Page 50 of Yours to Keep

Our bodies found each other without asking permission, our hips brushing against each other at first, then pressing, the space between us disappearing in inches at a time. I didn’t even realize people were watching us until there was a short beat between two songs. Then I laughed, the sound coming out breathless.

“We’re getting looks.”

“Good,” he murmured, his voice lower. “They should be jealous.”

And what I should’ve done was stepped back. Dancing with him like this was a terrible idea layered on top of what had been a disastrous day, but instead, I tilted my head up and caught the dark look in his eyes, focused and heated, like I was the only thing he could see.

My stomach flipped. Then his thigh slid between mine and it wasn’t subtle or accidental. It was very much deliberate, calculated to drive me insane. The music thumped through me, and suddenly, every nerve felt too close to the surface.

I was hyper-aware of his hands, the heat of him, and the way he dipped his head like he was about to say something in my ear, but then didn’t actually say anything at all.

“You’re doing that on purpose,” I said, swallowing hard as I felt the effect he was having on my body, and that wasn’t subtle either.

“Dancing?” he asked innocently but with a devilish curve to his mouth when he tightened his grip on my hips to drag me closer again.

I gasped when I felt it, the undeniable, unmistakable evidence of how turned on he was, pressed right where I couldn’t ignore it. My breath caught, heat pooling between my legs. In an act of momentary insanity, I ground against his thigh, my nipples hardening as the relief of the friction shot through me.

His jaw tightened. “We should stop.”

Neither of us did. Somehow, it escalated instead, going from swaying to grinding and from teasing to reckless. My fingers slid under his collar at the nape of his neck, his mouth hovering at my ear, then moving to my jaw, and finally landing at the corner of my mouth, not quite kissing but close enough to make me ache for it.

“Bree,” he murmured, like it was a warning.

“Too late,” I said. “It’s too late for that now, Sullivan.”

He held my gaze for a beat, his eyes tightening at the corners like he was trying to decide what to do. I stared up at him, my decision made, and the next thing I knew, his fingers were wrapped around my wrist and he was pulling me to the edge of the ballroom, past a row of service doors I hadn’t noticed before.

“Where are we⁠—”

“Just trust me,” he said, pushing open a narrow door and tugging me inside before shutting it behind us.

The room was dark and small, the faint scent of cleaning supplies and linen in the air. It was a closet. Definitely a closet, but I barely had time to register that before his hands were on my face and his mouth crashed into mine.

Hot. Urgent. No hesitation.

I kissed him back just as hard, my fingers fisting in his shirt. All the restraint we’d been pretending to have evaporated on contact. His body pressed me back against the wall, solid and unyielding, and I gasped into his mouth when he leaned in fully.

Our first kiss had been electrifying, but somehow, this was even better, all pent-up, and desperate, and fueled by too many almosts.

His mouth moved to my neck and he pressed himself up against me. I felt every inch of him again, harder now, and it sent a sharp, needy pulse straight through my body.

I made a sound I couldn’t take back, so desperate even to my own ears that I wasn’t surprised when he froze. Breathing hard, he murmured against my lips, “If you want to stop, tell me now.”

Instead of talking, I wound my fingers into his hair and kissed him again, deeper this time, and it seemed that was all the answer he needed. Our kisses became more frenzied, our hips rolling against one another with no rhyme or reason to the thrusts.

Pleasure streaked through me when he pushed his thigh between mine again and I moaned, unable to hold back the sound as that familiar sensation took root deep inside. Sullivan let out a noise that was almost animalistic in response. He grabbed a handful of my dress and shoved it up until the entire skirt was pooled around my waist.

He slid a hand between us, fingertips skating at the elastic of my panties before he wrenched his mouth away from mine. “May I?”

“Please.” Our lips crashed back together, but I still cried out when he slid his fingers around the front panel of my underwear.

A deep groan vibrated through him when he stroked his fingertips through my slick folds, teasing my entrance until I couldn’t even breathe while kissing him anymore. My fingers tightened their grip on his hair as my head dropped back against the wall.

Sullivan kept going, stroking me with these quick and expert touches that made my lids slam shut and my breaths come in panting gulps. His hips were still rocking against my thigh, but when I reached for him, he grazed his teeth against my neck where he was kissing me.

“Don’t,” he rasped. “Not yet.”

I licked my lips but nodded, too close to get into an argument with him about this right now. The things the man could do with his fingers were insane, and he was driving me closer and closer to the edge at a pace that was, frankly, alarming.