That Summer by Jennifer Weiner (read more books .txt) 📕

It was time. She took his hand and led him inside, onto the couch, and when he sat down, instead of sitting beside him, she arranged herself on top of him, her legs straddling his thighs.

“Mmm,” he said, and touched her hair, then her face. He let his hands fall open on the couch as he leaned forward, nuzzling her neck. She shivered as the hairs brushed her skin, then leaned forward and pressed nibbling kisses on his cheek, then his beard, before finally shifting her lips to the soft, yielding warmth of his mouth.

His breath hitched as she leaned against him, pressing her breasts against his soft flannel shirt. He returned her kisses enthusiastically, his tongue a startling, delicious softness in the bristly tangle of his beard. But he didn’t move his hands any lower than her waist, always letting her be the one to push herself against him, to deepen a kiss, to take the lead in whatever they were doing.

Michael’s voice was a low rumble against her chest. “Are you okay?”

“Um, I think so.”

He lifted one hand to stroke her cheek, then her hair. “I don’t want to do anything you don’t want. So you’re going to have to tell me.” He leaned close, whispering in her ear, making her shiver all over. “Tell me everything you want to happen. Everything you want me to do.”

She kissed him again, feeling shame surge through her; panic trying to grip her. With an effort, she was able to put herself back in the present, in her body, in that moment. She concentrated on the sensations: the warm weight of his hand on her head, the slow brush of his thumb against her cheek, the persistent ache between her legs. Reaching up, she touched his hair, which was surprisingly soft. She combed through it with her fingers, scraping her nails gently against his scalp.

“Mmm,” he rumbled.

She put the heels of her hands against his shoulders and looked down at him, gazing up at her. Leaning forward, she slid her palm down the side of his face, from the warmth of his skin to the prickles of his beard to the soft skin of his neck. She hesitated, then continued on, brushing her palm against his shirt, feeling the hard bud of his nipple. She gave it a tweak, heard him inhale, saw his eyes flutter shut. Still, he kept his hands motionless at her waist.

She began kissing his neck, warm, openmouthed caresses. When she nibbled at a spot just beneath his ear, he gasped, and stiffened, and his voice sounded strangled as he said, “Oh, wow, that’s good.”

She nibbled at him some more, tasting his salty skin, feeling the curve of his head against her palm. She sat up straight just long enough to pull off her sweatshirt and T-shirt. Michael leaned back and watched her, eyes wide. She smiled, and took one of his big hands, and brought it to her breast, and the plain beige bra she was wearing. He held his hand in place, then began sweeping his thumb in arcs against the skin of her chest. “Okay?” he whispered.

Instead of answering, Diana reached down and brushed her fingers over the solid mound behind his zipper, smiling at the strangled sound he made.

“You’re going to kill me,” he said, but he didn’t sound unhappy about it.

She leaned forward, letting her hair brush his cheeks. “I want it,” she whispered. “I want you.”

He groaned, then stood up with Diana in his arms and carried her up to her bed. He laid her down as gently as if she was made of spun glass, as if she was some rare treasure. With great care, he undressed her, unlacing her shoes and easing each one off, pulling off her socks, unbuttoning her jeans and drawing them down over her legs. He looked at her for a long, airless moment, like she was the most precious thing he’d ever seen, and she had to close her eyes against the tenderness of his gaze, before it scorched her.

He leaned forward, mouth close to her ear. “I want to make this good for you,” he rumbled.

“Mmm,” she sighed.

“Anything you don’t want, you tell me,” he said. “If you want to stop, we’ll stop.”

She nodded. It made her heart ache to hear such consideration, and to know he was treating her with such care because of what had happened. I’m damaged goods, she thought.

“You’re perfect,” he said, as if he’d heard what she was thinking. Then he bent to her, kissing her ankle, her calf, the back of her knee. She could feel the softness of his hair, the prickles of his beard, the warmth of his lips and his tongue as he moved up, up, up. “Oh,” she sighed, and she felt him kissing, then sucking gently, his beard tickling her thigh.

“Do you like that?” he whispered. She thought that the way she was squirming on the bed, her hips rising and falling with an unconscious, insistent rhythm, would have given him an answer, but clearly he needed to hear it. She’d almost worked out what to say when she felt his fingers pressing into the soft flesh behind her knee. When she felt his lips there, she arced right off the bed.

“Ooh!”

She heard his chuckle, felt his hands on her hips as he urged her onto her belly. Then he repeated the process on her other leg, kissing his way from instep to ankle to calf to, this time, the back of her knee. When she felt his tongue there, she made a noise so loud it would have been embarrassing, if there’d been any part of her that still had the capacity for shame. For once, she’d stopped thinking, her mind abandoning itself to sensation as Michael gripped her thighs, holding them firmly, but not with enough force to keep her in place if she wanted to move. She rolled her hips in the air, desperate for friction, frantic for him