The One I Love to Hate

by Amanda Weaver

  “You’re so tiny,” he muttered against her lips as he backed her up against the counter. She opened her mouth to object, but the words cut off abruptly when he hauled her upright and set her on the edge of the counter, just like last night. Sliding his hands up the backs of her thighs, he pulled her legs apart and moved into the space he’d made. “It’s so fucking hot,” he said, before capturing her mouth again in another brain-melting kiss.

  Alex saying “fucking,” now that was hot. What was also hot was making out with him on his kitchen counter, with his hands kneading her ass and the hard length of him pressed right between her legs. Against her will, a helpless little moan broke from her throat and was lost in his mouth.

  His fingers curled around the back of her knee, pulling her leg up, making more room for him. He was the one to groan this time, a ragged, hard-edged sound so very unlike Alex.

  “Jesus, Jess...” He broke the kiss, gasping for air, searching her face.

  His hair was wrecked from her questing fingers, his eyes half-closed, his lips parted as he panted through his fierce arousal. The sight of his sex-starved expression, and those eyes, so intent and hot, made her nipples tingle, competing for urgency with the ache pulsing between her legs. There was probably still a lot they should talk about, issues they’d have to work out with words. But none of it seemed particularly urgent in the face of this tidal wave of desire.

  “Where’s your bedroom?”

  He blinked. “Are you sure?”

  As her hand tightened in his hair, she brought his mouth back to hers, kissing him with a sensual, almost obscene thoroughness. She was no longer sure of a single goddamned thing in her life, but she was absolutely sure she wanted to have sex with Alex. Right now. Tonight. “Yes, I’m sure.”

  Instead of immediately dragging her off to the bed, he took her face in his hands and kissed her again, altogether more gently than she’d kissed him. The romance of the kiss was at odds with his body, pressing against hers with an unabashed sensuality, stimulating her everywhere without ever touching exactly where she needed him.

  “Alex...” she panted, as he left her mouth to drop kisses across her cheek and down her neck. Hooking a heel over his hip, she tugged him in tight against her.

  “You’re driving me crazy,” he muttered into the soft skin in the hollow behind her collarbone. “I want you so much.”

  His tongue stroked across her skin in the wake of his words and she arched against him, needing more than she was getting with all of these clothes between them. For five years, she’d denied herself even the dream of Alex. The time had come to have the dream and the reality, too.

  “Then take me to bed and have me.”

  He leaned back to look at her, a lazy, satisfied grin on his face. Then, as easily as if he was picking up a bag of groceries, he swept her off the counter and into his arms. Now that was hot.

  “Bedroom?” he asked, giving her another chance to change her mind. Which would have been very gallant of him if she hadn’t been reduced to a trembling pile of lust by that little display of strength. Frankly, he was being a gentleman just taking her to his bed, when she wouldn’t have stopped him from doing it right there on the kitchen counter.

  “Bedroom,” she forced herself to reply. His chest rose and fell as he looked down at her. Then, with one more brief, hard kiss, he carried her down the hall and into his room.

  “Should I leave the lights off?” he murmured as he set her down inside.

  She shook her head. Alex was here with her and she didn’t want to forget it was him for a moment. He drew her along behind him to the side of the bed, where he flicked on one small lamp. It cast a dim circle of light, which didn’t reach to the corners of the room.

  Like the rest of his apartment, it was much simpler than she expected. The far wall was completely concealed in floor-to-ceiling curtains. Opposite, a wall of overstuffed bookshelves. His bed, a huge king-sized expanse of navy duvet, had a simple, dark upholstered headboard. Nightstands flanked it, one holding a scattering of personal items, intimate in their ordinariness...a paperback thriller, some change, a watch, its leather band still curled to the shape of his wrist.

  He turned to her, the low light casting his beautiful face in dramatic light and shadow. Before he could say anything or touch her, she lifted a hand and ran her fingers over the landscape of dark and light, tracing his features with her fingertips. His eyes fell closed and he sighed.

