Lainey’s List Chapter Twenty-six

 

Lainey

Nick’s thumb strokes a line up and down the small of my back the entire ride up to the 12th floor. It’s probably the only elevator trip I’ve wished was longer. That subtle touch is generating goose bumps on every square inch of my flesh and my already barely there dress is feeling too confining.

I’d buried my bad feelings, reservations, and guilt…so much guilt…and given myself tonight. This last night with Nick would have to be enough to sustain me for the rest of my life because after tomorrow, he won’t want to talk to me again.

I push those negative thoughts away and concentrate on the warmth of his body behind mine. The way his broad shoulders give me shelter and his steady hands keep me upright.

The elevator halts and as the doors slide open, Nick nudges me forward. Every step I take toward the door brings me closer to being naked, removing his clothes, and having his hot flesh in my hands. I’m so weak with desire I wobble on my heels.

Nick smoothly slips a hand under my elbow and steadies me. “Too much to drink?” he asks.

“It was the elevator ride,” I murmur. No way is tonight going to be derailed because he thinks I’m drunk.

I pull the key card out of my purse and unlock the door. Then I grab his hand and drag him inside. My purse is tossed onto the desk. Nick stands just inside the door, looking at me, the bed, the small room.

“Have you had too much to drink?” I joke lightly, wondering why he’s not on me already. Wondering if he’s second-guessing himself. Wondering if I’m going to have to do some sweet-talking to get him into my bed tonight. Because it would suck if that was the case, but I would do it because I’m having him tonight, no matter what.

“Nah, I’m trying to control myself.” A patented-half smile dances on his face. The one that says he’s going to get into some mischief. I hope that mischief is me. “I’m feeling different tonight. You’re different tonight so I want us to be different. Which means I’m taking my time.” He waves a hand toward the bed. “I can’t remember the last time we had sex in a bed. It’s usually up against the wall, on the couch”—over the couch, behind the couch, beside the couch—it’s always been furtive and hurried but tonight it will be different.

He covers the distance between us in two steps and places his hands around my waist. “Remember the time you came to meet me for the Chicago game?”

“I remember your roommate had to wait in the hallway.” Nick had called me out of the blue a few weeks after we’d hooked up the first time and offered to fly me to Chicago.

Recklessly, I agreed. A friend from work agreed to babysit Cassidy and I took that free flight, the offer of seeing the hottie football player again, and just went. It wasn’t the first time I regretted taking a chance on Nick. It wasn’t roses and a candlelight dinner. It was waiting around in the bar with what seemed like a hundred other groupies. It was sneaking up to his room after curfew. It was having dirty but really hot sex while his roommate sat outside the hotel room on the floor with his laptop.

“It was really good sex.” He bends and places his hot mouth along my neck. I shiver.

“It was really good sex,” I agree.

It was sex, not romance.

And every time since then has been the same thing. I never went to another away game. I tried to resist his lures. When I became friends with Charlotte, I promised myself that Nick and I wouldn’t go down the friends with benefits path because I can’t separate sex from love.

But every time he crooked his finger, I came running. Okay, not every time. On a few occasions, I was able to find my backbone and turn him down. The times I couldn’t? I flagellated myself hard and heavy afterward.

Tonight, though, I know what I’m doing. I know what I’m getting into. I’m taking Nick Jackson because there’s no tomorrow.

I wind my arms around his neck and tug on his collar to get his attention.

“Yeah?” he asks. His lips are slightly damp from spreading his kisses along my shoulder. I want those lips on me.

“Kiss me.”

The corners of his mouth tip up. “You feeling bossy tonight?”

“Maybe.”

“That works for me.” He lifts me onto the desk. Together we pull off my dress.

His breath leaves his big frame in one giant rush. “That is all you were wearing under there?” He traces a finger along the top of my black thong panties.

“My dress didn’t have a back.” I busy myself with the buttons on his shirt. Each undone fastening reveals more of his golden skin, the smattering of dark chest hair, and then the trail of hair arrowing into his jeans.

“I don’t know whether I love or hate that dress,” he says. “All that creamy skin was on display and it made me hard as fuck. But that means all the other dickwads in the restaurant got to see it too. And they were turned on.”

“Can we debate this later?” I tug on his jacket. “Preferably, when we’re both nude, sweaty, and tired?”

He steps back and shrugs off his jacket and shirt. His hands fall to his fly and soon it’s just him and me and my tiny scrap of lace. His beautiful cock bobs between us. I want to slide to my knees, take him in my mouth, and drink him down until he’s dry.

His hand comes up to cover my eyes.

“What’re you doing?”

“You can’t look at me like that, Lainey,” he says urgently. “I’m on the edge and you’re going to make me lose it from just the look in your eyes.”

“Then what are you going to do when I put my mouth on you?” I reach down between us and grab his shaft. It’s heavy, hard, velvety-smooth, and wet around the tip. I lick my lips.

Nick groans. “You’re killing me.”

“You feel very vital to me,” I grin and give his cock a hard squeeze.

“It’s a slow death.”

“The slowest.” My heart sings at our easy banter, and I wish it could always be like this.

But I know the truth. I’m not enough for Nick. I never will be. And it’s not because of my sordid teenage past or because of Cassidy or because of my friendship with Charlotte.

It’s something deep inside of Nick that keeps his barriers up and makes me afraid of letting him in. Someone else will find a way past the castle walls and into his heart, but it’s not me.

But I’ll have this. This small part of him to take with me forever.

I push off the desk and drop to my knees. His hand falls away from my eyes to grab my hair and pull it away from my face. I close my lips over him.

“Don’t go easy on me,” he whispers hoarsely. “I can take it.”

“I know you can.” It’s me who can’t take it.

 

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