Jill Shalvis - Flashback

“Is that the best you got?”

“Can I pretty-please kiss you?”

“Well, I suppose… ”

That was all he let her get out before he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her. She let out a little murmur of surprise and what he sincerely hoped was pleasure, because holy shit, it was like taking a time machine back in time, back to that sweet, hot, most amazing summer he’d once spent in her arms.

She made the sound again, the one that drove him crazy with wanting, and then she entwined her arms up around his neck, gliding her fingers into his short hair and tightening them, as if she didn’t want him going anywhere.

Fat chance.

When he slid his tongue to hers, it was another homecoming, and this time her shuddery sigh was pure, hungry delight with a sprinkle of unadulterated lust on top.

Oh, yeah. Pulling back just enough to look into her eyes, he found the same sense of bewildered wonderment across her face that he imagined was across his. Because, yes, they were attracted to each other because of their past, but suddenly it was much, much more than that. Then the next thing he knew, they’d lunged for each other again, trying to climb into each other’s body, just like old times.

Only it was new, all so damn new, and all the more heart-wrenching and gripping for it. They were no longer young and stupid. They were old enough to know better, old enough to know exactly what they were doing, old enough that he knew that this time, there would be no escaping unscathed.

It didn’t stop him.

O H . M Y . G OD .

Kenzie struggled to think, but Aidan had taken her breath away And, as he surged up to his knees between her spread thighs, his hands fisted in the hem of his own shirt, his intention perfectly clear, he nearly stole her sanity-but she held on by a thread. “Wait,” she gasped, putting a hand to his chest. “Hold it.”

Still kneeling between her sprawled legs, his hands on the big T-shirt, about to strip her as naked as he was, he looked into her eyes. “Wait?”

She could have drowned in his gaze. Happily drowned. “You stopped begging.”

He arched an eyebrow, which was highlighted by the slants of moonlight across his face. Stripes of light and dark, and in them, he was beautiful. “I mean it,” she managed. “Absolutely nothing else happens here without some serious begging.”

He stared at her, then lowered his head for a moment. When he lifted it again, she expected him to tell her he never begged for anything. That this-she-wasn’t worth it. After all, she hadn’t been once.

But he surprised her. “When we were together,” he said quietly, “I dreamed about your body on the nights we didn’t sleep in the same bed. Did you know that?”

“No.” She shook her head. “You never said.” He’d never said a lot of things. He’d held back so much.

And to be honest, so did I…

“I’d get off on it,” he said, not holding back this time. Which did exactly what she hadn’t wanted-it opened her heart to him.

“On you,” he murmured. “For years afterward, I’d get off thinking about you.”

She stared up at him. “You mean you…”

“Uh-huh. I jerked off.” Leaning over her, he was nothing but a shadow until he bent even closer. Through the shutters, rectangles of light slashed over him as he let her look into his eyes, which were dark and scorching. “So much I’m lucky I’m not blind.”

She laughed but also swallowed hard, surprisingly aroused at the thought of his touching himself while picturing her. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.” His eyes glittered with heat and memories and suddenly both the heat and memories were making her feel awfully warm from the inside out.

Actually, they were making her hot.

Very hot.

“Tonight, just looking at you…” He let out a long breath and shook his head. “It brings it all back, but it’s even stronger.”

His mouth was in the shadows. She couldn’t see his lips moving but his voice washed over her, as did the images he evoked. He was bringing it all back for her, too.

“You were beautiful then,” he said. “But you’re even more beautiful now. I want to take this shirt off of you, Kenz. Please let me.”

At his words, she nearly turned the tables and begged him . She could feel the T-shirt caught high on her thighs. His hips were holding her legs open to him, and with just a little nudge of the shirt, he’d be able to see all her god-given goodies, along with the fact that she was already wet.

“Please,” he murmured. “Please let me.”

Oh, God. “Yes.”

He shifted, and then she could see his mouth, which rewarded her with a smile as he made his move, his fingers closing around the hem of the shirt, slowly tugging it up, revealing her body.

She’d wanted this, sought it out under the guise of getting her long-needed revenge, but that was really just a lie, and her first flicker of doubt hit.

Just who was going to get hurt here…?

The night air brushed over her breasts as he pulled the shirt all the way off and over her head. Her nipples hardened. Goose bumps spread over her flesh, and it wasn’t because she was cold. There were five stripes of moonlight across her body, one across her eyes, her throat, another highlighting her breasts, her belly and her crotch. He couldn’t have lined her up more perfectly for his perusal, and he definitely perused.

“Aidan-”

His hand stroked over her hip, and her breath backed up into her throat. She opened her mouth to say maybe she’d been hasty about this whole breaking his heart thing, but before she could, he’d put a hand on her inner thigh and pushed, further opening her to him.

The slants of shadows hampered his view, but he didn’t seem bothered, not with his front row seat.

The only sound in the room came from him as he let out a groan. “God, Kenzie. You’re so pretty.” He lowered his head, then paused, his mouth a hairsbreadth away from her trembling belly. “I want to kiss. I want to taste. I want that more than I want my next breath. Please let me…”

As far as begging went, it was pretty good. “O-okay,” she managed, and almost before the word was out, he’d nudged her legs open even wider, wedging them there with his broad shoulders. He slowly lowered his head. “Pretty please,” he whispered across her flesh.

Her wet flesh.

“Yes.” Her heels dug into the mattress as he “pretty pleased” his tongue over her, and then his teeth, and then his warm lips, over and over again leaving her a panting, gasping, quivery mass of sensitized nerve endings, and when she exploded for him, he surged up, produced a condom and slid into her with one sure, powerful thrust.

“Oh,” she gasped, reaching up to hold onto him because her world had just spun on its axis. The feel of him deep inside her-and he was deep, as deep as he could get-had her spiraling. Gone were all thoughts of hurting him, or revenge. She could think of nothing but this, but him. Not that she would admit such a thing. “You…you didn’t beg for that.”

Cupping her face, he tilted it up to his. “Pretty-please may I drive you out of your living mind?”

Oh, God.

“Kenzie? May I?” His voice was thick with the same hunger and need that was driving her.

“Yes.”

“Good. May I also pretty-please make you scream my name?”

In answer, she arched up, her breasts pressing into his hard, warm chest, her legs wrapping around his waist.

He groaned, a low, rough sound that scraped at all her good spots but he didn’t move. “Can I?”

“I don’t usually do much screaming.”

He just smiled, and then took her mouth as he took her body, indeed driving her out of her mind with all too disturbing ease, and when she exploded again, she cried out his name.