I touched everywhere I could, acquainting myself with his hard muscles and hot, sleek skin and the thick cording and shifting of his shoulders, chest, and back. It was such a rush, learning the feel of him, being allowed to indulge.
He pushed into me, and I felt his hands on my jacket, pulling on the snaps, getting it open, pushing it back, burrowing under my sweater and searching for skin. His sharp whine of need sent sizzling heat through me like an electrical current. It was funny that the roll of desire finally brought me to my senses. I got both hands planted on the muscular chest and pushed him back, breaking the kiss.
“No, no,” he gasped, and I swallowed hard, thinking that if his lips were that red and swollen, then mine had to be worse.
“What’s with you and the death wish?” I asked, trying to think of something other than how hot his body was and how badly I wanted to be under him.
“I don’t have one,” he said before the hand on the back of my head hauled me forward into another kiss.
My arms wrapped around his neck as he stood with me attached to him like a monkey, arms and legs clinging, and he moved and sank down onto the ledge where I had sat earlier. After maneuvering me so I was straddling his thighs, his hands went to my ass and he squeezed tight, letting me feel his fingers digging in. My groan would have been loud and filthy if he hadn’t swallowed it as he sucked on my tongue.
“Carson? Did you find it?”
He tore his mouth from mine to answer the salesgirl in a raspy bark that, along with the heaving breaths he was taking, sounded like sex to me. I had been in bed with enough people to know what I was talking about. The sound of arousal had an edge to it that I heard so clearly in him. “I don’t think it’s in here,” he told her. “But I got a little dizzy. Probably didn’t drink enough water when I was playing some touch earlier. Just gonna sit for a second, okay?”
“Of course,” the girl chirped from the other side. “Would you like me to go next door and get you a bottle of water?”
“Oh no, sweetheart, that’s okay,” he said as he trembled. “I’ll be fine.”
“Well, you take your time,” she practically sang to him.
“Thank you,” he called back before he squinted at me. “Now what were you saying about death wishes?”
It was ridiculous. We were breathing each other’s air. Our noses touched as my hands knotted in his T-shirt. One of his hands pressed against the small of my back, keeping me where I was. The other dug into my right thigh one moment, smoothed over it the next.
“Are you aware of how insane this is?”
“Kind of.” His voice shook.
“What the hell is going on with you? One minute you’re playing ball on the lawn without any sort of helmet or pads or anything, and now you’re kissing me in a fucking fitting room? You just wanna end your career in injury or scandal, you don’t care which?”
His eyes were clouded, his pupils huge and dilated—he had no clue what I was talking about. I tried to wiggle off his lap, but he swiped my beanie off my head, wrapped his fist in my hair, and tugged me back down to him so our lips were hovering close.
He was so much stronger than me. If I didn’t kiss him, he would make me.
“I wanted to talk to you at your work so badly,” he whispered, his breath hot and moist against my face. “But I thought you would just say yes to printing my stuff for me, and when you didn’t—”
“Because I couldn’t—”
“Because you couldn’t,” he corrected, “then I couldn’t ask what I really wanted, and it just went bad so fast and you were giving me crap and I didn’t even care and then later….”
“Later?”
“On the street by the other store.”
I nodded.
“Well, then I wasn’t sure what to say.”
I smiled at him. “The thank-you was nice.” He caught his breath, and I realized I had caused that reaction. “We should get out of here.”
“Not just yet.”
“Somebody might look under the door.”
“There’s nobody in here.” He sighed, his gaze sliding all over my face.
“What?”
“I really like brown eyes.”
“Oh yeah?” He wasn’t really listening to me, I could tell.
“Or maybe just yours.”
The throb of need rolled me, drowned me, and I moaned softly before my lips melted back over his. I slid a hand up under the practice jersey with his number on it and felt the silky skin, the heat rising off him, and the washboard abdomen. He was beautiful, powerful, and that quickly I decided that if he let me, I was taking him to bed.