His gait faltered. At just that moment, she lifted her gaze from the book in her lap and met his full-on, her expression full of resolve, lit from within with something that made his chest fill with hope. He was still a few dozen yards away from her, but he was close enough now that he could see her in crisp focus. She was even more beautiful than usual, just as poised as she had been all week, but more somehow.
And it struck him: she’d never hesitated to take what she wanted from him.
The speech he’d been rehearsing since they’d agreed to meet disappeared, and walking faster now, he closed the distance between them. Buzzing with nerves, still energized by the victory with his father from the day before and inspired by the woman waiting for him, he stopped just a foot away.
His voice was rough as he said, simply, “Hi.”
The corners of her mouth quirked up into a smile. There were words on her lips, but before she could speak a single one of them, he held out his hand.
Take what you want.
“Hi,” he said again. And then everything was falling out of him in a rush. “My name is Josh Markley. I’m a student. Here.” He gestured at the buildings around them. “I’m a senior, with a 3.89 GPA. Up until yesterday afternoon, I was pre-med. I’m going to MIT in the fall to study chemistry, with my father’s blessing. I live with my parents. I drive a motorcycle and a pre-owned Corolla. My drink of choice is Sam Adams. I don’t know how to cook anything except grilled cheese and French toast, but I’m damn good at both.”
He swallowed deep, but kept talking, speaking right over her stunned, halfhearted attempts to interject. “The first time I noticed you was in the spring of my freshman year. You were sitting right here. You were wearing a black sweater, and you had your lip between your teeth and a book in your lap. I thought you were beautiful and fascinating, and I would have come up to you and talked to you and asked you out, but I was scared. After that, I started noticing you everywhere. How you always sat in the back and only talked to a couple of friends. You always knew the answers, and you looked so damn cute in an apron and mask in anatomy lab. And I should have asked you out. I should have. But you held yourself apart. I thought if you were interested at all, maybe you’d give me a sign. Hell, that you’d look at me, even.
“And then, last Saturday, you did more than that.” His lungs felt like they were squeezing in, and there was an ache skittering across his ribs. He wanted this to work out. So much. “It was one of the best nights of my life, with just one problem.”
“Josh—”
“The problem being that I didn’t tell you who I really was or what I really wanted.”
He paused for breath, sucking down air like he’d been running a marathon instead of just baring his soul. In the silence that remained, she looked up at him with wide eyes that spoke of a vulnerability that made him want nothing more than to hold her.
“What did you want?”
He felt like his face was cracking just to hold itself together. “To be with you, get to know you. To take you out on dates and take you home with me to meet my parents. To kiss you. Everywhere.” He lowered his voice and stared into her eyes, gaze smoldering. “To be inside you. To…” The words burned in his throat as he forced them out. “To love you.
“I still want that,” he swore. “All of it. If you’ll let me.”
Scarcely breathing, he kept his eyes trained on hers as she studied him, sizing him up. He could only hope she’d find what she was looking for. Everything he had was on the table. No more lies. No more half-truths.
After a long, intense minute, she shifted the book off her lap and stood. He instinctively stepped back, but then her hand was in his, her palm so warm and soft as she shook his hand, like the greeting they had never really had.
“Hi, Josh Markley,” she said, voice shaky but strong. “I’m Ellen Price. I go to school. Here. I’m pre-med, and in the fall, I’m going to medical school at Boston University. I live alone, and my parents left me here on this side of the country when they had to move for my father’s work. I drive a used Chevy that’s almost as old as I am. I’d never been on a motorcycle or climbed something higher than this wall until last week. I waitress at the Park Diner to try to make ends meet.
“I haven’t dated in ages, and I’ve never had sex outside of a serious relationship. I’m so busy with work and school that I tend to keep to myself. It’s easier that way, too, because I can be…shy sometimes. But I’m trying not to be. I’m trying not to blend in or be afraid or just go along with the flow. I’m trying to be assertive and strong and noticeable. I’m trying to have fun.”
