Shockingly Seductive (Addicted To You, Book Seven)

LINDSAY

Neither of us spoke on the way back to Justin’s apartment. He held my hand as we walked down the street to the T, and every so often he’d look over at me and smile, but both of us stayed quiet. It was like now that the moment was finally here, we didn’t want to risk doing anything that might ruin it.

My heart was hammering in my chest, and if you asked me to remember anything about the T ride back to Justin’s, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. All I could think about was his hand holding mine, and the almost unbearable anticipation that was permeating the air.

We climbed the stairs up to his apartment, and as soon as we got inside, he turned and looked at me. His eyes burned with intensity and desire, and a delicious tremor ran through my body.

“I’m glad you came back,” he whispered, then moved closer.

“Me too,” I said.

I swallowed, knowing that now that I was here, there was no turning back. Not that I cared. I didn’t
want
to turn back. I wanted him. I wanted every part of him.

He took another step closer to me, then grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the bedroom, where we collapsed onto the bed.

He gazed into my eyes, then reached up and pushed my hair back from my face.

He hadn’t bothered to turn the light on, and the room was dark, except for the soft glow of the moon shining through the window. I could just make him out -- the soft curve of his lips, the strong line of his jaw.

The anticipation was driving me crazy. I felt like my body was going to explode with want.

“Lindsay,” he murmured into my ear. His breath was warm against my skin, and his hand moved to the back of my neck, pulling my face close to his. I closed my eyes and waited to feel his lips against mine.

I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath as I waited for him to kiss me.

But he didn’t.

I opened my eyes.

He was still looking at me, his eyes still bright with longing.

“Are you sure?” he whispered, the pad of his thumb running over my cheek. “We don’t have to…”

“I’m sure.”

And then his lips were on mine. It was everything I’d imagined, everything I’d wished and wanted and hoped that kissing him would be like. It was soft and slow at first, his hands holding the back of my neck gently as his lips moved against mine. Then the kiss deepened, and his tongue parted my lips. His hands moved through my hair, tangling the strands in his fingers. He tasted like mint and ice cream and summer, and a warmth began moving through my whole body, settling in between my legs.

We kissed and kissed and kissed some more, until finally he grabbed the zipper of my hoodie and pulled it down slowly, then inched my sweatshirt off my shoulders and tossed it to the floor.

He pulled me close again, and his hands encircled my waist, slipping up under the thin material of my tank top. He grasped the bottom of my shirt and then slid it up and over my head, leaving me in just my bra. A hot breeze moved through the window and against my skin. Goosebumps broke out over my body, and I shivered.

“You okay?” he asked softly.

I nodded. Every nerve in my body was on high alert, every sense heightened. I could feel how hard his chest was, even through his shirt, and suddenly I was desperate to feel his bare skin against mine. So I grabbed at the bottom of his shirt, like he’d done to mine, until I pulled it off.

His body was as perfect as I remembered it. Hard and lean, muscular but not too bulky. I let myself admire him for a second, and before I could stop myself, I let out a small moan.

This seemed to make the desire in his eyes blaze even brighter, and his hands moved over the front of my bra, teasing my nipples through the lacy fabric. It felt so good, and the warm feeling between my legs intensified.

“Lindsay,” Justin breathed, as his fingertips moved over my nipples. “God, you’re gorgeous.”

His touch was driving me insane. I pulled him to me and kissed him, my hands grabbing his rugged shoulders. I wanted him close to me, taking me, moving inside of me, doing what I wanted, what I
needed
him to do.

His hands slid up my back, and his fingertips brushed against the clasp of my bra, and then he lowered his head, his lips touching my skin, kissing down my neck to my cleavage. His mouth was hot and wet and good.

I couldn’t believe it was really, finally happening. Justin was kissing me, touching me, doing everything and anything he wanted to me.

I moaned again, unable to stop myself. He unhooked my bra, and I felt the cups loosen around my breasts.

He slid the straps down slowly, a wicked look in his eye, teasing me, until finally I was lying there topless. A warm summer breeze blew through the window, brushing against my bare skin, and causing my nipples to harden even more. Then his hands were on my breasts again, as he brought his lips back to mine, our tongues moving against each other as we kissed.

I moved my hips against his, and I could feel how hard he was. It made me even more excited, and I rubbed myself against him for another second, and then I had to stop.

I was so turned on it was almost scary – I felt like I was one second away from losing control of my own body.

Justin kissed down my neck again, this time not stopping until his lips were at my breasts. His tongue moved over my nipple, sucking it gently into his mouth. The slight stubble on his face scratched against my skin, providing an exquisite contrast to the warm softness of his mouth, and the sensation nearly sent me over the edge.

I felt like maybe I was going to have an orgasm. I’d never had one before, so I couldn’t be sure, but his hands and his tongue and his body were driving me absolutely out of my mind, and I felt like I was about to explode.

I had heard that the first time you had sex with someone, it was supposed to be awkward and weird and sloppy. But
this
-- this was anything but awkward. This was insanely hot. I wondered if sex with Justin would be even more of this. I wondered if it wasn’t awkward only because Justin was so good at what he was doing. He was confident, like he knew exactly where to touch, where to kiss, what to do.

Because he’s done it so many times before.

The thought entered my head before I had a chance to push it out. I squeezed my eyes shut tight and took a deep breath, telling myself not to think about that. So what if he was more experienced than me? A lot of people were.

