The Love Coupon (Stubborn Hearts 2)

She kept dancing, watching, waiting for him to say something insulting, to make her hate him. She put how much she didn’t care about that into every stomp, head toss and hip shake. She put her hands to her thighs and pulled at her slip, showing him more leg. She didn’t need Tom. She didn’t need anyone. Life wasn’t about being liked, it was about getting things done. She knew how to get things done.

“You’re the most irritating person I’ve ever known,” he said, over the lowered volume.

She put her hands in the air and spun around so she couldn’t see the disappointment that was sure to cloud his face. His hands clamping down on her hips made her start. He was on the table behind her, barefoot and moving with her.

“Stubborn.” He breathed the word over her hair. “Careless.” One hand went from her hip to her ass, and he squeezed. “Infuriating.”

She stopped moving and turned to him, wound her arms around his neck. He wasn’t disappointed, he was excited and trying to hide it.

“I missed you.” She hadn’t meant to say that, the words surprised her, and she bit her tongue too late to call them back.

He trailed a palm from her wrist down her bent arm to her elbow and over her shoulder to her waist. “You’re not allowed to miss me.”

She went to her toes and pressed closer to him. “Don’t tell me what to do.”

“You’re leaving.” It was an accusation and it came out glittering in emotion she couldn’t read. There was never any question she was leaving or that he wanted her to.

“Not for two months. I’m here now.”

He’d widened his stance. They were moving again against each other’s bodies, their own rhythm, independent of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

“I can’t do this with you.”

She got the words “I think you’re doing it” out before his lips crashed down on hers.

They stayed on top of the table, bodies melding, angry guitar chords and thick beats thrashing past their frantic grasps and tugging kisses.

The table didn’t break. Tom wasn’t walking away. Nothing bad happened because she’d been too much. Good feelings lit Flick up, shimmered through her. She didn’t need Tom, but she wanted him. She pulled his shirt from his suit pants, unbuttoned it and peeled it away from his torso. Her lips on his skin made him twitch. He pulled the fork from her hair and it fell everywhere, made her focus narrow to the rippled edges of him, the secret wood-chip scent of his skin and the rumbling breath-hitching sounds he made.

She’d have stumbled when he stepped off the table, but he steadied her and now they were a more equal height so kisses weren’t snatched and severed and chased, they were deep and whipped-cream smooth, addictively plump and so bad, so good.

“I thought about you, about doing this all weekend,” he said, hands spread over her back, lips at her jaw, her neck.

“I’m glad.” Outside. Inside. From the tips of her chipped toenails to the flutter in the base of her throat.

“It’s a problem.” Nothing that couldn’t be solved by opening his pants and making him grunt like he’d lifted something too heavy. He touched her cheek. “We need a bed.”

“Such limited thinking.” She pushed his pants off his hips and while he was tangled in them, shoved him backward, making him sit hard on the sectional.

“What are you doing?”

Thoroughly enjoying herself. Forgetting Elsie and the tension at work and being homeless. She stepped off the table and went to her knees between Tom’s legs. “Showing you I’m glad to see you.”

“You don’t have to.”

Still, he lifted his hips and let her pull his suit pants off, leaving him in skin-slick briefs that only just contained his erection. Oh my. “I want to.” Making him say mercy would be delicious.

“I might not... Flick.”

“What?” She checked his eyes. Wary. And said it softer because his face was creased with the wrong kind of stress. “What are you worried about?”

“It’s been a long time since anyone did that to me.”

Seriously. No. “You don’t like it?” In the history of men, was there such a thing as one who didn’t like someone on their knees with their mouth on his cock? No way did she want this to be the historic record-breaking moment.

“I like it too much.”

“You’ve stopped letting women give you head.” It was a Tom O’Connell thing to do. “Why?”