Her confession made his heart squeeze even harder. God, but she was all those things and so much more.
One side of her mouth tilted up into a brittle, hopeful smile. “Last Saturday, my best friends all left me to go on spring break. It made me mad and crazy, lonely and resentful. So I decided to take a break myself. I decided to put myself out there. So I went to a bar. And while I was there, I saw the most handsome, incredible guy. I took him home with me, but I—” The fragile edges of her smile cracked open, and her eyes shone. “I lied. I told him I was someone I wasn’t, because I wanted to be carefree and to just…go for it. But I didn’t expect—I never thought—”
Even though his chest was bursting with hope and need and—yes, he could name it now—love, he stayed silent, holding onto her hand like it was his last tether to the world.
A tear spilled over the edges of her eyelashes, and her voice hushed to the faintest whisper. “I never expected to fall in love with him.”
And he couldn’t resist a second longer.
He dropped her hand, and before he could blink or breathe, he had her in his arms, mumbling, “It’s nice to meet you,” before leaning down, pressing lips to lips in a kiss that tore through him, lighting every nerve on fire.
She laughed into his mouth even as she clutched at him, pulling him closer. “You, too.”
Not even caring who was looking, he kissed her, unleashing every ounce of restraint that had kept all those words inside for so long. When he needed to pull away to breathe, he nipped his way up to her ear, where he asked, burning with want and hope, “It doesn’t matter?”
“Not at all.”
His smile was so wide it hurt, his mouth stretched too taut to even kiss. “I feel exactly the same.”
She beamed up at him, and for a second, it seemed all they could do was stare at each other. There was nothing left to say, no barriers of half-truths or half-lies. Things were in motion inside him, though, things he couldn’t give free rein to. Not here, in front of prying eyes.
The same things were dancing in her gaze. Placing her hands on his shoulders, lifting up onto tiptoes, she glanced meaningfully back across the road toward his bike, then leaned in to put her lips against his ear. He trembled as she murmured darkly, “Josh Markley?”
“Ellen Price?”
“Take me for a ride.”
The heat inside him boiled over with a violence that staggered him. A growl rose up in his throat as he clutched her close, his hands cupping her backside. “Get your things.”
His fingertips grazed the base of her spine as she turned and stuffed her books into her bag, needing to keep in contact with her. She’d barely gotten the bag closed up before he was yanking her across the quad and toward the road. They both had class in an hour, and neither of them had missed it all semester. A subversive little thrill rushed through him. They were going to miss it today. After all, they’d earned a little reckless irresponsibility.
At his bike, he got them each outfitted with their helmets, then swung his leg over the seat. She slipped in right behind him, and this time she didn’t hesitate to press herself close, her spread legs flush against his, her arms tight to his chest. He fired up the engine. “Hold on.”
She slid one hand down his abdomen to cover where he was hard and straining against his jeans, and he threw his head back, groaning loudly over the purr of the motor. With
her palm still hot over his arousal, he peeled out, roaring through campus and feeling like a god. There was no pretense as to what this ride was about. It was an escape and a thrill. It was foreplay.
There was no question about where they were going, either.
By the time he slid into a spot in front of her building, he was fit to burst. He tore his helmet away and was off the bike, standing beside it and wrestling with the strap of her helmet before she could even reach for it. Not bothering to take the time to secure them to the side of the motorcycle, he carried them with him as he followed her to her door. He pressed himself to her spine as she fit her key to the lock, nipping at her ear, and on the stairs up, he kept his hand on her ass, his feet just one step behind hers the entire time.
Finally, they burst through the door of her apartment. He kicked it closed the instant he was through it, turning the lock without looking at anything but her. He dropped the helmets and his bag to the floor. In a simultaneous thump of books on hardwood, she did the same.
