‘No way. I’ve waited too long. I’m not waiting anymore.’ Before he could protest, she was on her knees and had taken him in her mouth.
He closed his eyes, previous objection dead on his lips. Her knees dug into the concrete but she felt no pain, only the brutal ecstasy of the realisation that she’d wasted so much time, pretending there was nothing between them when all along she could have been here, in this garage, metres away from her own bedroom, her mouth around him.
The sparks she’d felt with just her hand on him were nothing compared to the surge of power that came with this. She ran her tongue around his tip as she worked her hand up and down. Everything about him was warm and wanting.
‘Fuck.’
His moan rippled through her as she took him deeper, further than she’d normally dare. For him, she was realising, she’d cut herself into a million pieces and stitch herself back up if it meant they could fit together.
‘Nella, if you keep going I’m going to ... no, not like this ...’
She revelled in the obvious pain ripping through his voice, caused by asking her to stop.
‘Nella ...’ She could feel him barely holding it together. As she brushed her thumb over his balls, he groaned again and seemed to involuntarily push himself deeper into her. ‘No, Nella.’ He looked like he was in a trance, fighting against himself. ‘I’m not fucking you for the first time in my garage.’
The first time.Her pathetic little brain cradled those words like a precious stone. Did that mean he wasn’t going to leave?
‘Good thing it’s notyourgarage anymore.’ She stood, her heart heavy with the knowledge that he was still leaving, and that she had to let him go. Because she loved him.
And maybe that was the truth, really, of why no one ever passed her challenges. Because she was afraid of loss. Love had never been a given for her and her siblings. Respect was what they fought for; love was a side effect of being too human, too normal. But maybe it was just because they were afraid to lose it.
‘Nella—’
‘We’re not friends anymore, Jett, I don’t need to compromise.’ She backed him up against his work bench, his pupils dilated as he drank her in. He was shaking his head but his hands were pulling off her shirt. Then they were back on her hips, lifting her up so now she was against the bench.
‘Are you sure?’ he rasped as her bra came off.
She’d never felt safer, her back against the wall of spanners and screwdrivers, her best friend kissing a line down her throat. ‘Yes, you have my whole ice-hearted consent.’
His teeth sank into her neck, a throaty, disapproving rumble. ‘I’ll keep your secret, Nella. You don’t have to pretend for me, you know that now.’
‘What secret?’ God, she was dying, she was actually dying, and he was doing nothing to stop it.
‘That your heart isn’t ice.’ He licked her collarbone. She shivered and fought the burning swell of tears behind her skull. ‘You are fire,’ he continued. ‘You are warmth, and life, and the light in all my darkness.’
‘I thought you just meant I was hot.’ But she could tell he knew how much his words affected her as he smiled into her mouth.
‘Oh, you’re hot, all right.’
And then he proceeded to tell her, with a tongue he’d clearly sharpened in the dark alleys of his youth, exactly what he thought about her body.
44
Jett
Pulling Nella off his cock had been akin to the most incomprehensible torture techniques of the Middle Ages. He hadn’t known he had that kind of willpower – although, he supposed, he’d been fighting against the urge to do exactly what he was doing now for about ten years.
But there was nothing left of that old resolve. Their friendship was trashed on the floor in the forms of a bra, tracksuit pants and the rest of their clothing. As he slipped his fingers inside her, he couldn’t remember a time when this had just been a fantasy in his mind. His whole world was in front of him now, her nails digging into his back, her legs straddling him as he kissed her neck, her breasts, her mouth. Nothing else had ever existed.
‘I’ve always wanted you,’ he confessed, ‘always.’
‘You kept that locked up pretty tight.’ She traced the ridges of the scars on his back, kissed the burn on his forearm.
He circled her nipple with his tongue before biting down, gently but enough for her to moan and arch against him. ‘Had to,’ he whispered into her neck. ‘I never let myself think about you like this. It would have destroyed me. It almost did.’
‘Youneverthought about this?’ Her hand was on his cock again, up and down, the warmth and pressure of her grip was ...
‘Fucking hell, Nella, I’m not a bloody saint. Of course I thought about this.’ He could barely form the words; blood was not interested in his brain. ‘Of course I thought about you. That fucking body ...’
