He surprised her by lifting her into a standing position and dragging her damp body against his. Before she could protest, he licked her neck just below her earlobe. “Mmm, you taste a little salty.” When she went to pull away, he kept her against him. “I like it.” As if to prove it, he ran his tongue across the other side of her neck, making her shiver despite how warm the hike had gotten her. “A lot.”
“I can’t believe you even want to touch me when I’m all wet like this.”
His eyes darkened as he looked down at her. “Promise me you won’t talk about being all wet again once we start drinking,” he said in a low voice that only intensified her shivers. “Because if you do...”
It was, she realized, a sign of just how incredibly safe she felt with him that she found herself wanting to do just that. To talk about being all wet again, but to mean something else entirely...and then to finally find out what he was going to do about it.
“I’ve got my breath back now,” she told him, even though being in his arms had made her lose it all over again. “Let’s keep going up to the top.”
She was already heading up the path when he called out, “You didn’t promise.”
Feeling light and flirty and fabulous for the first time in her life, she threw him a deliberately sensual look over her shoulder. “I know.”
* * *
Sitting on the blanket she’d brought, he let her do it all—unscrew the top of the tequila bottle, put out the salt shaker between them, pour the shots, cut up the lime—and she knew why. Yet again, he didn’t want her to feel that he was forcing her to do anything. He wanted to be sure that everything she was doing was her decision.
But while she hadn’t changed her mind about her plans for tonight, and the tequila thankfully smelled better than she’d expected it to, that didn’t mean she felt all that confident about how to actually drink it.
“I looked up several ways to do the shots on the Internet,” she admitted. “But I’m sure you have some favorites.”
He reached out and brushed his thumb across her lower lip. “I do.” His gorgeous mouth tipped up into a smile. “But I’ll need you to come closer so that I can show you what they are.”
Every inch of her wanted every inch of him already. It had been that way from the first moment he’d held her in his arms at the frat party, but now that she knew how amazing he was...well, she was barely a heartbeat from shoving aside all the drinking paraphernalia and tackling him.
“Care to share some of what’s going on inside that big brain of yours?”
She looked up at him in surprise, feeling as if he’d already read her mind. And since she guessed that even if she didn’t say it aloud, he’d know, she said, “I’m having trouble concentrating on my goal of learning how to drink tequila when all I want to do is kiss you.”
His mouth curved up wider even as his eyes grew darker. “Who says you have to pick one or the other?”
He poured tequila into one of the shot glasses, quickly drank it, then drew her onto his lap so that she was straddling him. He slid his tongue into her mouth and she instinctively knew to suck the liquor from it, then lick his lips clean, too.“How was that?”
She was almost too breathless to reply. “Good.” She couldn’t drag her gaze away from his mouth. “So good.”
He poured another small amount into a shot glass, then held it out to her. “Your turn.”
She brought the glass up to her lips and tasted it, unable to stop her nose from wrinkling at just how strong it was.
“It’s usually better if you just toss it back,” Sean coached her. “Although I’m perfectly happy to quit the drinking part of the evening now if you want...and just get back to the kissing part.”
Oh, but she was tempted. It would be so easy to skip over this rite of passage. Only, she knew it would keep bothering her that she’d never experienced something that was a part of nearly every other college student’s normal vernacular.
Taking a deep breath, she tilted her head back and tossed the shot down her throat. Oh God, she thought as her eyes watered, it burned like fire...but then Sean was there with his fingers tangling in her hair and his mouth on hers as he sucked at her tongue the way she’d sucked at his. As the fire immediately moved from her throat to her br**sts and the vee between her legs, the shot glass dropped from her hand and she wrapped her arms around him to try to get closer.
“What did you think about that?” His mouth was still so close to hers that his question felt like another kiss.
“It was hot. But I’m not sure how much of the way I’m feeling has to do with the tequila.”
A low sound of pleasure came from his throat as he nuzzled the curve of her chin and into her shoulder. “Do you want to do more?”
She couldn’t quite manage to get her lips to form the word yes when what he was doing to her sent thrill bumps running all across the surface of her body, but she could nod.
“You’re a hell of a lot more addictive than booze,” he murmured as he poured another shot. “And I’ve got a serious thing for your neck tonight. Tilt your head to the side for me, beautiful.”
Her heart raced as she made her neck completely vulnerable to him, and though she wasn’t cold or nervous, she actually started to shake as he lightly brushed her long hair over to her other shoulder. His tongue slicked out across her neck, warm and slightly rough, and then he picked up the saltshaker and dropped a few grains onto her skin.
“Doing okay?”
She loved that he was checking in with her, not just with his question but also by running his free hand down her arm in a reassuring way.
“I’m great,” she said, and she really was. Simply because she was with him, and he made her happier than anything or anyone else ever had.
His mouth descended to her neck and he sucked on her skin, taking the salt. If she hadn’t already been aroused, that would have done it, and when he lifted the shot glass to his mouth, she wished she could be there on his tongue instead.
In a flash, the memory of his mouth on her br**sts the previous Friday night hit her and she was nearly moaning aloud by the time he put the lime between his teeth and sucked the juice from it. She was so jealous of all of it—the salt, the tequila, the fruit—that she didn’t think, couldn’t stop herself from giving in to the urge to tackle him.