This night can’t last forever.
This night can’t last forever.
Mike glances down at me just as another set of fireworks explodes in the sky. White sparks rain down from black clouds, and he says, “If you think I’m not calling you every single day, Hailey, you’re wrong.”
He veers to the right then and leads me into the woods. We abandon electric light for moonlight, walking through bare-branched trees until the music quiets, the fog clears, and Mike releases my hand. I can still hear the band playing back in the clearing, but it feels like a world away.
“What did you want to show me?” I ask in a voice barely loud enough to hear, and Mike’s answer is sure in the quiet night.
“How I feel about you.”
Nervous energy thrums through me, and I sound far more composed than I feel when I ask, “And how are you going to do that?”
Mike reaches out and tucks a wild curl behind my ear, his fingers brushing a feather-light trail over sensitive skin. “Don’t pull away, Hailey.”
When he starts leaning in, everything in me threatens to do just what he told me not to. He’s going to kiss me, and I’m so nervous, I’m panicking. He’s going to kiss me. Mike is going to kiss me!
When he places his lips near my ear instead of doing what I thought he would, the tension in my body softens only a fraction.
“I’m more nervous than you are right now,” he whispers, and then he pulls away to search my eyes. His tentative gaze holds mine, his soft words a plea when he says, “Please don’t pull away.”
My heart is beating furiously against my ribs when Mike begins leaning in again, and it pounds harder and harder the closer he draws. I close my eyes on a breath, and I hold it until unbelievably soft lips brush mine. Time stops, the heat of Mike’s satin mouth tests the seam of lips, and the entire world explodes around us. The fireworks have stopped, but everywhere, there are sparks. They consume me from the inside out—through my heart, into my fingertips—and before I know it, I’m stretching onto my tiptoes and burying my fingers in the thick of his hair.
The silence of the forest is interrupted by the low, sexy sound Mike makes when I pull against him, and I can feel the moment my sparks set him on fire. I’m melting against his hard body when his hand curls around the nape of my neck, like he couldn’t bear for me to pull away right now, as if I’d even try. His tongue does this thing in my mouth that no tongue has ever done in my mouth before, and at the way I moan desperately and my knees start to quiver, his hands slide down my sides and wrap behind my thighs, lifting me into the air.
“Oh my God,” I pant at the sky when the hard muscles of his stomach press firmly between my legs, and Mike drops his lips lower, making my blood rush like rapids just beneath my skin. His mouth explores the curve of my neck, and when he pulls away to gaze up at me—his face flushed, his lips kiss-swollen, and his hair a disheveled mess—the hungry look in his eyes could melt stone. Desperate for more of him, I hold his jaw in my hands and kiss him like I’ve never kissed anyone ever.
Mike’s body is fire between my legs, and when I cross my ankles behind his back, squeezing him closer, I begin to tremble all around him. I’m lost in the heat of his mouth, the tension of his fingers, the strength of his arms. It feels like this moment has been building and building, and with the scruff of his jaw scraping the palms of my hands, all I want is to let go.
“Take me home,” I beg, my voice rough with lust while Mike’s smooth lips graze mine. He pulls away only far enough to pin me with that dilated, feverish gaze again. It’s questioning, concerned, and I pin my forehead against his. Heat radiates between us—from me, from him—and I explain, “Your place. Take me to your place.”
“You’re sure?” he asks after a moment, and if I wasn’t before, I am once he forces himself to ask those words.
Nine hours.
I answer by letting my fingers memorize the curve of his jaw, the scruff of his cheek, the soft hair on his temple. When my lips meet his, I memorize that too. I memorize the sweet way he lets me set the tone, the way his fingers tighten around my thighs with barely controlled restraint, the way he moans against my mouth when I kiss that restraint away from him.
Mike carries my trembling body halfway from the forest, never stealing his lips from mine even as branches snap under his feet, until he eventually lowers me back to Earth and takes my hand in his. The music gets louder and louder until we eventually step back into the clearing, our pace quick as we steal across the grass. Someone calls Mike’s name, but he doesn’t even turn his head. Instead, he leads me straight to his truck, opening the door and helping me inside. The inside light is on when he opens his driver’s side door, and the flushed hue of his face sends sparks racing across my skin. His truck growls to life, and one of Mike’s hands grips the steering wheel while the other slides onto my thigh.
He doesn’t say a word as he drives—just keeps glancing over at me with those seductively dark eyes of his, and with every single gear change, his hand inches a little higher. It sneaks under the tulle of my dress, sliding up over butter-soft leggings, and the trembles in my body turn to desperate, needy quakes.
I squirm as his grip tightens and his palm slides slowly higher, higher. My fingers are white-knuckling the bottom hem of my leather jacket as I stare out the windshield, and my muscles ache from his teasing. I glance over at him, and he holds my gaze as his finger traces circles on the inside of my thigh, sending torturous waves of sparks to a place just a little bit higher.