
“The best kisser?” Oh, he’s so smug. He’ll be insufferable after this.
“No. Just the best.” I tug at his shirt and do a little shake. “Okay, I’m ready. Gimme, gimme, gimme.”
There’s pure affection in his smile, and once again I’m reminded why I’m so lucky to count this man as my friend.
“Okay, Sunshine. Last one.”
I nod. His eyes crinkle at the corners as a warm breath spills over my lips a second before contact. It starts with a tease. A taste. A breath. The barest rub of his lips against mine. A shiver breaks over my skin at the feel of his fingers in my hair, the light tension against my scalp, and I can feel him smile in response.
And then he kisses me, really kisses me, and whatever lingering giggle was there a second ago is wiped away beneath the sensations flaring to life at every point of contact between us. Rux is a really good kisser. Confident, skilled, and sure.
I never thought he’d be bad. But I had no idea it would be like this.
I wasn’t prepared. And it’s... overwhelming.
Addicting. Because God, I want more. I want him to keep kissing me like this until our mouths don’t work anymore and all we can do is collapse into a heap on the couch together.
I want to make the most of this stolen moment, that’s both outside our friendship and in.
I try to stay passive, not take more than he’s giving, but it’s been so long since I had a kiss anywhere close to this. And then my hands are against his chest, smoothing up his dress shirt and slipping around his neck. Which must be okay, because he lets out this rough groan and snakes his arm around me, pulling me into the hard-packed muscles of his body, tight and then tighter. My hands are in his hair, and it’s thick and feels incredible tangled around my fingers and clutched within my fist… spilling around my face when he bows me back.
He takes my mouth completely. Our tongues roll in a slow, wet glide that has my heart slamming and that place deep in my center aching with a need that makes me feel so alive, so good it startles the smallest whimper out of me.
This is the hottest kiss of my life.
His mouth moves to that sensitive, long-neglected spot beneath my jaw and he sucks.
Heat spills through my center in a rush as I gasp, “Rux.”
“Do you want me to stop?” he asks, brushing his lips over that same wicked spot.
“No, no, no, no, nooo, don’t stop,” I plead in a squeaky rush that earns me another gruff rumble, this one buried in the crook of my neck. And that, the sound of his laughter in the midst of this heat… that’s a dangerous sound, one a girl could get used to.
I won’t. I know better. Rux has made it clear where his lines are drawn. That the life I dream about isn’t for him. Or
at least, not as the leading man.
But for the next minute or so, I’m going to enjoy all he has to give me.
“You want more, greedy girl?” he teases, his tongue snaking a path up the column of my neck.
“Yes,” I pant as chills break out across the skin I’m shamelessly offering him. Though what more looks like, I can’t even imagine because this feels like everything. This feels like the hottest, dirtiest, most body-and-soul, all-encompassing kiss of my life.
Rux guides me back against the wall beside my door and pins my wrists over my head with one hand before running the other down my arm, my ribs, waist, and hip. My heart is racing, my body on fire. Some distant tiny voice in my head warns that we should stop, but then he’s kissing me again, giving me his tongue in a series of slow, sexy thrusts that have me thinking thoughts I’m not supposed to have about this man.
Dirty thoughts.
Sweaty thoughts.
Deep, pounding, delicious thoughts.
Moaning around the thrust of his tongue, I slip my hands free of his hold. They’re on his arms, in in his hair, testing the resistance of his insanely hard pecs. I can’t get enough of this man’s body beneath my touch, the taste of him. Our kiss flames hotter and hotter until whatever semblance of control there’d been between us is completely burned away and—
Rux rears back, brows pulled together over dark eyes blazing with a heat that’s never been between us before.
My hands are shaking and I can’t catch my breath. This is crazy. I should let go, pull my hands out of his hair and peel my body back from his. At the very least, stop staring into his eyes like I never want to look away.
But I’ve been so good, so very responsible all these years. And this—
“Cammy.” This is not my friend looking back at me, and for once I don’t want him to be.
My breath catches on a little whimper and then he does it—grabs me by the back of my neck and pulls me in hard.
Chapter 7
Cammy
We come together in a bruising crush, hands and mouths everywhere, feet tangling together as we stumble into the apartment. My back meets the wall inside the door and less than a second later he’s there, his big hand roaming over my ass in a possessive rub that ends with another deeply appreciative growl against my throat.
That sound. It makes me wild, makes me ache. Makes me frantic to get us where we’re going before either of us has a chance to think enough to stop. Because friends don’t do this, do they?
It feels like there are reasons. Evidence, maybe. But then Rux has my knee hitched at his side and he’s filling the space he’s made with his body.
Friends can totally do this.
At least friends as good as we are.
He tips my hips to meet him, the contact just so and— “Rux!”
My fingers dig into his shoulders and we’re mindless, breathless, rocking into each other like teenagers. Except even back in high school, when it felt like I would die if I didn’t get closer to Jeremy, it was nothing like this.
It’s never been like this.
“You’re ruining me,” I gasp, tugging the shirt I’ve already got half the buttons undone on free of his suit pants. I can’t stand the clothes between us, need to feel his skin. “Don’t stop.”
Shoot, that might have been a button popping, but Rux doesn’t seem to mind and, finally, his shirt is hanging open over that insanely cut chest. Wow. I’m totally going to run my tongue between the grooves of his abs.
My jersey goes next, but his number hasn’t even hit the floor before Rux pulls back and stills. His eyes rake over me and he wipes a hand over his mouth.
“Jesus, you’re killing me.” Hands skimming up my waist and ribs, he pauses at the wire of my bra, takes a breath, and then cups my oversensitive breasts in his palms and groans out a string of unintelligible praise that has my belly folding in on itself with need.
