Kiss Me Like This (The Morrisons #1)(35)
Author: Bella Andre

Whereas right now, it was all up to her.

“Serena, it’s okay,” he said gently. “You don’t have to do this.”

The warmth in his voice calmed her, and brought her back to her original purpose. “I know,” she said, “but I really want to.”

With that, she leaned forward and breathed him in for a moment before she slid her tongue over his abs. The muscles tightened as she licked them one by one, and she could see his hands fisting tightly at his sides.

As a model, she’d sold an illusion of sensuality to consumers hundreds of times. But though she’d been taught to be a master at playing her part for the cameras, she’d never before witnessed, live and in person, just what her genuine sensuality was capable of doing to a guy. Or just how much she could make him want her with nothing more than a few kisses, a few touches. Or that Sean’s obvious hunger for her would fuel her own for him so strongly.

Though she’d already gotten his skin wet enough to shake on the salt and move on to the shot, she couldn’t resist leaning close one more time to lick him again. His groan came as a clear enough warning that he was nearing the end of his rope, so she finally stopped teasing him and shook salt onto his abs.

She pressed her mouth to his stomach and sucked on him just as he had on her neck. It was with no small regret that she finally lifted her mouth from his skin and put the shot glass against her lips. This time, the tequila went down much more smoothly, and when she pressed the lime slice between her lips it was deliciously cool and the perfect mixture of sour and sweet.

Feeling warm and loose all over, she smiled at Sean. “Yum.”

He grinned at her as he sat up. “Starting to develop a taste for tequila?”

“Maybe.” She licked her lips. “Or maybe it’s you I’ve developed a taste for.”

“That makes two of us, then.” He pulled her back onto his lap. “How are you feeling?”

The shot hadn’t just made her limbs feel warm and fluid, it also made it so much easier for her to admit, “Like I can’t stop wanting you. Like I don’t ever want to stop wanting you.”

For all his obvious arousal, his kiss came sweet and soft. “And the tequila?” he asked, his deep voice rolling through her like warm waves of a tropical ocean. “How’s that treating you?”

“Good.” She nibbled on his earlobe. “But I don’t think I’m drunk yet.”

“No?” The short word came out a little strangled, as if he was just barely managing to rein himself in.

Instead of answering him, she leaned over to pour herself another shot. She didn’t bother with salt or lime this time, just tossed it down her throat and got back to what she really wanted to do: kiss Sean.

And as he whispered her name against her lips before kissing her back just as passionately, she realized maybe she was ready for more.

Not just for hot sex…but maybe even for falling in love.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Sean was glad that the back entrance to his frat house was deserted as he brought Serena inside a couple of hours later. Like every Friday, there would be another party tonight. Already, the bass pounded so loudly from the speakers downstairs that the walls were actually shaking. But he wasn’t planning on either of them making an appearance.

She giggled, leaning into him while they walked. “This place smells bad. Like rotting socks.”

“Alumni say it’s smelled this way for more than a hundred years,” he told her, making her laugh again, the sound slow and warmed by all the tequila she’d put away.

She was an adorable drunk. A ridiculously sexy drunk.

But still drunk, nonetheless.

Up on the hill when they’d been making out, the more she drank, the more she’d lost her inhibitions. Even knowing ahead of time that the evening was going to wreak serious havoc on his self-control, he’d still had to steel himself not to take advantage of her when he’d wanted her so badly.

Lord, was he glad he’d been there for her first drinking experience. He hated to think about what pretty much any other guy on the planet would have done as her defenses fell one after the other.

He hadn’t planned on bringing her back to his bedroom tonight. But when she’d gotten a whole lot drunker, a whole lot faster than he’d expected, there’d been no way that he could just take her back to her room and leave her there. Not when neither of them knew how the post-drunk period would treat her. If she needed him, he needed to be there for her.

Luck remained on their side as he took her up the narrow, empty stairwell. His room was just a couple of doors down the hall and once he got her inside, he let out a breath of relief.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be seen with her—of course he wanted to claim her as his in front of the entire world. But since they still hadn’t made an official decision about how public their relationship should be, he didn’t want to make a misstep and upset her with more pictures and gossip spreading throughout campus—and beyond.

“I’ve been wondering for weeks what your room looked like.” She shifted slightly against him so that her br**sts pressed against his chest. “And I’ve been wondering what it would have been like if I’d come up with you when you asked me that first night—especially now that I can guess how good you would have made me feel.”

Like he said, she was a sexy-as-hell drunk. But he made himself press a kiss to her forehead rather than her lips as she swayed even tighter into him.

“Come over here, beautiful.”

“It’s different when you say it.”

He walked her over to the bed and gently sat her down on it. “What’s different?”

“When you call me beautiful.” She whispered the last word as if it were a bad one.

“Why?” He knelt in front of her, needing so badly to understand what made him different to her. “Why is it different when I say it?”

“My face, my body—all they are, all I am, is money to the people I’ve been around my whole life.” She licked her lips as if she was afraid she wasn’t making sense. “They call me beautiful to get something from me. They want me to be beautiful to get something for themselves. For their companies.” She looked straight into his eyes. “But when you say it, I believe it might actually be true. And that it isn’t bad. That I don’t have to keep wishing it away.”

“You are beautiful, Serena. So damned beautiful,” he told her in a raw voice, not thinking, not weighing any of his words. Just knowing that they needed to be said. And heard. “All of you, Serena. Not just your face. Not just your body. Everything you are is beautiful.”