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We both lie still after, catching our breath, time passing at an unknown pace. I can’t say when it is that my melted brain registers the slow stroking of his fingers up and down my spine; maybe it’s when his lips start to press lingering kisses down the side of my face, maybe that’s when I come back online.
“Wow,” I laugh, my voice sounding scratchy and not quite like me. “That was…”
“Fucking amazing,” he finishes.
I grin into his chest. “Yeah?”
“Gimme a bit, and we’re doing it again.”
I lift my head, feeling a strange sort of thrill run through me. “Really?”
His brow scrunches. He looks so fucking delicious like this—sweat-slick skin and too-red lips and eyes that are a shade too dark with pupils that are entirely blown out—and it only occurred to me this very second that there was some deep, deep part of me that worried he would change his mind after. After we gave in.
“Did you think I wouldn’t want to do it again?”
Did I? I must have, right? What other reason would suddenly make me feel so unsure?
“I…Maybe?”
He frowns, pushing up from the bed and bringing us to a sitting position without seeming to exert any effort whatsoever. It really is unfairly hot how easily he manhandles me.
“Lila,” he says in a tone that almost seems chiding. “This wasn’t—” He puffs out a breath, shaking his head. “This wasn’t just sex to me. I couldn’t do that. Not with you. I could never do that with you. This is…” His hand reaches until his palm covers my cheek, and my fingers drift there to hold it steady like they have a mind of their own. “This is so much more than that. Do you understand?”
I honestly can’t say that I do, not one hundred percent, but the sincerity in his eyes, the absolute truth in them—it makes it hard to argue.
“Okay,” I say quietly. “Me too.”
He kisses me in that way of his—like he has all the time in the world, but he wants to use every second of it for me—slow, dirty, but with the promise of so much more.
“You’ve got bigger things to worry about,” he mumbles, a smile in his voice.
I frown, pulling back. “What?”
“Well.” He brings his finger to my lip, tracing the shape of it slowly as a devious grin spreads across his face. “We still have to tell Jack.”
I groan as I slump forward, ignoring the tiny oomph Ian lets out when I cover him with my weight, dropping my face to his shoulder. Definitely was not anticipating the buzzkill that is thoughts of my brother after having dream sex with my dream guy.
“You ass,” I grumble. “Way to kill the mood.”
Ian laughs loudly, thinking he’s funny, no doubt, the bastard, but I certainly don’t. Probably. Mostly. Not even the tiny kisses he starts to pepper across my shoulder are enough to make me forgive him. Nope. Definitely not.
His tongue slowly traces the curve that leads up to my neck.
On second thought…
Sixteen
IAN
I close Lila’s bedroom door behind me quietly, not wanting to wake her. She dozed off in my arms after round two, and while watching her sleep like a creep is tempting, I imagine she’ll be hungry when she wakes up. We did technically skip dinner, after all. Not that I’m complaining in the slightest.
I can feel a smile etched onto my mouth as fresh images of her above me and beneath me flit through my thoughts, half tempted to go back the way I came and wake her up for more. Now that I’ve had her, it feels like I might never get enough, and sure, that’s a little scary, but it also feels…right, somehow. That’s the part that is the most jarring about all of this, how not weird it is. I guess part of me thought that with our history, with the progression of what we were and what we’re becoming—that it might be awkward. But I feel none of that. Honestly, for the first time in a long time, I feel…settled. Happy, even.
And I know it’s all because of the gorgeous woman snoring softly in her bed.
I keep my steps quiet as I move toward Lila’s kitchen, pausing for only a second to laugh at the glass display case just off the living room that does in fact house the Porcelain Pride with, well, pride—moving on after a few seconds so as not to rob Lila the pleasure of showing me her newest additions. I open up a few of her cabinets instead; I’m nowhere near Lila’s level of culinary prowess, but surely I can whip up something that she’ll eat, her constant worries of me burning something be damned.
I’m currently ignoring a text from Jack that’s sitting unread on my phone, which is tucked in the rear pocket of the jeans I slipped back into; I don’t want to lie to him by any means, but telling him about Lila and me should be a joint effort. She should have even more say about how it happens, I think, given that it’s her brother. I want to believe that Jack wouldn’t actually disown me for this, not with the way I care about Lila, but I can’t pretend there isn’t a niggling worry at the back of my mind, however small. I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.
