It took me a second to recover from that view. I couldn't tear my eyes away from the body that was now mine to explore. My dick twitched in my pants in anticipation, impatient.
Yeah, buddy, I know exactly what you’re feeling right now.
But I had told myself that I would not have sex with her until she was absolutely sure she could trust me with her body. When I took her for the first time, I wanted all of her. Holding nothing back. Having no doubts.
Looking at her now, I could tell I was going to take a cold shower tonight. A very long, very cold shower, or maybe a hot one where I would jerk myself off again and again thinking about her in that dress.
My dick was straining against my fly. I took a deep breath to rein him in as my eyes travelled up her body to meet her dancing ones.
“You done?” she asked me teasingly, her eyebrows raised.
“Nope,” I said and let my eyes wander again. That made her laugh out loud. A grin spread across my face. I had it back. Her laugh.
My
laugh.
She stepped back from the door to invite me inside, but I shook my head.
“No, baby. Right now, I want to rip that dress off of your hot body so I can explore every inch of you. I don’t trust myself enough to not ravage you, so you need to come out here where you’re relatively safe.”
She pressed her lips together to keep from laughing, grabbed her purse from the little table by the door, then turned around to pull the door closed and locked up. At the sight presented to me when she turned, I groaned. And my dick stood at full attention.
Her back was completely bare.
Naked skin from shoulder to just above her ass.
No bra.
My hands had a mind of their own when they gripped her hips and squeezed. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath through my nose, trying to tamp down my instant arousal.
Jesus! I had never been this turned on by a dress. Or anything for that matter.
She was going to be my undoing.
Breathing in and out slowly, I rested my forehead on her shoulder.
“Cole?” Lizzy’s soft and amused voice called me. I lifted my head to see that hers was turned and she was looking at me over her shoulder. Her eyes were beautiful and sparkling, the green surrounded by thick lashes.
“Don’t let me come in tonight,” I all but growled at her.
“What?” she asked, confused now.
“Don’t let me come in, no matter how much I beg. I promised myself I wouldn’t touch you tonight and I need you to help me out with that.”
“You won’t touch me tonight?” Disappointment. This was gonna be harder than I had imagined. I deserved a medal for this.
I shook my head at her.
“Oh.” Her voice was small now and she turned her head away from me to finish locking up. Something other than disappointment was laced through her voice. Was it rejection? With my hands still at her hips, I turned her body to face mine and looked into her eyes, searching. Yes, she thought I was rejecting her. Crazy woman.
“Honey, I’m not rejecting you.” I gave her a small peck on the lips in reassurance then kept my lips touching hers. “Believe me, I want you more than I have ever wanted anyone. My body is screaming at me to take you.” To emphasize this I pressed the proof of my body’s reaction to her into her belly. “But I need to prove to you that this isn’t just about sex. It’s so much more than that. It’s everything.” I kissed her again, short and quick, so as not to lose control. “When I take you for the first time, I want you to have no doubts about us.” Another kiss, this one longer and deeper.
“Okay,” she breathed when I released her mouth. It was cute. She was in kind of a daze and it looked good on her. I reveled in the fact that I had been the one to put my little no-nonsense-spitfire into this state with just a few kisses and some frontal body contact. My chuckle seemed to snap her out of her daze and she took a small step back.
“You’re right. You know I trust you, but it’s probably a good idea to take things slow, give either of us a chance to back out if things aren’t going the way we expected before we ruin something that’s important to us.”
What the hell! There would be no backing out!
I closed the short distance she had gained and framed her face with my hands, so that all she could see were my eyes.
“I’m not backing out. Neither are you. I won’t let you. All I’m doing is giving you time to get used to us before I take what has always been mine. Get this, Liz, if you run from me, I will follow you and drag you right back where you belong, and we will work out whatever it is that made you run.” My voice was rough and growly. The thought of her backing out, of leaving me, had me shaking.
Lizzy’s eyes had gone big at my statement, and I could see she was gearing up to give me the what for. My little spitfire.
