Sparked, p.13
Sparked, page 13
It’s one of the things I love about her.
The thought makes the rest of my internal organs cringe up into my throat along with my aching heart, making it hard to breathe. This is it—the moment the last of my hope for something more than friendship with this woman dies, once and for all.
“I never had a boyfriend in college,” Jess says, her gaze fixed on something just over my shoulder. “I tried a few times, but it never felt right. Every time we’d get back to my place or his place and start making out, I always felt so awkward. I would be doing things with my mouth and hands, but in reality, I was all up in my head, thinking about how weird it is that people spend so much time and energy trying to find someone to swap spit with. In a world with so many problems to be solved and flavors of cake to be enjoyed and games to be played, why do so many people put dating at the top of their list? I truly didn’t get it.” She pauses, the fingers on one hand coming to pick at the thumb of the other as she visibly forces her focus back to my face. “But when you kiss me…I get it.”
Hope sucker punches me in the gut, clearing the rest of the air from my lungs. I’m still trying to convince them to suck in oxygen as she adds, “When we kiss, I’m not thinking about how weird kissing is or worrying if I’m doing it right. All I think about is how good I feel and how good you feel and how much I…” She breaks off, her throat working as she swallows. “How much I don’t want to stop. How much I…don’t want you to go.”
“Then I’ll stay,” I whisper.
She exhales with a little shake of her head. “I don’t mean New Jersey or my parents’ house, Sam. I mean…the United States. I mean—”
“I know what you mean,” I cut in. “And if you want me to stay, I’ll stay. I can work remotely, and even if I couldn’t…” I lift a shoulder. “I’m one of those people with dating at the top of his list. But only if the person I’m dating is you.”
She sucks in a hiccup-sized breath, her gaze darting over my shoulder again. In the distance, I hear the wail of the train’s horn, but I already know I’m not getting on that train. I’m going where Jess is going, for tonight and the foreseeable future.
“But I don’t deserve you,” Jess says, shaking her head as I step closer. “Seriously, Sam, I should have realized the way you felt a long time ago. My dad did, and I’m pretty sure Mom did, too. But I had no clue. I’m clueless, and not in a cute way. Are you sure you want to get in a romantic type of situation with a woman who can’t tell the difference between friendship and something more until you hold up a huge sign in front of her face?”
I take another step, the boards vibrating beneath my feet as the train approaches the station. “I’m good at making signs—the bigger the better.”
“But you’re normal and I’m not,” she says, raising her voice to be heard over the din.
“Take that back, Cho,” I say, my arm going around her waist, every cell in my body celebrating as her arms come to rest on my chest, molding to my pecs without pushing me away. “I’m not normal. I’m every bit as weird as you are.”
Her lips twitch. “Well, that outfit you wore to my party was pretty odd,” she says, her voice barely audible as the train whooshes up to the platform beside us, brakes squealing.
“But you still made out with me while I was wearing it,” I remind her, making her twitch transform to a full-fledged grin.
“I did,” she says, her arms sliding up to loop around my neck as she arches her body closer to mine, making me the happiest, most grateful man on the planet. “I have an appreciation for odd. And the way your butt looks in tight pants.”
“I’m a fan of your butt in tight pants, too,” I murmur, dropping my head closer to hers. “Another reason we should burn these khakis.”
“Agreed. If we hurry, we can light them up in the firepit in my parents’ backyard before Dad gets home from the hospital.”
“Or we could make out in your old bedroom and worry about the khakis later.”
She laughs, her sweet breath feathering over my lips. I’m about to kiss her—who cares about the people streaming off the train—when she pulls back to ask, “So I guess you’re not heading back to the city, after all?”
“Nope. I’m with you until you kick me out and tell me you need your space.”
“And if I never kick you out?” she asks, the fear creeping into her gaze making me think she means it. And that she feels it—how big this is, how this could be the start of a whole new life. For both of us.
“Then I’m just…with you,” I say.
“And I’m with you,” she echoes, and then she kisses me again and everything is right. Finally, completely right.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jess
I don’t remember much about the drive to my parents’ place, only that the Uber driver had one of those air fresheners that’s shaped like a cactus but smells like laundry detergent hanging from his rearview mirror and that Sam’s hand rested possessively on my thigh, making me think filthy thoughts about all the other places I was dying for him to touch me.
And then Dad texted to say that Mom was doing great, Vicky was still in labor, and he’d be home in about an hour with burritos.
An hour…
As Sam and I close the front door behind us, toe off our shoes by the shoe cubby, and creep quietly by Isabelle’s kennel—where the ferret who hates everyone but Mom is napping peacefully—all I can think about is how much trouble we could get into in an hour.
Good trouble.
The best trouble in the whole world.
“Permission to throw you over my shoulder and drag you to the bedroom caveman-style?” Sam asks in the darkened living room, making my stomach flip again.
“The ceilings are too short and you’re too tall,” I tell him as I grab a fistful of his dress shirt, nerves zinging as my fingers brush the hard muscle beneath. “But I’ll race you. Last one to my Super Mario bed is a rotten egg.”