  “I’ve wanted you forever, Jess.” The words were whispered, almost like a secret he was confessing. He opened his eyes, smiling down at her, running a hand over her hair as he spoke. “Since the first time I saw you. Peter Jakes sat back in his chair and I could finally see your face, and for a minute, I couldn’t breathe. All I could do was stare at you, your gorgeous dark eyes, this hair...”

  Her heart stumbled to a stop as his words sunk in. Peter Jakes was in their freshman-year Exploring Journalism class. He’d transferred out after a couple of weeks. Alex was talking about the first day of Professor Hughes’s class, that moment when an innocent classroom discussion had flared into a heated argument between the two of them. It seemed as if arguments had stood in for every other intimate encounter they both wanted and couldn’t have.

  “Since then?” she whispered.

  He nodded, his eyes roving over her as he carded his fingers through her hair. “From the first.”

  “Then I opened my mouth and spoiled everything.”

  His mouth tugged into a lopsided grin. “Then you opened your mouth and I knew I was in real trouble. Because I’d fallen head over heels for a brilliant, passionate girl who was never going to give a rich, useless brat like me the time of day.”

  She thought back to those early days, when he seemed like some golden god a girl like her could never hope to touch, and a host of terrifying, tender, new emotions blossomed into blazing, emphatic life in her chest. Taking his face in her hands, she pushed up to her toes and kissed him, pouring into it all the feelings she couldn’t yet express in words. He kissed her back, the heat from earlier morphing into something darker and rich, full of the promise of everything to come.

  His hands slid from her waist, slowly over her hips, and down the backs of her thighs, curving her body against his as he bent over her. The hem of her dress rode up in his clutched hands, but he made no move to lift it or take it off her.

  When she couldn’t take it anymore, she pushed against his chest and took a step back. His hands hung in the air for a moment, his expression questioning. Never looking away from his eyes, she slowly bent over and unzipped one boot, toeing it off. The heavy knit neckline of her dress gaped away from her body, giving him a clear view of her cleavage down the front. She knew it, tossing her hair over her shoulder and out of the way, so nothing would impede his view. As she moved to unzip the other boot, she noted the prominent bulge at the front of his dark jeans, and she pressed her thighs together against the ache of pure desire.

  When her boots were gone, she slid her hands up under her skirt without lifting it, working the waistband of her tights down over her ass and hips. She’d just started wiggling them down over her thighs when his voice stopped her cold.

  “Lie down.” Not a request.

  Okay. That was a side of Alex she hadn’t expected, and it made her so hot, wet, and ready for him.

  She moved to the side of the bed to sit. When she made to scoot herself back, he stopped her again.

  “No, right there.” Pausing, she looked up at him as he came to stand between her feet. “Lie back.”

  Ufff... Who knew being bossed around by him would be such a turn-on? She did as he asked, her back flat on the bed, her knees bent, legs hanging over the edge of the bed. Slowly, Alex bent and grasped her feet in his hands and raised her legs, until both of her heels were settled on his shoulder. Her breath was coming in short pants as he slid his hands back down the le
ngth of her legs, shaping her ankles, cupping the curves of her calves, fingertips dipping into the sensitive hollows behind her knees, palms scraping deliciously down the length of her thighs.

  He’d been watching his own hands as he touched her, but now his gaze came up to meet hers, and it never wavered as his fingers curled around the waistband of her tights and he slowly began to peel them down her legs. Inch by inch, her pale skin was revealed, stark against the charcoal gray knit. Every bit of her that was exposed sent her temperature up another degree, until she felt like she was on the verge of combustion by the time he tugged her tights off her toes and tossed them away.

  His hands came back to her ankles, the heat almost searing against her already tingling skin. The urge to press her thighs together against this aching need was almost overwhelming. Lifting her left foot, he shifted it to his other shoulder. Still looking straight into her eyes, he turned his face and pressed a kiss to the inside of her ankle. Moaning, she arched off the bed, as aroused as if he’d touched the very center of her sex. But Alex wasn’t done. Slowly, he moved down her leg, his mouth never leaving her, unless it was to kiss the other leg, his lips and tongue tracing heated tracks over her calves, knees, and down her thighs.

