The Spark Between Us by Stacy Travis

Chapter Seventeen

Braden

Each wakinghour that I’d spent thinking about my mouth roaming over every damn inch of Sarah’s skin felt like a fever dream leading to this. To her.

Our mouths fused and our tongues tangled and roamed, but I needed more. I wanted to consume her, to own her.

We should slow down.

My brain tried to play referee between my body and hers, but it might as well have tried to stop an eighteen-wheeler rolling downhill with no brakes. If I couldn’t be the good guy I knew I should be, I’d be the good time she asked for. I wanted to take her with abandon and rock her world until the feel of my body was tattooed on her skin, until she was ruined for every man who came after me.

It was wrong to want to possess her like that, but she already had a hold on me that was impossible to resist.

Slow the fuck down.

We’d already kissed, so we could do that some more without me feeling like I’d crossed more lines, but I should draw a firm line after that. Or . . . I could let her make the rules and treat her like anyone else I’d enjoy for one night. But she wasn’t anyone else. She was quickly becoming an obsession because she was so much more than one night’s enjoyment. I didn’t want to treat her that way. So we’d just kiss some more, and then I’d stop us.

But the frantic way her nails grazed the back of my neck and then dug in with abandon assured me she did want more, She wasn’t my friend’s sister and my temporary roommate. She was mine. And she wanted everything that came with it.

“Don’t stop,” she pleaded, giving me all the reason I needed to grab her ass so hard it would probably leave a mark. I bit her earlobe and exhaled a breath against her neck the way I already knew would make her moan. “Finn didn’t mention these skills when he pitched you as a roommate.”

“It would help if you didn’t mention your brother’s name.” I licked a trail down the side of her neck to her collarbone, where the soft skin smelled like citrus and flowers I’d already come to associate with her. She tipped her head back to give me better access. My cock was throbbing in my pants, and all I wanted was to bend her over the back of my couch and fuck her until she saw stars.

“Done.” Her voice was sultry as she lifted off my shirt. “I’ll only mention your name. And then it will be loud. When you make me come.”

She said she wanted a player. Which made me want to give it to her. “There’s nothing hotter than you talking about me making you come.” I ran a hand along her stomach, gliding carefully over the skin and feeling it pebble under my touch.

We were still in first-base territory, and I could still stop things before they got way out of control.

I should stop things.

“If we’re going to do this, there should be rules,” I rumbled, having no idea what the rules would or should be. It just seemed like a good idea since I already knew I’d have no self-control when it came to her.

“Okay, rules are good. Do you have any in mind?” she breathed, pushing my shirt up and running her nails over my abs.

Then her tongue.

I couldn’t form a sentence at that point, let alone a coherent set of rules.

I answered by lifting her hoodie over her head. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and seeing the creamy white skin of her supple breasts with their hard nipples pushed me over the edge.

There would be no more discussion of rules. Just be me with my hands on every inch of her body, absorbing every sound she made and working to elicit more, worshipping every curve of her neck and the heat of her skin until she screamed my name.

I moved us into the den and sat on the couch, positioning Sarah so she straddled my lap. “The whole time I was on my date, I was thinking about this. With you. Even though I knew it was impossible,” I whispered near her ear before licking a path down her neck and sucking on the tender skin at the curve. “I couldn’t even kiss her. That’s why I was home so early.”

“I admit I felt a little jealous of her.” Sarah ran her fingers over my jaw, planting a row of kisses in their wake. “Because she had you.”

She ground her hips against my rock-hard cock, and her breath caressed my neck until I groaned. Stopping things was no longer an option.