He did all this same stuff with Brooklyn.

“What’s wrong?” Justin asked, sensing something was off.

“Nothing.”

“You sure?”

I nodded. What was I supposed to say? That I’d started feeling weird about the fact that he’d sex with another girl not that long ago? Actually, why shouldn’t I have been able to say that? He
had
had sex with another girl not that long ago.

So when Justin started to kiss me again, I pulled away.

“It’s just…” I trailed off. I knew I had every right to tell him how I was feeling, but still. Something about saying it out loud was embarrassing. “I mean, you had sex with Brooklyn.”

“Yeah.” He trailed a finger down over my bare stomach. His touch sent electricity jolting through my body, threatening to override my mind’s protests. “But it didn’t mean anything.”

I frowned. “What do you mean, it didn’t mean anything?”

“I mean,” he said, “that it was just sex.”

“It was just sex?” I repeated. “That’s how you’re going to try to make me feel better? By telling me it was just sex?”

He sighed and rolled over onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. “Not everything is complicated, Lindsay,” he muttered. “Sometimes things just happen.”

He sounded annoyed, which made
me
annoyed. “You’re kidding, right?” I asked.

“No.” He shook his head. “Not everything is always full of messy emotions and unanswered questions. Sometimes sex is just sex.”

Tears of disappointment priced at the back of my eyes. “Yeah, and how do I know this isn’t just sex?”

He let out a huge sigh. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Now I was really mad. I reached for my tank top, which was tangled up in the covers in the bottom of the bed. I grabbed it and went to put it back on, but Justin stopped me.

“No, wait,” he said, sitting up. He rubbed his face and sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m being an asshole.”

“Yeah, ya think?”

“It’s just that you said you were okay with the whole Brooklyn thing.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did. When I was kissing you just now, you said it was fine, that you wanted to keep going.”

“All I meant was that I wanted to keep going with what we were doing.”

“And I figured that meant you weren’t still upset about me and Brooklyn.”

“Well you figured wrong.”

He sighed in frustration and then flopped back down on the bed.

I reached for my shirt again, and again he stopped me. “Look, I’m sorry,” he said, pulling me back down close to him. “It’s just that I want you so bad.”

I turned and looked at him, and he kissed me softly on the lips. “I want you, too,”

I whispered.

We kept kissing, and his kiss got more urgent, and then his hands started moving over my bare skin and it felt so good that I almost couldn’t stop. But I pushed him away.

“I can’t,” I said, shaking my head. “I just…I need to know that this means something to you.”

“Lindsay,” he says. “Of course it means something to me.”

“How do I know you didn’t say that to Brooklyn?”

“I told you, that was different.”

I believed him about that part. That it was different with Brooklyn. At least, I
thought
it was. But still. Something about losing my virginity to a guy who had just slept with another girl didn’t feel right. Not to mention I still didn’t know what was going on with us, like, officially. Were we together? I wanted to ask him, but I was afraid of what he might say.

“Hey,” he said softly, pulling me close. “It’s okay. We can just sleep.”

“Okay.” I shifted on the bed, but now, suddenly, things felt awkward. Not physically. Oh, no, my body was still aching for his. But emotionally, it felt like there was a distance between us now.

He pulled me close, but I couldn’t get comfortable. My jeans were scratchy against my skin, so I reached down and pulled them off.

“Jesus, Lindsay, are you trying to kill me?” Justin groaned. He spooned me so that my back was against his chest, then slowly ran his fingertips down over my arms.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“It’s okay,” he said.

He shifted slightly, and we lay there for a while, not saying anything. I wanted him to kiss me, to tell me that we’d have other nights like this, that it was going to be okay, not just tonight, but in the future. That he wanted to be with me.

But he didn’t say any of those things.

And finally, after what seemed like forever, I fell asleep.

JUSTIN

I can’t stand this.

I wake up and she’s in my arms again, and she feels so right and so good. My body is screaming. I want her. I want to be closer than this, and she promised me we would be…only to take it all back again.

It was painful enough to try and resist my feelings for Lindsay, to try and keep her at a distance for as long as I did. But then to finally break down and give in, to let myself feel those things for her—only to get shot down at the end of the night because she got cold feet.

This was not something I could handle right now. Not when she was so close to me in my bed, wearing nothing but panties. No bra, no t-shirt, her skin on my skin. I could feel every part of her, the smoothness of her, with my arms wrapped around her, my face resting against the back of her neck.

I wanted to kiss her. If things had gone differently last night, I would have been kissing her. But in the end, we hadn’t done what I desperately wanted to do and we’d fallen asleep not having really decided anything about what was going on between us.

What were we?

I could imagine myself exploring her body, kissing her neck, kissing her breasts, touching her all over. Remembering the way it had felt when our lips touched last night…

This is too much. It’s just too much.

I needed Lindsay but I
still
couldn’t have her.

Instead of continuing to torture myself by laying next to her and holding her in bed, I sat up abruptly, startling her awake.

She peered at me, pulling the covers up over her chest and blinking. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” I said, getting up and pulling on a pair of jeans. I averted my gaze from her creamy skin and those beautiful lips, which had tasted even better than I’d imagined.

What would the rest of her taste like?

She watched me as I pulled on a fresh t-shirt. I was still sore as hell from my fight and I grimaced as I raised my arms above my head.