  “Alex...” Her voice was a thin, reedy pant as her hands fisted into the duvet on either side of her head.

  “Almost there,” he murmured against the inside of her thigh.

  When he was nearly to the top, he gently pushed the hem of her dress up over her hips. But he bypassed the main event, instead, pressing a kiss to the little bow at the top of her panties, on her lower abdomen. She moaned, arching again, and he took advantage of the space under her body to push her dress farther up, chasing it with his mouth, dropping kisses up her stomach as he went.

  Her shaking legs wrapped around his rib cage as he moved up her body. Her dress was rucked up under her arms, her bra partially exposed, but not enough to allow his mouth access to all the places she wanted him. With a quick sideways wiggle, she grasped the bunched up fabric and drew it up over her head and off her arms, flinging it away into the darkness.

  Alex paused, gazing up at her from where he’d been kissing her rib cage. Her breasts, swelling above the cups of her plain black bra, heaved with every breath. With slow deliberation, he slid his palms up her sides until they’d settled over her breasts and he squeezed. It forced another ragged moan from her throat, and she threw her head back, eyes closed. Could she come just from his hands on her breasts? Right now, it felt like she might.

  The pleasure of his touch over the fabric was enough to drive her out of her mind, but then he added his mouth, tracing the edge of her bra with his lips and tongue as his fingers kneaded and stroked her. When he shifted slightly to the side and closed his mouth over one peak, she nearly shot up off the bed. Writhing, she grasped at his hair.

  “Alex, please.” Begging. He had her begging and he still had all his clothes on.

  One hand slid under her body and she arched to give him access. As his mouth teased her nipple through the damp satin, his nimble fingers flicked open the hooks of her bra. Drawing it down her arms, he barely drew a breath before taking her in his mouth again, this time nothing at all between her tender nipple and the hot, wet pleasure of his mouth.

  His body pressed down on hers, delicious weight between her legs, but he was too low to be where she really wanted him—needed him. With infinite thoroughness, he moved from one breast to the other, using his fingers when his mouth was busy, rolling and tugging on her nipples until she felt on the edge of combustion.

  “Oh... Alex...stop.”

  In an instant, he slid back, lifting his head to look at her in question. Her tongue skated along her bottom lip before she drew it briefly between her teeth. His lust-filled eyes tracked every tiny movement.

  “What’s wrong?” His voice was low and gritty with need.

  “Stand up.” It was his turn to get bossed around.

  A wicked grin unfurled across his face, his teeth flashing white in the dim light, and he pushed back, rising to tower over her, her legs hanging limply to either side of him.

  “Sweater,” she murmured. “Take it off.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Still grinning, he lifted an arm over his head, grasping a handful of fabric at the back of his neck and peeling the sweater off over his head with a casual, purely masculine shrug that made her mouth water.

  “So polite.”

  He shrugged, and the light played over the wonder of his torso, the broad shoulders, defined abs, flat stomach, and tapered waist. God bless the college swim team. “Manners matter.”

  She laughed, her eyes roaming down the length of his body. There was only a smattering of hair across his pecs, but a narrow trail started below his belly button, disappearing under the waistband of his jeans. Her palms itched to trace every inch of sculpted muscle and bone. Her tongue ached to trace that delicious trail down to its conclusion.

  But she made no move to touch him as she lay back on the bed, staring up at him. “Jeans, too.”

  “As you wish.” Automatically, his hands went to the fly, flicking open buttons with an easy confidence.

  “Did you just Princess Bride me?”

  “That depends,” he replied as that delicious trail was gradually exposed, and then the waistband of his boxer briefs. He began to push his jeans down, but stopped just as a very tantalizing V of muscles was coming into view.

  “Depends on what?” Jess was breathless with longing and anticipation.

  “Did you like being Princess Bride-ed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I was totally Princess Bride-ing you.”

