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Instead, she reads this: Dear Elisha, Anita, Jamie, & Dave, thank you for inviting me to dinner and making me feel so welcome in Piney Peaks.
It’s short and sweet. No flowery words or painterly phrases, for all that he’s a writer. He’s sparing with his words and always to the point, which is more impressive to her than all the lyrical prose in the world, because she knows he always means what he says.
She looks between the card in her hands and her mother’s ceramic dish. The last time she saw it, Anita was piling leftovers into it for Ves to take home. The dish is clean now. “Wait, the cookies are for us?”
“Were,” he corrects. “I wouldn’t risk anyone’s teeth with these. They’re going straight into the trash.”
“Do it after,” she says, voice rough.
“After what?”
She drops the card on the counter and surges forward to kiss him. Even though her heart is all gooey, there’s nothing soft about her kiss. It’s a hungry gnashing of teeth and lips as they find their rhythm. Her hands delve deep into his hair, alternating between the scrunches that make him grunt and the tugs that make his hips buck against hers.
She breaks the kiss only long enough to hoist herself onto the counter. Ves makes a soft sound of concern, using the oven mitt to push the still-hot tray as far away from her as possible. “My hero,” she whispers, circling her legs around his waist and pulling him flush against the counter.
He smooths her hair, not going in for her mouth right away, which baffles her. Instead, he cradles the back of her neck and smooths the flyaways around the crown of her head. What a strange preoccupation he has, making sure he can see her face at all times. She smiles despite the stab of impatience in her gut telling her to hurry the fuck up. There it is again, that needy whine slipping out of her throat before her teeth have the good sense to bite it back.
How does she want him so much? This isn’t like her. She isn’t the girl who jumps on counters and propositions men over lunch and tries to hit them with lawn ornaments, and yet... here she is, wet and panting in Ves Hollins’s kitchen, guilty of all those things.
At least she hasn’t made the biggest, most fatal mistake of them all, yet. Falling for a boy who already has one foot on his way out of town.
He must read some of the apprehension in her face, because his hand stills in her hair, looping around her back. He’s not really touching her anymore, but she’s still hyperaware of him. The pounding of his heart against her own, the heat of his skin so incandescent that it makes the blood in her veins froth. The longing in his eyes slides to something infinitely more serious. “Do you want me?”
“No, I’m kissing you out of sympathy,” she says playfully. “Those cookies were really awful.”
“Elisha.”
She loves the way he says her name. Gritted between his teeth. He’s exasperated, but now she wants to hear him say it like that while his cock is sheathed within her, like he’s trying to restrain himself. As if he’s delirious with pleasure at the feel of her muscles contracting around him.
Oh yes, she wants to hear what sounds he’ll make then, whether her name will be whispered with benediction or growled as a curse. Maybe both. She hopes it’s both. Of course she wants him. It’s the easy answer, the one that will let her fuck him without wondering about tomorrows.
“I want you,” she says, consenting clearly. “I want this.”
“Good. I do, too.” And then he whisks her off the counter.
“Ves!” she yelps, clamping her legs tighter around his waist. “What are you doing?”
He keeps walking. “Kitchen sex is unhygienic.”
Her mouth drops open. “Because what we were doing was going to be so neat and tidy?”
He nips at her ear. “Bedroom.”
She doesn’t want to wait. She unwinds her legs and plants them firmly on the ground. “Here.”
Ves looks around. “In the living room?”
“Why not?” There’s a rug in front of the fireplace. It’s got a nice, thick pile, and she knows it’s soft, so it won’t irritate her knees or back. “Grab a condom, will you?”
She shimmies out of her black leggings, hopping on one foot when the legs snag on her socks. In her peripheral vision, he looks utterly transfixed. Slack-jawed. Goosebumps prickle over her skin, following the path of his gaze. Elisha grins, plucking off her wool socks. Judging by the unabashed want on his face, Ves has been longing for her at least as long as she has for him.
Finally, she rips everything off except her bra and panties. They’re plain white, nothing fancy, but his eyes still devour her like they’re silk. Elisha gets on her knees and bends forward, her favorite position, and looks back at him over her shoulder with a quirked, expectant eyebrow. “Well? It’s fucking cold, Ves. You coming or not?”
Before she finishes the sentence, he’s already in motion. He pulls his tee over his head, revealing toned, lean muscles and mouthwatering hip bones with the faintest dusting of golden hair.
With a ragged inhale, she turns away. But not to give him privacy. Instead, she luxuriates in the soft sounds of clothing being removed, hurriedly folded, and then the swish of him as he approaches her from behind. The condom makes a soft crinkle as he tosses it on the rug next to her.
Ves seems to instinctively know what she wants, hands large and warm and roving as they stroke the soft skin of her stomach, the dip of her waist, the generous swell of her hips. She holds her breath as his fingertips, slightly rough, skim the waistband of her panties. He doesn’t go further, and she lets him know exactly how she feels about that by leaning against his chest, soundlessly asking for more of his touch.
