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She laughed as I lifted my head, prowling back up so that we were eye level. “Wow. I don’t understand how your brain works.”
“You love it.”
“I do.” She slid her foot along my calf. “So you’ve been calling me Shortcake in your head all this time?”
I nodded as I settled between her legs. “I might have . . . a few times.”
“And you never slipped until now. Wow. That’s kind of amazing.” Her eyes danced with humor. “And it’s kind of cute.”
“It’s definitely cute. It’s—” I groaned as she rolled her hips up, joining us together. “Well then . . .”
She giggled and then neither of us were laughing or talking. I let out a ragged moan at the tight fit. I lost sense of everything except her body and I wanted to be deeper, closer. We moved together, our bodies flushed and straining. It was crazy, but I couldn’t get enough of her. It appeared the same for her. My mouth closed around her breast as I thrust into her. She matched me move for move until she arched her back, crying out.
Her release slammed into me. Gathering her close, I sat up, keeping her in my lap. The new position had lust zinging through me. I couldn’t last. Not when her little teeth scraped over my neck.
Minutes went by where all that could be heard was the sound of our ragged breathing. I was still inside her. There was a peace in this completion. And I held everything in my arms.
Later, much later, we sat on the bed with the plate of chocolate cookies between us. A tiny smudge of chocolate ended up on her lips and I leaned over the plate, kissing it away.
And well, I kissed her for real.
I kissed her, and it was like kissing her for the very first time. The initial zap, the shock of our lips together hadn’t faded. Dumbly I realized that love made it that way, making sure that a simple kiss never dulled, never lost its luster.
My chest swelled as I pulled back and stared into her warm eyes and my heart did that crazy, stupid jumping thing. Something I also knew would never truly go away.
Shortcake placed her small hand on my cheek. “What?”
At first I didn’t know what to say. I . . . I had waited for Avery—I had waited for her for months. Hell, I would’ve waited for her for years, but she . . .
Turning my cheek, I pressed a kiss to the inside of her palm. “Thank you for trusting in me.”
Ready for more?
Read on for a sneak peek at the next fabulous story from J. Ly
BE
with me
One
Sweet tea was apparently going to be the death of me. Not because it contained enough sugar that it could send you into a diabetic coma after one slurp. Or because my brother had nearly caused a triple-car pileup by winging the truck around in a sharp U-turn after receiving a text message that contained two words only.
Sweet. Tea.
Nope. The request for sweet tea was bringing me face-to-face with Jase Winstead, the physical embodiment of every girly-girl fantasy and then some, outside of campus, and in front of my brother.
Oh sweet Mary mother of all the babies in the world, this was going to be awkward.
Why, oh why did my brother have to text Jase and mention that we were at his end of town and ask if he needed anything? He was supposed to be taking me around so I could get familiar with the scenery. Although the scenery I was about to witness was sure to be better than what I’d been seeing of this county.
If I saw another strip club, I was going to hurt someone.
Cam glanced over at me as he sped down the back road. We’d left Route 9 years ago. His gaze dropped from my face to the tea I clutched in my hands. He raised a brow. “You know, Teresa, you could put that in a cup holder.”
I shook my head. “It’s okay. I’ll hold it.”
“Okay.” Cam drew the word out, focusing on the road.
I was acting like a spaz and I needed to play it cool. The last thing anyone in this world needed was Cam finding out why I had reason to act like a dweeb on crack. “So, um, I thought Jase lived up by the college?”
That sounded casual, right? Oh God, I was pretty sure my voice had cracked at some point during that not-so-i
“He does, but he spends most of his time at his father’s farm.” Cam slowed his truck down and hung a sharp right. Tea almost went out the window, but I had a death grip on it. Tea was going nowhere. “You remember Jack, right?”
Of course I did. Jase had a five-year-old brother named Jack, and I knew the little boy meant the world to him. I obsessively remembered everything I’d ever learned about Jase in a way I imagined Justin Bieber fans did about him. Embarrassing as that sounded, it was true. Jase, unbeknownst to him and the entire world, had come to mean a lot of things to me in the last three years.
A friend.
My brother’s saving grace.
And the source of my crush.
But then a year ago, right at the start of my senior year in high school, when Jase had tagged along with Cam and visited home, he’d become something very complicated. Something that a part of me wanted nothing more than to forget about—but the other part of me refused to let go of the memories of his lips against mine or how his hands had felt skimming over my body or the way he had groaned my name like it had caused him exquisite pain.
Oh goodness . . .
My cheeks heated behind my sunglasses at the vivid memory and I turned my face to the window, half tempted to roll the window down and stick my head out. I so needed to pull it together. If Cam ever discovered that Jase had kissed me, he would murder him and hide his body on a rural road like this one.
And that would be a damn shame.
My brain emptied of anything to say and I so needed a distraction right now. The perspiration from the tea and my own trembling hands were making it hard to hold on to the cup. I could’ve asked Cam about Avery and that would’ve worked, because Cam loved talking about Avery. I could’ve asked about his classes or started talking about mine, but all I could do was think about the fact that I was finally going to see Jase in a situation where he couldn’t run away from me.
The thick trees on either side of the road started to thin out and through them, green pastures became visible. Cam turned onto a narrow road. The truck bounced on the potholes, making my stomach queasy.
My brows lowered as we passed between two brown poles. A chain link lay on the ground and off to the left was a small wooden sign that read WINSTEAD: PRIVATE PROPERTY. A large cornfield greeted us, but the stalks were dry and yellow, looking as if they were days away from withering up and dying. Beyond them, several large horses grazed behind a wooden fence that was missing many of its middle panels. Cows roamed over most of the property to the left, fat and happy looking.
As we drew closer, an old barn came into view. A scary old barn, like the one in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, complete with the creepy rooster compass thing swiveling on the roof, and several yards beyond the barn was a two-story home. The once-white walls were gray, and even from the truck I could tell there was more paint peeling off than there was on the house. Blue tarp covered several sections of the roof and a chimney looked like it was half crumbling. Red dusty bricks were stacked along the side of the house, as if someone had started to repair the chimney but grew bored and gave up. There was also a cemetery of broken-down cars behind the barn, a sea of rusted-out trucks and sedans.
Shock rippled through me as I sat up a bit straighter. This was Jase’s farm? For some reason, I pictured something a little more . . . up-to-date?