“I keep telling myself to stop, Sunshine. Not to take this too far. That I shouldn’t want you like this… but one taste and I’m dying for you.” His thumbs brush over the tight peaks of my straining nipples once, twice… He meets my eyes. “Tell me I’m not making a mistake with you. Tell me I’m not risking us here, because if I am— Tell me to walk the hell away. I’ll show up with coffee and donuts tomorrow and we’ll yak it up over what a douche I was tonight.”
My heart breaks a little with how much this man means to me. “No risk, and you’re not a douche. You’re perfect.” I cover his hands with mine, encouraging him to keep going. To touch me more. Make me feel the things I tell myself I can live without.
“We’re friends and that isn’t going to change because you’re giving me something I don’t get a lot of in my life.”
Rux searches my eyes, and whatever he finds in them has the corner of his mouth pulling up into another panty-melting smile. “So, I should probably make you come then.”
Oh God, the confidence in that statement is so hot. “You should totally do that.”
Continuing to play with my nipple with one hand, the other dips into my leggings. My breath fractures at the flick of his wrist and slow tease of his fingers, first over my panties and then under.
He’s doing that not quite thing again, hovering close, but not quite giving me what I want… making me want it even more. His mouth is so close to my ear, I can feel the heat of his breath, those tiny static charges arcing between his lips and my skin… His fingers so close to my pussy, I’m starting to shake.
“Are you wet for me, Sunshine?” The low rumble of his voice works through me, settling low in my belly like a warm weight.
I nod, my eyes locked on the hard cut of his jaw, the smattering of stubble, and the sexy twist of his lips. I’m soaked. Aching.
“Good girl.”
I shouldn’t like it, but I’m closer to coming from those two words alone than the last guy I slept with ever got me.
And then one blunt finger brushes over me—“So soft.”—and my knees almost give out.
I clutch his arm, his shoulder. Whimper as that single thick digit follows the slick seam of my sex, parting me and then slowly pushing inside. “Rux.”
“So wet… So hot.” Pumping in and out, he adds a second finger and, bringing his mouth back to mine, licks inside. “So tight. Christ, I can already feel you gripping me.” Another deep stroke… another shuddering gasp as the tension builds. “You going to come all over my fingers?”
Biting my lip hard enough to draw blood, I nod.
I’m close. So close. My breath broken and ragged, my body straining toward every touch, every dirty word. Toward Rux and what he’s doing to me and how badly I want it.
“You want me to fuck you?” He thrusts again, curving his fingers just so to reach that impossible place deep inside. Rubbing.
“Rux,” I plead, the need twisting hard, knotting in on itself until I can barely breathe. Until I’m rocking over his hand, panting into his mouth, teetering at the brink of—
His thumb comes down on my clit in a firm press, and I cry out his name as I tip over the edge to the low rumble of Rux’s dirty praise in my ear.
My body is still being slammed by waves of pleasure when he murmurs, “Better than Bob?”
I give up a breathless laugh. Everyone knows about Bob. But only Rux would bring him up now.
His tongue flicks against the lobe of my ear as the last waves of orgasm retreat. “You better tell me yes, or I’m going to make him watch what I do to you next.”
Slumped against the wall, I loosen my fingers from his arm and sigh. “So much better than Bob.”
And I’m definitely ruined, but before I can think about it too much, Rux presses a searing kiss to my lips, then ducks down and tosses me over his shoulder.
“Rux!” I squeal as he totes me through the apartment he knows as well as his own.
“Come on, babe. Let’s go break your headboard.”
Rux
That moan. Christ. Watching Cammy go off like that?
I’m not going to forget that look on her face for as long as I live. I need to see it again.
I don’t normally let myself acknowledge it, but Cammy has the finest ass. And I’m helping myself to it by the handful as I carry her, laughing and squirming, over my shoulder back to her room.
I bounce her onto the bed and she scoots back, resting on her elbows. Blonde curls spill around her face, and her lips part in this sort of breathless, sexy smile I’m going to beat it to for years. Prowling up after her, I land a kiss on that gorgeous mouth and give her a taste of my tongue.
And when she’s arching beneath me and I’m hard enough to hammer nails, I back off the bed and start peeling her leggings down her luscious hips. I’m more distracted by the hot-as-fuck look on her face than anything else, but then I catch a glimpse of blue and gold and—
Holy hell. Her panties.
“Cammy, you don’t even want to know how many decades of dirty fantasies are coming true right now.”
“What?” She blinks in confusion. Then her head pops up, eyes wide. “Wait,” she squeaks, hands covering all those stars and the double-W emblem. “I didn’t think anyone would see these. I didn’t even think about what I was pulling out of the drawer.”
“Babe, I love Wonder Woman.” I strip off her leggings the rest of the way, dying for another glimpse, but all I can see around her hands is the sort of scanty boy-shorts cut. I like them a lot. “I’ve beat it to her way more than you want to know. So the superhero panties aren’t just adorable—they also got me so hard it hurts. Lemme see.”
“It’s not just the superhero thing.” Her cheeks flame.
“No?” My mind goes to a million awesomely dirty scenarios. And now I really want to see them.
Knee between her legs, I try to nudge her hands away. And when that doesn’t work, I start licking a path up her thigh. “Please? I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
“Julia bought them as a joke, okay?”
“Mm-hmm,” I assure, swirling my tongue over the skin on her thigh until her hands retreat from that place I’m about to devour and— What does that say?
DIRTY REBOUND: A Slayers Hockey Novel Page 5