His chest heaving, his body burning and aching, he stared her down. He felt too much, wanted too desperately. Didn’t know how to fit his hands and mouth and hips to hers without breaking her or cracking wide open himself.
All he had to do was touch her, and he’d have everything he wanted. Everything.
She took one backward step, took her bottom lip between her teeth, and all at once the stalemate broke. He was on her, mouth pressed to hers, fingers scrabbling for purchase on her skin. With one hand on her breast and the other on her hip, he steered her toward the wall and pressed her into it, pushing his hips against hers. He bit and kissed the corner of her jaw and to her throat, shifting to grasp her open thighs and lifting her, sandwiching her between the wall and his body.
“I want,” he mumbled, tasting skin. “We should—bed—”
She tilted her head back and raked her hands through his hair. “No. Here. Right here.”
“Fuck.” He wasn’t going to argue with that.
What had happened to the woman that would only let him take her one way, the one who swore nothing else had ever worked for her? The woman in front of him today was bold and trusting, adventurous and so damn sexy in her confidence that it was like to drive him mad.
He groaned aloud. “I want you. So fucking much.”
“Then have me.”
The dam inside him broke loose. With desperate hands, he tore at her shirt, pushing the neckline down to suck at the top of her breast, then shoving up the bottom hem. She reached between them to pull the fabric up and over her head, snuck a hand behind her body and came away with her bra. He lifted her higher and sucked the bare tip of her breast into his mouth, drowning in her moan and in her flesh. Kissing hard, he fumbled for his glasses to set them aside, but her hand was on his.
“Leave them on.”
His mouth was on hers again in an instant, heart bursting. As if he could have loved her more. As if he could have felt more accepted, more sure she wanted him for him.
When he couldn’t breathe any more, he finally let go, dragging his lips from hers and yanking the back of his shirt up and over his head. He set her down and toed his shoes off, pushing the rest of his clothes away and fishing in his wallet for a condom. Watching her step out of her own jeans, he took a couple of long, slow strokes at his cock, then rolled the latex on.
God, she was beautiful. Perfect and real and his.
Still, he needed to hear it from her mouth.
She stood again and put her spine to the wall, staring at him. Ignoring the world of smooth, naked skin below, he kept his gaze fixed on her face and pressed his open palm against her heart. It was the only point of connection, inches of air separating them as he felt his throat tighten and bob.
“Be mine,” he said.
The corner of her lip quivered, her eyes so soft. “Of course.”
He squeezed his eyes shut and kissed her hard. Possessed and too needy, still sure the strength in his hands and the sheer force of his desire would be too much, he dropped to his knees, lifted her leg to rest on his shoulder.
“Oh God, Josh.”
Hands on her abdomen, he spread her with his tongue, one long lick and then another before fitting his whole mouth to her ripeness. She was wet and swollen and delicious, her little sounds a fucking lightning bolt to his cock.
Lost in her, he barely registered the light pressure of her nails against his scalp, the gentle tug at his hair.
“Josh.”
Sucking at her clit, he opened his eyes and looked up at her.
Her face was agonized, lips parted and cheeks flushed. And in her eyes, he saw the same frightening need that drove him and forced him to slow himself down. Voice gruff, hands insistent, she murmured, “I need you.”
He pressed a kiss to the top of her sex, his chin digging gently at her clit. “I have to make you come first. I’m too wild.”
She tugged at his hair again. “I want you wild.”
He had to shut his eyes against the surge of need, a pleasure so sharp it melted into pain. It had never been like this. Never. He’d never been so driven and so entirely himself.
And it was her. It was all her.
He rose, sliding the length of himself through the slick heat of her sex as he lifted her against him. She wrapped her legs around his hips, and he was right there. Right there.
“Tell me you want me. Just like this.”
Her words were punctuated with kisses. “Exactly.” Kiss. “Like.” Kiss. “This.”
He buried himself in one stroke.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” His forehead hit the plaster. She was so tight around him, so hot and so sweet.