I take off, giggling like a spazz as Sam chases me through the living room and down the dimly lit hallway to the last room on the left. Inside, I leap onto my ancient, Mario and Luigi bedspread, the one that was “vintage” when I bought it and is probably a bona fide antique by now. Sam slams the door behind him and reaches for the top of his shirt, making quick work of the buttons as he crosses to the bed. “Remember when we were kids, and your mom would pop in every few minutes to make sure the door was still open, and we weren’t making you a teen mom?”
I grin as I watch him undress, feeling a sudden kinship with that coyote on the old cartoons, the one who was always drooling over the roadrunner he wanted to have for dinner. I obviously don’t want to literally eat Sam, but this hunger rising inside of me brings words like “starving” and “ravenous” to mind.
I’ve been starved for this man for what feels like my entire life, and now I want to devour him, every delicious inch of his gorgeous bod from head to knee (because toes are gross, even the toes of people you love).
Love…
My heart jerks, but the jolt of surprise is followed quickly by a wave of warmth and a sweet certainty that swells in my chest.
Of course, I love Sam. I’ve always loved Sam. The wanting to trace his abs with my tongue is new, but this kinship I feel with him has been there from the day we met as kids. One look into his big brown eyes that first day at coding camp and I knew I’d met a friend for life.
Sometimes you just know.
I still can’t believe it took all this time for me to realize I’m attracted to him, too, but maybe I just wasn’t ready before. Maybe I was too young and focused on growing up and getting out of small-town New Jersey to see the stone-cold fox right in front of my face. Or maybe some wise part of my heart realized that this thing with Sam would be too intense and real and all-consuming for teenage me.
But adult me isn’t scared anymore. I’m ready to take the next step with the incredible man who loves me, this man who’s already promised to stay in the States if that’s what I want because I’m his top priority.
“I’m feeling very lucky right now,” I whisper as he strips off his dress shirt and tosses it to the floor. My eyes widen at the sight of the muscles beneath the tight white tee beneath. “Wow,” I breathe. “Your chest is amazeballs. Like, truly a thing of epic man beauty.”
“Thanks.” He grins, clearly pleased with the compliment as he reaches for the bottom of the tee. “But hold the applause until you see the amount of hair we’re working with under this shirt. You may change your mind about my man beauty. I’ve gotten even hairier since high school.”
As his tee hits the carpet, I make a soft, needy sound I’m pretty sure I’ve never uttered before. But it is the only accurate response to his broad, thickly muscled chest, covered with the perfect dusting of dark black hair.
“I guess that means you don’t mind a little chest hair?” he asks, his eyes darkening as he stops beside the bed, studying me with an intensity that makes it clear he wants to devour me, too.
“I want to feel it on my nipples,” I confess, but before I can worry that I’ve let my freak flag fly too soon, Sam is on the bed, kissing me hard as he lengthens himself on top of me.
“And I want your nipples in my mouth,” he mumbles against my lips as he cups my hip, dragging me more fully beneath him, sending an electric shock of arousal scalding across my skin. “I want to taste every inch of you, Jess. You’re so fucking beautiful.”
“I’m a slug who exercises once a week, tops,” I say, my pulse racing as he cups my breast through my short-sleeved sweater, tightening my nipple to a tingling, aching point. “I am not your equal and I doubt I ever will be.”
“You’re perfect,” he says, pulling back from the kiss as he tugs my sweater from my khakis and slowly pushes the fabric up. “This belly button?” He glances down, biting his lip as he brushes the rough pad of his thumb around my navel, making my breath catch. “It’s perfect. And these ribs, so delicate, but strong.” He traces one and my pussy throbs.
I’ve never thought of my ribs as an erogenous zone, but I have a feeling everyplace Sam puts his hands will become one of those. His hands are magic. He seems to instinctively know just how to touch me, how to talk to me, how to take his time until I’m not only ready for what comes next but dying for it.
“Please,” I beg as he finishes tracing a third rib and my nipples are practically screaming for him to taste them, like he said…
Even though…
“I’ve never done this before,” I confess as he cups my breasts through my simple white cotton bra, the one that does nothing to boost the boob-i-liciousness of my small breasts.
But he doesn’t seem to care, he’s looking at my chest like I’m Venus rising from the ocean instead of a twenty-four-year-old virgin on her goofy childhood bedspread.
“I know,” he says, his brow furrowing.
“No, I mean…any of it,” I say, trusting my gut that honesty is the best policy.
I’m going to have enough of a learning curve without trying to play it cool and figure things out as I go along. Even though Sam is a virgin, too, I’m sure he’s more experienced than I am. I can feel it in the confident way he squeezes my breasts before dropping his head to press a kiss to the top of one swell, making me feel like I’m drowning in longing.
Threading my fingers into his hair so I can hold him close if he tries to pull away, I add, “All I’ve done is kissing and some…rolling around. A couple guys have made it to second base, but not with their mouths, just their hands. I’ve never had an um…” I swallow, breath catching as he pushes my breasts together, causing my nipples to drag across the cotton, even that small friction enough to send fresh need twisting between my hips. “I’ve never had anyone put their mouth there. So, I’m not sure… I’m not sure what it feels like. Or if I like it.”
