When she finally manages to force her eyes open, sensation still firing through every nerve ending in her body, it’s the sexiest thing she’s ever seen in her life. His hair a wild mess from where her fingers tangled into it, his cheeks flushed from the effort, his mouth swollen and glistening. His eyes hold hers from between her thighs, his pupils blown almost completely black with a thin ring of dark inky green at the edges.
Then his face lights up with a wild mix of mischief and lust, his mouth quirking up into a wicked grin before he lowers his lips back down to her, and with a few clever presses of his tongue and an expert curving of his fingers, her body is shaking again, arching up off the table, head thrown back, his name spilling from her throat.
“You okay in there?” he asks from beside her when she finally comes back down to earth, soft jolts of electricity still firing under her skin.
“You are so good at that,” she murmurs.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Modest, too,” she says with a laugh, finally able to open her eyes to look up at him staring down at her.
“I think maybe you like that I’m not,” he says, dipping his head down to press a kiss to her lips. “I think you like that I’m sure of myself. I think you like that I take control.”
“Do I?”
“You do. I think you’re in charge everywhere else, but here with me, you like to let go. I think you like knowing it’s safe to do that, that I won’t let you fall. I think no one has ever done that for you before.”
“I . . .” she starts, but she’s interrupted by a knock at her door. Thank God, because she definitely wasn’t in control of what she was about to say. She’s not even sure what words were going to tumble off her tongue.
“Shit,” he murmurs, the rumble of his voice enough to send another shock wave through her body. “You’re not expecting anyone, are you?” She tries to glare at him, but she can’t quite manage it with the firecrackers still sparking over her body. “Right, that’s a no.”
He pulls back, standing up with a small groan, and then reaches behind him to grab her shirt and her underwear before turning back to face her.
“Fuck, you look . . .” He trails off.
She can just imagine what she looks like, like maybe she just got eaten out on her coffee table by the hottest guy she’s ever seen.
Trying to calm herself, she takes the hand he’s offering to help her up. Sending him a rueful grin, she glances down at where his jeans are noticeably bulging.
“I’ll, uh, be right back,” he grumbles.
She giggles at his retreating back and catches him rolling his eyes at her in the mirror mounted on the hallway wall.
There’s another knock at the door and she takes a deep breath before attempting to smooth her hair down again, an absolute losing battle. She moves to the door and opens it just in time to see Chloe headed back down the hallway, arms wrapped around her middle, shoulders hunched.
“Chloe?” Bianca calls out. “Sorry! I’m home. Just took me a second to get to the door.”
Chloe turns around. Holy shit. Her face is red and blotchy, streaks of mascara and eyeliner running over her cheeks.
“Fuck, Chloe! Are you okay? Come in, come in, come in,” she says, racing down the hallway and herding her friend back toward the door.
“I just . . . I just didn’t know where else to go.”
“You can always come here,” she says, getting Chloe inside and shutting the door behind them. “Sit.” Bianca gestures to the couch, which still has the coffee table pushed up against it. “Crap, hang on.” Pulling it away, she makes space for her friend to sit down.
“I’m so sorry. I’m interrupting.”
“You’re not,” Bianca insists as Xavier comes back out, hair wet, in sweatpants and a t-shirt, like maybe he took the fastest, coldest shower in history.
Chloe perches at the edge of the couch cushions like she’s ready to leap up and run if she has to. “Bianca, there is a bottle of wine out, two glasses, your record player is on, and you can’t see yourself right now, but I’m definitely interrupting.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Bianca says, looking to Xavier for confirmation.
He nods, his mouth in a firm line before he moves over to the bar cart and busies himself there for a moment. “Here,” he says, turning back toward them with a glass of two fingers of a brown liquid. “Just to calm your nerves.”
“I’m not nervous,” Chloe says, as she reaches up for the glass, but stops when they all watch her hand shake as she tries to take it. “Okay, maybe I am, just a little bit.”
She steadies herself and then downs the glass in one sip, wincing and letting out a cough, before inhaling sharply through her nose.