  She forced her eyes up from what he was almost revealing, to meet his. “All off,” she commanded softly.

  His eyes were on fire as he stared down at her. In a moment, his jeans and briefs were gone. As he straightened, her eyes zeroed in on his cock, hard and curving up toward his stomach. Oh. Who knew he was hiding all of that? She might have wondered more than once, but she’d never dared dream it was so—

  “Jess.”

  Her name, spoken in that low rasp, jerked her eyes back to his face. “Come down here,” she murmured, holding out a hand to him.

  “One more thing.”

  Grasping her panties at either hip, he shimmied them down, taking away the last scrap keeping her body away from his eyes. When they were gone, his eyes slowly raked down her, from her heavy dark hair spread out on the duvet around her head, down over her breasts, nipples still hard and damp from his mouth, down over her stomach, to the V between her legs, and down the length of her legs.

  “I’ve wanted this for so long...” he murmured, trailing off as he lost the words.

  Then he slowly slid a palm up her thigh. Every muscle in her body went tense, but this time, he didn’t skip over the good stuff. One arm braced next to her head, he leaned over her as he dragged the fingers of his other hand over her mound, then down, down, down.

  “Oh,” she gasped, at the same moment he groaned.

  The touch of his fingers to her most sensitive skin was like an electric shock. He leaned down, his mouth hungrily claiming hers as his fingers swiftly and confidently explored her. She was already so worked up that it felt like only moments until she was trembling on the edge of an orgasm, her thighs shaking as it neared. She moaned into his mouth, her hands clutching at his rock-hard biceps, needing something stable to hang on to as he pushed her ever nearer to the edge.

  His fingers never stopped or slowed, and he didn’t break the kiss until she did, gasping and throwing her head back. Pleasure flooded through her like warm honey, and everything fell away for a few breathless minutes. There was just Alex and the bliss he was bringing to her body.

  When she opened her eyes again, flushed with her climax, he was still leaning over her, smiling down into her face.

  “T
hat was amazing to watch.”

  “It was amazing to feel, too.”

  His sexy smirk started spreading across his face.

  “Don’t gloat,” she warned him.

  “I wouldn’t dare.” Then he hooked his hands under her arms, lifted, and tossed her fully onto the bed like she weighed nothing. She was so shocked—and turned on—she couldn’t speak. He was crawling up the length of her body, the hair on his thighs pricking the sensitive skin of hers, his hard chest teasing the points of her breasts. The feel of him, alternately arousing and unfamiliar, overwhelmed her senses. Then he was lying over her, naked body pressed to naked body. How could she want him this much already when he’d just given her an orgasm so good her wits were still scrambled?

  “Do you have...?”

  “Yeah, hang on.” Leaning to the side, he retrieved a condom from the nightstand. She ran a hand up the tightly corded muscles of his arm as he braced himself and rolled it on.

  He came back down over her, kissing her briefly before pulling away enough to look down at her.

  “Yes?” he murmured.

  If she hadn’t been a thousand percent ready, his pausing to ask one more time would have convinced her. She wrapped her legs around his hips, pulling him in where she wanted him, urging him forward with her body. “Oh, yes.”

  There was a nudge, a delicious moment of anticipation as his body gently began to breach hers. She held her breath, desire thrumming through her veins. Alex pulled his lips from hers, kissed her cheek, buried his face in her hair, and with one hard thrust, he drove home.

  Her moan split the still, quiet air of the room.

  “Ah, God...” he groaned. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m so good. Don’t stop,” she whispered. “Whatever you do, just don’t stop.”

  “I won’t stop.” He began to move in her, long, slow strokes, each one another shock to her heated nerves, until she was lost to it. As his pace picked up, a coil of desire began again, low in her abdomen, drawing in tighter and tighter until she could barely stand it. Everything ached, striving for release. Alex’s strong body surged over her, leaving her helpless, tossed on the waves like a leaf on the breeze. He groaned as he drew closer, his hips snapping hard against hers.