His eyes burn into mine, making my panties even wetter. “All right. Let me know what you think. If you don’t like it, I’ll stop. Anything you don’t like, I’ll stop. Just keep talking to me. Or making those hungry sounds. Those sounds are my new favorite sounds in the entire world, by the way.”
“O-okay,” I say, gulping for air. “But definitely keep going because I’m pretty sure I need your hand down the front of my panties more than I need oxygen.”
He mutters something that sounds like a curse and his hands shake a little as he draws the cups of my bra down, baring my breasts to another human gaze for the first time in my entire life. Before I can come to terms with the massiveness of the moment, he kisses the skin beside my nipple. A beat later, he curls his tongue around the tight, starving flesh and it feels so good I’m pretty sure I have an out-of-body experience.
All I know is that I’m suddenly shot through with rainbows and starlight and some very passionately dancing disco unicorns. When I come back into my skin, I’m clinging to Sam’s shoulders with my legs wrapped around his hips, grinding into what feels like his waist as he sucks and licks and bites—damn, the biting, who knew that would feel that amazing?—my breasts.
“Too tall,” I pant, moaning as I writhe beneath his brilliant, wicked mouth. “Why do you have to be so tall?”
He lifts his head, arching a brow as he asks in a breathy rumble, “Most women are into tall guys. It’s a thing.”
“But if you were shorter, I could feel if you were excited too,” I say, my inner sex kitten as shameless as ever. But Sam doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, he seems to love it when I employ radical honesty in the bedroom, a fact that makes me feel confident enough to add, “Is it wrong that I want to grind on your cock instead of your waist?”
“Jesus, Jessica,” he says, tugging at the back of my knee until I release my vise grip on his torso. “Do you know what it does to me when you say shit like that?”
I shake my head, mesmerized by the hunger-pain-longing on his face. “No, but I think…you dig it?”
“It makes me crazy,” he says, shifting forward, until his hips hover between my spread legs. “It makes me want to be inside you, buried so deep there’s no doubt in your mind how much I want you.”
Then he drops his hips, pressing against me through our clothes, and I swear to God I nearly come just from that, from the feel of his massive cock pulsing against my clit.
But then The Representative from the Office of Virginal Concerns raises her fearful head to remind me that a large tampon can be a little too much down there at times and to pose a few important questions/concerns:
What if Sam and I are as well-matched as a Great Dane and a field mouse and our smoking hot sex life is over before it begins?
What if he breaks my vagina and I end up in a hospital bed next to my mother, who will have a second minor heart attack when she learns I was trying to have premarital sex under her roof?
What if I’m just “built different” in the worst way and am too dainty to have full-on, penetrative sex with anyone? That might not have been so bad before Sam. But now I’m practically dying for some dick, his in particular. I would literally sell a kidney—or at least a few slivers of my liver—on the black market for just one night with him.
But as he pops the button at the top of my khakis and slips that much-longed-for hand down the front of my panties, even a single finger feels like it’s stretching me down there. Stretching in a wonderful way, but also…a terrifying one.
“Am I freakishly small?” I ask, even as I arch into his finger, pretty sure the feel of that single digit moving inside me is the best thing I’ve ever felt.
“You’re tight, but no,” he says, kissing my throat. “There’s nothing freakish about you. You just need to relax.”
“But what if I can’t relax?” I ask, my pulse racing faster. “What if this is as relaxed as I get, and we can never have sex and all our carnal dreams are about to be dashed on the rocks of eternal despair?”
He pulls back, grinning down at me for a beat before he apparently sees the crazy in my eyes and his expression sobers. He shifts his finger back to my entrance, slowly circling my clit as he says, “Nothing’s going to be dashed on the rocks of eternal despair. And I have a good idea how to help you relax.”
I arch a dubious brow, but his fingers are working their magic again, making my voice breathy and hopeful as I ask, “What idea is that?”
“I think it’s best if I show you,” he says, his fingers curling over the top of my pants and underwear. “Lift your hips.”
I hesitate a moment and Sam looks up, asking in a husky rumble, “You trust me?”
I nod and obey, my breath rushing out as he drags the rest of my clothes down my legs and tosses them onto the floor. Then, he’s between my thighs, gently spreading them wider as he settles onto the mattress to study my most intimate places like he’s searching for the glitch in a buggy batch of code.
I’m about to ask him if there’s something weird going on down there when he makes a soft groaning sound and whispers, “Beautiful. You’re so beautiful. How wet you are for me,” and drops a sweet, lingering kiss on my clit.
And then his tongue pushes into my core with the perfect mixture of tenderness and hunger and my eyes roll back into my head as the disco unicorns return with a vengeance. He licks and sucks and teases through each previously unexplored fold, claiming every inch of territory between my legs for his own. At first, I’m torn between abject delight and concern that he’s going to find me unsavory in some way, but by the time he grips my ass in his big hands, leveraging me closer to his tongue and devouring me like a particularly juicy slice of watermelon, I’m shameless and wild.
