“Jesus,” he said. He pumped his hips again, urging me to move along his length, and then abruptly froze. His eyes cleared of fog as he blinked, and his pupils focused on me. “Go get in your car.”
I turned into a statue and nearly shrieked it. “What?” He was kicking me out?
“Move it down the street,” he said, hurried. “The house for sale at the end of the road has been vacant and on the market for six months. If you park by the garage, no one will notice.”
I stared up at him. My brain was so clouded with lust, I was slow to keep up with what he was telling me to do. He wanted me to move my car, so when Preston’s friends left, no one would see it.
No one would know I was still here.
Greg’s voice softened until it was silk. “Come up the balcony stairs on the side of the house.”
Because the balcony was attached to his bedroom.
Panic burned slowly and grew in his eyes when I hesitated. Did he understand what he was asking? Us in his bed was a very, very bad idea.
He put his palm over my hand still cupping him through his pants and pressed, molding me to his erection. “Feel how much I fucking want you, Cassidy. Please say yes.”
“Yes.” It came from me instantly, no time to think about it.
He gave me a rushed kiss and stepped back, releasing me.
My flip-flops squeaked on the hardwood floor as I turned and went for the front door. The orgasm still lingered, buzzing in my system, and fueled me as I stepped outside into the late afternoon heat and propelled myself toward my car.
I focused only on my task, rather than why I was doing it. And as I parked in the driveway down the street, my car tucked behind the garage and hidden from view, the alarms in my head jumped to full volume. They were so steady and consistent, it made them easier to tune out.
As I walked back to the Lowe house, I distracted myself by staring at the dark storm clouds off on the horizon. Thunder growled quietly in the distance. The air was heavy with humidity and charged with electricity. It only added to the vibrating feeling coursing through me.
I took the wrought-iron stairs on the spiral staircase one step at a time. All I did was put one foot in front of the other until I reached the small landing at the top, and the door swung open.
My breath stuck in my lungs at the sight of him. His dark eyes studied me like I might not be real, and I felt a little like that. What was I doing here? How was it possible this gorgeous man wanted me, when he shouldn’t?
I wasn’t able to move from my spot on the landing, but when Greg curled his hands around my waist and walked me into the room, my body followed him willingly, and his gaze never left mine.
His room was dim. Deep blue paint on the walls, dark furniture, and the overcast light from outside didn’t seem to breach the two windows on either side of his enormous, four-post bed.
Oh, God. There it was.
The bed.
SEVEN
IT WASN’T THE FIRST TIME I’d seen his bed. I’d been in Greg’s room a few times over the years. During the Lowe’s family Christmas party, we’d put our coats on it. But I looked at the gold textured duvet now with new eyes.
He made his bed perfectly. There weren’t piles of shirts or dirty socks on the floor, or empty Mountain Dew cans on the bedside table like Preston’s room downstairs. This was the room of a man—a precise adult—and it wasn’t surprising. I’d known since the beginning how Dr. Lowe liked everything in its place. He lined the cooking utensils up in the drawers in the kitchen like they were his surgical instruments.
The room smelled like him.
Greg’s grip on my hips softened, and his hands slid up my back, so slowly it felt like he was going one vertebrae of my spine at a time. Heat rose along with his hands, and goosebumps pebbled across my thighs.
He didn’t kiss me. Instead, he hovered, his breath rolling over my lips as his eyes searched every inch of my face. I hungered for his mouth on mine but felt strangely too shy to take what I wanted. So, I waited, balancing on the edge for him to move. To close the last inch of space between us and claim me.
Please, a seductive voice in my mind whined. What are you waiting for?
Could he read my thoughts through my eyes? “If I kiss you,” he said, “that’s it. I don’t think I’ll be able to stop.”
I exhaled softly and stared at his lips. I was here, ready. Desperate. “Then, kiss me.”