“Excuse me? You won’t let me? You’ll drag me back? What? You’re a goddamn caveman now?” Yeah, from soft and breathy to hot and spitting fire in under five seconds. That’s my Liz. I grinned at her.
“You heard me.”
She narrowed her eyes to slits and opened her mouth to blast me, but I stopped her by putting my mouth to hers and sliding my tongue inside that hot mouth. God, she tasted good. I wondered if the rest of her tasted just as great as her mouth, knowing and fearing that she would probably taste better than anything that had ever touched my tongue. I couldn’t get enough and delved in deeper, tangling and twisting and exploring. This was all the exploring I would get tonight, so I made it last.
When I tore my mouth from hers, we were both breathing hard.
Jesus! But she could kiss!
She was again in that daze and was staring at my mouth, her lips still parted, her breath ragged. Damn, that was a good look on her. I drew on my last reserves of control and kissed her nose, then pulled back and took her hand.
“As much as I would love to make out in your breezeway all night, I’m starving. I need food, woman, and we need to talk. Let’s go.”
I couldn’t blame anyone but myself. I had asked for this. Had told her to dress sexy, that I wanted to show her off. And holy hell, did she follow that instruction to a t. She was killing me and she knew it. Sexy little devil was smirking at me from across the table right now. My answer was a low growl, which made her press her lips together and look down at her plate so as not to burst out laughing, I suspected. Fucking hell. I didn’t deserve a medal, I deserved a fucking trophy.
“I should have taken you to Chuck E Cheese. At least there, nobody would be ogling you all night long. Though, scratch that. All those horny dads would just get fodder for their spank bank,” I growled across the table at her, my eyes narrowed on her smile.
“You’re being ridiculous, Cole. Nobody is ogling me.”
“Oh, believe me, baby, they are. Every man in this restaurant knows that you’re not wearing a bra and is glad that their boner is hidden under the table.”
Her shoulders were shaking in silent laughter while she was shaking her head. There was nothing even remotely funny about this situation. I growled at her again, which made her silent laughter not so silent anymore as she burst out laughing. Fuck! Now every man’s head within a five-table radius was turned her way and I was starting to see red. If she didn’t tune it down, I was going to end up in jail tonight.
“Liz,” I called her name.
“Yeah?”
“Honey, if you don’t want me to face assault charges in the very near future, do me a favor and at least try to be less sexy. That means no sexy smiles, no laughing, and we gotta do something about that fucking dress. What the hell were you thinking not bringing a coat?” I saw her eyes narrow through my little speech.
“Cole, stop. It’s been entertaining, but now you’re starting to piss me off. It’s a dress. Get over it.”
“And no attitude, either.”
“What about breathing? Am I allowed to do that?” That was it. She didn’t want to make this easier for me? All right. She wasn’t giving me any other choice then but to stake my claim openly and publicly. I got out of my chair, pulled her out of hers, and laid a long, deep, wet one on her. One of my hands was tangled in her hair while the other was pulling her in close at the small of her back. She didn’t resist and kissed me back, spurring me on even more. It took someone clearing their throat close to us to make me break the kiss.
Yeah, that should do it
. It was me who gave her the dazed and turned-on look she was now sporting. None of these assholes were allowed to touch her. Only me. That thought eased my raging jealousy as I helped her back into her chair before I sat down again. The waiter served our food and I started eating.
“What was that?” Lizzy asked me, still out of breath from our kiss, but she also sounded a little annoyed.
“That, baby, was me staking my claim.”
“So you just pissed on me in the middle of a fancy restaurant?”
Yeah. She was definitely annoyed. “Yeah.” I answered nonchalantly and motioned for her to start eating her food. Her glare made me give her a grin, which made her growl. That was so cute that now
my
shoulders were shaking with silent laughter.
“Liz, cut me some slack. I’ve always been possessive of you, but now that you’re mine, it’s even worse. I don’t like it when men stare at you like that, because I know exactly what they’re thinking.”
“No, Cole. You’ve always been overprotective, but—”
“Not protective, Liz,
possessive
. There’s a difference,” I interrupted her.