But she was needy, too. Hot lines seared themselves up and down his back as she dug her nails in, her teeth deep in the muscle joining his shoulder and his neck.
“Just like that,” she chanted, hips bucking into his.
And there was no more hesitation. Just giving. Just taking.
In the hardest thrusts of his life, he drove himself into her. With every twist of his hips against hers, she moaned into his ear. She mumbled his name and God’s and swore as he panted into her neck. The feeling was rising up too soon, his legs burning, balls tightening, and there was just the pulsing pressure around his cock. Her breath.
“I love you.” It was a choking gasp, the sweetness of her voice, and then she was screaming out her climax as she clenched around him.
“Oh God, I love you. I love you, Ellen, I—”
The feeling took him in a surge so powerful, so all-consuming. The world went black as he spasmed and spilled into her, his mouth against hers, their breaths one as their bodies melted into plaster and bone.
Seemingly endless seconds later, he jerked one final time inside her and took his first shuddering inhale as a new man. As her man. Reason and clarity seeping back into him, turning the foggy edges solid once more, he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her as tight against him as he could. They slid down the wall as one until they were a puddle of limp bodies and tangled limbs on the floor.
And he didn’t know if he had ever been so happy.
Her face in his hands, he leaned back so he could see her beautiful eyes. His glasses were smudged, smeared with fingerprints and the imprint of her skin, but he still saw her more clearly than he had anyone. He saw her invitation.
“I want it all,” he confessed. “The rest of this semester. Boston. Everything.”
“Take it, then,” she murmured, leaning in to kiss him softly. Touching his jaw, she smiled. “Take it all.”
He clutched her close.
He didn’t doubt for a second that he would.
About the Author
After brief, unsatisfying careers in advertising, teaching, computers and homemaking, Jeanette Grey has returned to her two first loves: romance and writing. Nothing makes her happier than creating new characters and exploring the emotional and physical connections between them.
When she isn’t writing, J
eanette enjoys making pottery, playing board games and spending time with her husband and her pet frog. She lives, loves and writes in upstate New York.
You can find Jeanette online at www.jeanettegrey.com or on Twitter at @jeanettelgrey.
Look for these titles by Jeanette Grey
Now Available:
Unacceptable Risk
She may learn to live for love…if vengeance doesn’t kill her first.
Unacceptable Risk
© 2011 Jeanette Grey
Plix spends her lonely, gritty life trying to solve the mysteries her father left behind. Armed with a variety of cybernetic enhancements and a talent for getting into places she shouldn’t be, she searches for clues to his murder—and who’s responsible for poisoning her city.
Waking up on a street corner with her brain wiring fried to a crisp, she figures she must have gotten close this time. There’s only one man she trusts to pull her back from the brink: a tuner who can retrieve the evidence hidden deep in the recesses of her mind. A man she dares not let too close to her heart.
When Edison downloads a secret SynDate schematic from Plix’s burnt-out circuitry, he knows with dreadful finality that nothing—not even the fiery kiss he’s been holding back for years—will stop her from pursuing her quest past the point of insanity.
All he can do, as he helps her plan her final mission, is ease her pain, watch her back…and hope one of them doesn’t pay with their lives.
Warning: Contains a heroine intent on kicking ass and taking names, a high-tech dystopia, cybernetic body modifications, and emotionally-charged, sensual romance.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Unacceptable Risk:
Lucien Vicker knew what her father had been up to. Lucien Vicker knew about her.
She had to go.
Layers of plans and strategies unfolded in her mind for where she would go next and what she would do. For how she would take her leave. Edison would be angry at her for abandoning her recovery so soon; she knew that he’d wanted another day or two at the very least to make sure everything was functioning correctly. But the most significant damage had been repaired or contained, and she was strong enough, she was sure. If she wasn’t, then she was just going to have to hope Edison would forgive her.
Take What You Want Page 11
