Want Me (Extracurricular Activities, #1)

by Neve Wilder

It was one of the things I loved about him, how he didn’t even have to open his mouth and he could make me laugh. And shit, there were a lot of other things he could make me do without opening his mouth—but the laughing part, that was something I’d come to increasingly appreciate in the months that had passed since we’d officially gotten together.

“Grocery store?” “Not a fan.” And especially not when it was used as a delayed gratification tactic by my boyfriend. Yeah, boyfriend; I’d gotten over that sliver of reservation, too.

“Skim milk tastes like water.” “Exactly. It’s perfect for cereal,” I countered. “So why not just use water?” “Because that’s nasty.” I noticed he hadn’t put the carton of 2 percent back, though. “Two percent is nasty, too, and whole milk is nausea inducing. Too thick.” Eric pressed his lips together, but failed to suppress a smirk. “Funny. I don’t remember you having any problems with things that are thick. Liquid or solid.” I rolled my eyes at him. “You’re hilarious.”

“Cleaning?” “Fuck that. Let’s just not do it.” Eric laughed. “I don’t know, thinking about you hunched over scrubbing a toilet gets me kinda hot.” “Ohh, are you into domestic servitude?” “I might be.” “That’s too bad for you, then, because I did my time scrubbing toilets and baseboards and floors freshman year.” “Bet I could persuade you.” I stared at him until he relented with a chuckle, which was good because he totally could have persuaded me to do all the cleaning on my own. As long as he was watching and there was a serious reward system in place. “We both clean.” Eric nodded. “Sounds good to me.”

“About to complain right now?” He lifted his hands to either side of my face, one palm warm with body heat, the other cool from holding the water glass. The tantalizing disparity in temperature made me bite my lip. “Maybe,” I said, but I wouldn’t. I had no real complaints, hadn’t in months and months. What protests I did make were little more than desperate pleas when he worked me into a frenzy. And they, in turn, worked him up, too. I understood him as well as he understood me, and what had once felt like a careful dance between us was now more intentional, more confident, our wants and needs slotting together in a balanced give-and-take that was so damn incendiary and satisfying I still couldn’t believe this was my life sometimes. There was an additional factor, too, one that I’d underestimated at first, hadn’t been able to grasp onto the nature of what it was, exactly: the way we told each other everything, the quiet moments that came between the inferno of our chemistry, when we were just doing mundane things like grabbing a bite after class or hanging out at a bar with friends. An errant touch, a look between us that was somehow like understanding and promise at once. Intimacy. Trust. Reciprocity.

Eric never needed to tell me he loved me, though he did, because I could feel it in moments like this as sure as the damn sky was blue.

“You’re looking a little flushed, baby. You hot?” “Sweltering. I swear I fucking turned the thermostat down but…” I trailed off when I recognized the dark twinkle in his eyes. He angled a look at the glass I’d set down on the counter, condensation dripping down the side as the ice within melted. Oh yes, oh fucking yes, please. I think I said that aloud—at least part of it—because next he dipped those long, quick fingers into the glass and fished out a gleaming wet cube. “Maybe you need some help cooling off,” he suggested. “Oh, I definitely do. I’m getting a strong porno premise vibe here, and I’m totally onboard.” The way my dick strained like it was trying to punch through my shorts and how close I was to panting, I figured I was a heat stroke risk not even a tub of ice could prevent if Eric was anywhere in the vicinity. But fuck if I was going to do anything to dissuade him. He winked at me, and that wink might as well have been a telegraphed message tapped out against my cock as he popped the ice cube in his mouth, crushing it to bits before he leaned in and licked over my lips. Icy slush dribbled down my chin, dropped onto my chest, and bloomed in a delicious chill. “Oh fuck me,” I whispered, mentally taking back what I’d just said about him not being creative and tilting my head back as he picked up another cube to drag a cool wet trail from my sternum up to my throat. My body didn’t seem to know whether to shrink away from the cold or to press into the accompanying ...

“Love when you say my name all hot and wrecked like that,” he murmured, brushing his lips over the corner of mine. “You want it, don’t you? Need my cock in your ass. My load.”

As we lay in the darkness, the pattern of Eric’s breathing slowing until I was certain he was asleep, this sense of pure giddiness ran through me, like racing through the park as a kid, or standing in front of the tree on Christmas morning, or the moment I got my driver’s license—little slices of joy I’d accumulated over my lifetime so far. And now lying here with Eric next to me came another that balled up in my chest and pulsed with all the other moments small and large. It raced through me like an endorphin high, bright inside my mind, and then ebbed gently into a deep, thrumming contentment. I fucking loved my life.