15. It’s All Coming Back to Me

15

IT’S ALL COMING BACK TO ME

Maeve

When the door to our room shuts, my nerves gallop, but so does my excitement. I catch a glimpse of his duffel bag, with the box of condoms poking out. Kissing is one thing, but sex is entirely another. I don’t think I can have forget-about-it-tomorrow sex with Asher. It’s too intimate. And I’m too needy.

I need boundaries for my own emotional health. I place a hand on his chest. “Just kissing. That’s all.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t let you see the flamingos,” he says.

I laugh, and his comment erases my nerves. He knew what to say. Asher always knows what to say to settle my wild thoughts and my racing heart.

“Besides, there’s a marriage pact loophole where you get free kissing practice on your wedding night,” he adds.

“I had no idea. You’re quite the expert on marriage pacts,” I tease .

“Well, I did strike ours, and look—it paid off. You’re having fun.”

“I am,” I say, but then my nerves resurface. Where do we go? The bed? The couch? Here? Do we stand and make out?

Before I even have time to analyze all the logistics, Asher takes my hand and leads me to the couch. He sinks down on it, and I follow, sitting next to him. Closer than I usually do.

But now what? “This is awkward,” I observe, looking at my hands.

“Doesn’t have to be,” he replies, sounding relaxed, confident. Maybe I need that.

“Yeah?” Is it obvious how eager I am?

Of course it is. I bet him for a kiss.

He takes a beat, his gaze thoughtful, then asks, “Do you trust me?”

He said those words at the auction, and my answer came easily. It flies off my tongue tonight too. “Yes.”

“Then let me help you remember,” he says. I expect him to come in for a kiss, but instead, he takes his time, lifting a hand and running a finger across my lower lip.

Like I did moments ago at the table. I tremble. He knew what I was doing then—recalling the kiss.

But the other thing I realize is… he noticed .

Does Asher watch me?

The bold part of me wants to ask him that question—when in Vegas, after all. But the part of me that likes how he’s setting the pace waits for him to go next.

He lowers his hand, meets my eyes with his darkened ones. “Does that help you remember how I turned you on so much with our wedding kiss that you bet on another one at the roulette table? ”

I’m so obvious, and he likes it. “Is that what you think happened?” I ask coyly, testing him. I’ve never known what Asher’s like after dark, of course. Haven’t really thought about it much either. Now, my curious mind is buzzing with questions.

His gaze locks on mine. “I don’t think it. I know that’s what happened.”

My heart stutters. Is my life-of-the-party, emotionally astute, shoulder-to-lean-on friend a bossy man in the bedroom?

Please say yes, universe.

Wait. I can’t think that. I really can’t. Except, I am. And I want more of it, so I tease him with a bob of my shoulder and a flirty, “Maybe.”

There’s a rumble in his throat. Then, he says, “Pretty sure it is… wife.”

My breath hitches from the thoroughly possessive way he uttered one word. “Okay. You’re right,” I murmur.

“I know,” he says, and he cups my jaw, stroking it slowly.

Is my jaw an erogenous zone? Well, it sure seems it is, since I feel like a cat, purring, leaning into his hand, moving with him as his thumb explores the line of my jaw. I’m shivery from what he’s doing. He slides the pad of his thumb up to my ear, tracing the shell with a light caress. He hasn’t even dropped his mouth to mine again. He hasn’t even dipped his face near me.

And yet, I’m melting inside.

“We’re not practicing kissing,” I whisper, but my eyes are fluttering closed and I’m not sure my thoughts are truly coherent. I feel like a chocolate bar in the sun right now, and it’s all from his fingers on my face.

He tips my chin up, forcing me to look at him. My eyes float open. Asher’s green irises are usually clever, inviting. Now they’re mesmerizing, glimmering. They’re…a little filthy too.

“We are, Maeve,” he says, firm, commanding. “We are practicing kissing.”

My brow knits. I’m a little confused. “But?—”

Then, he shuts me up by pressing a finger to my lips. “Do you think a good kiss only involves lips?”

“Well…”

He shakes his head. “A kiss doesn’t start with lips. It starts with want. With desire. With anticipation,” he says, and I whimper from his words and the way they’re tugging low in my belly. Then, he slides a hand down my bare arm, watching as the little hairs on my arm rise up. “It starts with other people looking at you. Thinking they have a chance with you. And being so fucking wrong.”

My chest burns from his seductive words. “Why are they wrong?”

He dusts a thumb across my lower lip. “Because this pretty mouth? It belongs to me tonight.”

My breath hitches. “It does.”

“There’s one more thing I want you to remember about kissing,” he says, like a professor.

“What is it?”

“A good kiss starts with me getting you so wound up, you’re…” He stops, dips his face to my ear, then whispers, “wet before I even kiss you.”

The sound I make—it’s needy.

It’s feral.

It’s not at all friendly.

I swallow roughly, then say in a feathery voice, “I’m starting to remember.”

“Good. Let’s see if it all comes back to you. ”

His fingers glide down my cheekbones to my chin, skimming the bare skin at the top of the vest. Then he stops, respecting my limits—which is so damn hot—even as I wonder how far I want to stretch them tonight.

He brackets my face with his hands, and I feel…controlled, but in a way I didn’t know I wanted. Until now. I feel almost blindfolded, with no idea what he has in store for me—where his hands, his mouth, his plans will take me as he shows me how to kiss again.