Her head tilted to the side and her eyebrows went up, asking me for an explanation.
“Like I told you this morning, I have always considered you mine, but wouldn’t let myself touch you. You have no idea how many fights I got into in high school because of you. With jackasses who wanted to get in there or who talked shit about having had you. Thank God I never actually had to see you make out with some guy or I would have killed him. Nobody touches what’s mine.”
“So what you’re saying is that all this time you wanted me, didn’t do anything about it, but wouldn’t let anyone else have me either, while I had to watch you make out with all those girls, knowing you fucked everything that moved?”
Yeah, I was an asshole and a hypocrite. She was right to be angry.
I leaned over the table and took her hand in mine, stroking the back of her hand softly with my thumb.
“I’m sorry, Liz. I know it wasn’t fair to you, but I never looked at it from your perspective. All I could see was my jealousy. I also didn’t know that you were into me like that. I thought for a while you had a crush on me, but you were young and pure and I was a total bastard. I never thought you could really want me.”
“You’re an idiot, Cole. Do you have any idea how many times you broke my heart? How many times I had to watch you touch other girls when all I wanted was you to touch me like that? How many times, when you were screwing around and giving every other woman a piece of you, I felt like I wasn’t pretty enough for you? When all those girls in high school talked about how good you were in the sack? When I thought I would never be anything but a little sister you had to protect? You could have saved both of us a lot of pain, Cole.”
Jesus, she didn’t beat around the bush. I normally loved that about her, but the torture she just revealed that I had put her through made my heart ache and regret spread through my body so hot that it was hard to breathe. She wasn’t looking at me, but instead was staring down at her plate, the hand I wasn’t holding clenched in a fist under the table. I could tell her fingers were clenched even though I couldn’t see them. I wasn’t sure if she was mad I had wasted years for both of us, or if she was trying not to cry. I needed to see her eyes.
“Look at me, Liz.” I urged her. It took her a few seconds before she complied, but when she finally gave me her eyes, I could see that they were as torn as her body language had suggested. There was pain and sadness, but also accusation and remorse beside a whole lot of anger.
I squeezed the hand I was still holding and leaned further over the table.
“You’re right. I have wasted a lot of time and caused you a lot of hurt, disappointment, and embarrassment. I take full responsibility, but I swear I will do anything I can to make it up to you, if it takes the rest of my life. I know it’s hard to believe that I could go from hooking up with random girls to being in a committed relationship, and I would agree with you. But this is you and me. You know me better than anyone else and I know you. I screwed up, baby, but I’m fixing it now. You trust me. You know I don’t make promises I can’t keep. I wouldn’t pursue this if I weren’t serious about us. I can’t ever lose you. Give me a chance and I
will
make you happy.” I was begging at the end. I needed her to believe in me, in us, to give me a chance to build on what we’d always had between us.
Lizzy
I wanted him to mean what he said so badly. For as long as I could remember, this was what I had hoped for. Even when I had given up on that dream, somewhere deep inside me there was still that little part of me that wouldn’t give up, wouldn’t lose hope. Until last night, when I had thought he was screwing someone in the bathroom and losing his shit on me.
I had given up then.
Not even twelve hours later, he had again turned my world upside down, had turned it on its axis when he said he loved me and had kissed me like it was his first and last kiss merged into one. It was overwhelming. Getting what you always wanted was not as easy to deal with as you might believe. It was downright terrifying.
But what was the alternative? Saying no to him right now, letting him go and watching him hook up with random women over and over again? And what about me? Would I settle for some guy who would never be Cole? No. That was something I knew I wouldn’t survive. It had gotten harder and harder over the years and now that I knew what his kisses felt like, what his arms around me felt like, and how he reacted to me, I couldn’t go back.
I wanted what he promised.
I wanted
us
.
His eyes were glued to mine, imploring, slightly panicky as I was thinking through what he had said. I returned his squeeze and nodded at him. He closed his eyes and exhaled in relief, then brought my hand to his mouth and pressed a light kiss on my knuckles. That was sweet.