Bad Romeo (Starcrossed #1)(94)
Author: Leisa Rayven

Holt looks dubious, as she hands him the salad.

“Oh, all right,” she says. “Jack Avery called earlier to say that my bet last week had paid off.”

Holt’s face drops, along with his fork. “What?!”

Maggie wrings her hands in embarrassment. “Well, darling, Elissa told me the odds Jack was offering, and after I saw you two in Romeo and Juliet, I figured it was a sure thing.”

“Mom! Jesus!”

“Darling, don’t be mad. Momma needed a new pair of shoes.”

He rubs his eyes and groans.

My nervous energy manifests as too-shrill laughter, and as I snort indelicately, three surprised faces turn to me. Four, if you count the dog.

“I’m sorry,” I say as I try unsuccessfully to stop. “But that’s kind of awesome.”

Maggie laughs along with me, and Elissa joins in.

Ethan shakes his head. “Why are all the women in my life determined to torture me?”

I lean over and kiss him on the cheek. I’m rewarded with a hint of a smile.

The rest of the meal passes quickly, and I’m blown away by the amazing feast Maggie has whipped up. By the time I’m finished, I can barely move. My poor, distended stomach is in both heaven and hell, and I curse the years of eating my mom’s sad excuse for cuisine, in which the chickpea was held sacred and anything that tasted good, like butter or salt, was treated like a deadly poison to be avoided at all costs.

As she serves dessert, Maggie questions me about myself and my family, and even though I’m usually nervous about being scrutinized so openly, it doesn’t seem like she’s being nosy. She just wants to get to know her son’s girlfriend.

A couple of times I catch her watching when Holt and I talk to each other, and she has that same optimistic look in her eye my mother used to get whenever she tried to convert me to veganism. I’m hoping Holt and I work out better than my short-lived relationship with Tofurkey and rice milk.

As for Holt, I like to watch him interact with his mother and sister. He and Elissa fight incessantly, but it’s good natured, despite his efforts to seem like a badass. And the way he is with his mom? It makes me all kinds of swoony.

They say you can tell a lot about how a man will treat you by the way he treats his mother. If that’s true, I expect to be treated like a queen.

TWENTY

DESPERATION

Four days later, Thanksgiving is over and we’re back in Westchester. Holt’s barely gotten my apartment door open before I’m on him, kissing him with everything I have.

He drops my bag in surprise, and we almost trip over it.

“Cassie, slow down…”

“Don’t tell me to slow down,” I say, and push him the short distance to the couch. “Four days, Ethan. Four days of interminable fondling, interrupted orgasms, and family drama. The time for being slow has passed. Now, please, shut up and kiss me.”

Whatever he’s going to say next is smothered by my mouth, and I straddle him as I bury my fingers in his hair.

He feels amazing. Tastes amazing. How one man can taste so good is completely beyond me.

I know I’m out of control, but he’s made me this way. Our weekend with his family ended up being pretty enjoyable, despite some tension when his dad was around. But being in close quarters with him for twenty-four hours a day was sexual torture. Between sightseeing with his sister and family meals, we rarely got time alone. And when we were, he’d always stop before we got to the good stuff. The whole weekend turned out to be one giant round of excruciating foreplay, and if he doesn’t stop stalling and give me some relief pretty damn pronto, there’s going to be a girl-parts rebellion the likes of which he’s never seen. I’m wound tighter than Jane Fonda’s latest facelift, goddammit.

“Take off your shirt.” I kiss all over his face, then move down his neck while I add in some nibbling, because I know it makes him crazy.

“Wait … just— Oh, fuck…”

I bite down at the point where his neck meets his shoulder and suck hard. He pushes his pelvis up so suddenly, he nearly bucks me off his lap.

“Jesus, Cassie!”

“Shirt! Off!”

I tug and yank it over his head. His hair looks like I’ve electrocuted him. With the way my neurons are firing right now, I probably could.

When I throw his shirt away, it smacks into the lamp beside us and knocks it to the floor in an explosion of porcelain.

He drags his mouth away from me long enough to assess the damage. “You murdered the lamp.”

I circle my hips. “Stop talking. Lamp’s not important. Getting naked is.”

I fumble as I unbutton my shirt. He says something in protest, but I tear it off anyway. It lands on the floor next to the lamp corpse and leaves me just in my bra. I press my chest to his and exhale in relief. I want to lick him all over. I start on his neck and revel in the salty and sweet of his skin, as I move my hips to rub against him.

Ohhh, he’s hard and perfect. All of his other parts taste good, and I wonder if that would, too.

Just thinking about it makes me even more desperate, and something’s seriously gotta give before I burst into flames.

“Pants,” I say, and it’s barely even a word. More like a hoarse bark.

“What?” He’s doing something amazing to my boobs.

I can barely form words, but I try. “Holt, for the love of all that’s holy, take off your damn pants!”

My yelling shocks him into stillness, so I take matters into my own hands. He makes vague protests as I fumble with his belt, but at this point, all of his arguments are invalid.

His belt is the stupid type that just has a solid metal plate held together with pins or something. I tug at it, frustrated.

“Crap…”

“Cassie—”

“How the frack does this thing work?!” I grab it with both hands and pull and push in an attempt to make it come apart with brute force, but it won’t budge. “Dammit, Ethan, help me!”

I feel like I’m in a disaster movie, and that belt is the iceberg that’s going to sink the good ship Orgasm. It must be destroyed.

At last, the buckle gives way, and I make a small victory noise before I frantically unbutton his jeans.

“I want you,” I say as I push my hand into his boxers.

Oh, God, yes. That, right there. That’s what I want.

“Ohhhhh … Jesus.” His eyes glaze over when I close my hand around him.

“Please, Ethan.” I’m so whiny, I’m almost ashamed. “Ruby isn’t going to be home until tomorrow. We have the whole place to ourselves. Please.”