He sweeps my hair aside, then with a firm hand on my face, he tilts my head, exposing the side of my neck. He lays open-mouthed caresses along my throat, from shoulder to hairline, and I’m sighing, murmuring, gasping.

“You’re still not kissing me,” I pant out.

“Got a problem with that?” he taunts.

I smile as I lean my head back, inviting more of his prelude to a kiss. “I don’t know. Maybe you should keep not kissing me. I mean, that sounds like a good idea to me.”

He laughs softly, maybe remembering his toast about good ideas and bad ones once upon a time.

“Teasing is a good idea. And you like it. Seems you like the anticipation too,” he says as he presses a hot kiss to the hollow of my throat.

It’s not a question, so I don’t answer with words. I answer with touch, looping my arms around his neck.

For a second, he freezes, like my touch is too much. He squeezes his eyes closed. Shudders.

Wow.

Watching that tremble move through him like he has to fight it might be the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. Come to think of it, Asher kissing me like he wants me to remember it for all time is the most electrifying thing I’ve ever felt.

But when he opens his eyes, both those things are wrong.

The look in his green irises right now—darkened, almost tormented, but determined—is the hottest thing ever.

“You were saying?” he asks, then he crushes his lips to mine.

Oh, god.

The sound that comes from my mouth is embarrassing—it’s a needy whimper.

I part my mouth, asking for more.

He slides his tongue between my lips, holding my face, exploring me. It’s a hard kiss. Different from the one at the chapel. That was a sultry kiss on a beach under the shimmering sun. It’s different, too, from the one on the street after the auction. That was a simple tease, a sip of whiskey, a little heat.

This is something else entirely.

This is devouring. His thumb presses under my jaw, tilting my head back so he can kiss me deeply.

His kisses are hungry. They’re greedy. They’re demanding. Asher doesn’t kiss me like we’re best friends. He kisses me like he met me tonight and wants to put me on my hands and knees and fuck me into next week.

That image lodges in my brain and won’t budge. With each sweep of his tongue, I picture him throwing me down. Every press of his lips makes me imagine him grabbing my wrists, binding them in his hands. As fingers sweep over my face, I feel myself surrendering to whatever he’d ask me to do .

I sink into his kiss on the couch, taking everything he gives, until I’m aching not merely between my thighs.

But I’m craving him in every damn cell in my body.

I break apart for a second, just to catch my breath, maybe to get my bearings, and he looks wild.

I feel wild. “I think I almost remember now,” I say.

“Better make sure,” he taunts.

“Yeah, I better.” I take his taunt and turn it up a notch. I climb onto his lap, bracketing his face with my hands, and kiss him—a deep, passionate kiss that makes me feel out of control. That makes me feel free.

Before I know it, I’m straddling him, my short skirt hiked up as I rock against the outline of his hard cock. And wow—what an outline it is. Thick and pulsing, and I should not know that about Asher. I really shouldn’t. This is a bad idea. Such a bad idea. We’re friends. We’re just playing around. This is just a practice kiss.

I have to say that. I have to make some boundaries clear. I wrench away. “This is just kissing. Nothing more.”

His lips quirk into a grin. “I know. Don’t worry—I’m not going to try anything.”

“I know,” I say, but a nagging voice in the back of my mind wants to ask why he seemed tense earlier, what that emotion was. But then he curves a palm around the back of my thigh, tugging me closer, and my questions scatter like alphabet soup. “Is this…part of how to kiss?” I ask.

He slides his palm higher, dangerously close to my ass. “A good kiss includes hands, Maeve.”

“Well then,” I say, then curl my hands around his shoulders and cover his lips with mine.

“Good girl,” he encourages, and fuck me.

He gives praise so confidently that my head swims with his woodsy scent, with the sound of his breath, with the feel of his strong hands.

Impulsively, I rock against the ridge of his erection.

He tenses for a second or two, like he’s battling with himself, but then I can feel a fuck it move through his body as he tugs a little harder on the back of my thighs.

Boundaries. What even are they? I’m off and running. With barely a thought. With only this ache between my thighs, this need in my body.

I kiss and grind, and it vaguely occurs to me I’m dry-humping my best friend.

But I don’t want to think too hard about what that means, because it feels so good, my belly is tightening, coiling, then…

Out of nowhere, an orgasm slams into me.

It grips my whole body, and I’m gasping, tensing, and then shuddering on my best friend’s lap.

I’ve gone off in less than a minute.

My mind crackles. My body turns white-hot and electric as I fall apart on my friend. My hundred-thousand-dollar date. My temporary husband.

When I pull away, I’m shocked. And honestly, embarrassed.

Asher looks stunned. In his wide eyes, his slightly parted lips.

I am too. “I didn’t see that coming,” I say, pun not intended.

After a surprised second or two, he says, “I didn’t either.”

My lips part. “Was that like a premature orgasm?” I ask, a little horrified, a lot embarrassed.

He grins. He can’t seem to stop smiling. It’s a very satisfied smile. “I didn’t even know that was a thing for a woman.”

“Me neither,” I squeak, and scurry off him.

I didn’t mean for this remember-how-to-kiss session to turn into how-to-come-in-under-sixty-seconds.

I cover my mouth with my hand, mortified that I shot off like that. I have no idea what to do.

“I’m going to shower,” I squeak, sounding like Minnie Mouse as I bolt.