“C’mere,” he muttered before seizing her at the waist and dragging her against him. Their hunger from Atwood Street returned as he drew her lower lip between his own. She groaned and held on to his shoulders, bent over by the force of his kiss.
There was nothing soft jock about him now. Reece kissed the way he always had—with reckless appetite.
They were well matched. Charlotte wound a hand through his belt and pulled him flush against her. She could feel his hardness against her hip. Reece hissed against her lips, and she swallowed it, smug and satisfied.
He wanted her. He wanted her desperately, she hadn’t imagined it. She wasn’t wrong.
Reece found the buttons of her shirt. She stepped back to let him unfasten them one by one, shivering as her skin met the night air.
“Fuck,” Reece stammered. He stared at her breasts in disbelief.
She’d skipped wearing a bra tonight, not really needing one. Charlotte folded her arms over her stomach. She knew her body had changed since graduation, just like his. She wasn’t an insecure woman, but the last time Reece saw her naked, she still had the metabolism of a teenager.
“What?” she asked as he appraised her. She hated the defensiveness in her voice.
“You are so gorgeous.” He ran his knuckle across her clavicle and down her breastbone. Then he traced a line over the small swell of her breast to the firm point of her nipple. Charlotte arched her back as her self-consciousness dissolved under his touch. “So beautiful,” he continued. “I thought I remembered you, but…”
“I’m softer now,” she said with a wry smile.
Reece kissed her, slow and deep. He pulled away to brush his nose against hers. “I like it.”
Their pants followed their shirts to the floor. Undressing together wasn’t awkward or clumsy; they’d done it dozens of times before.
“Shit,” he said, patting the nonexistent back pocket of his underwear. “I just realized—condoms. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry.” Charlotte found Jackie’s dresser in the darkness. She felt her way through the makeup bag and retrieved a metallic wrapper. “Jackie has some.”
She put the condoms on the bookshelf and sat down next to him on the bed. He kissed her shoulder, his movements languid.
“Should we talk about it?” she asked.
Reece leaned back against the wall. “Sure.” He did some mental math as he wiggled his toes. “It’s been…four months? Since my last STI screening. Nothing new to report.” His teeth caught the moonlight, his face bare of shame or awkwardness. He gave her a playful smile as he added, “My sex life isn’t thriving now that I live with my mom.”
Charlotte tried to remember her last checkup. She’d gotten tested once her relationship with Merielle was over, and she didn’t have much to account for since then. “My last test was in August, no positives.” She didn’t need to elaborate, but she couldn’t help herself. “No one to jeopardize that either.”
Reece took her hand from where it rested on her knee and brought her palm to his lips. Her fingers curled inward at the just-so graze of his mouth against her skin. “How has no one in that city noticed how incredible you are?”
“I haven’t really…been trying,” she admitted, her voice a ribbon of muddled concentration and desire.
Reece tugged her across the bed to straddle his lap. “Is that so?” His mouth teased the sensitive flesh where her shoulder met her neck. She writhed unintentionally, rocking against the hard ridge of his arousal. So little separated them now, just his boxer briefs and her cotton undies.
She tried to remember his question. “Too tired from work. Not…interested.”
It took Herculean effort to string together a sentence while Reece laved kisses against her shoulder. She deserved an award: remembered words when seduced by her ex after a dry spell.
“Hmm…” Reece took her shoulder in his hand and tilted her backward to find her nipple with his lips. He licked and then sucked the hard peak. Lights went out one by one in Charlotte’s brain. The machinery that operated her anxiety and recollection of basic grammar whirred to a stop.
Reece grazed her nipple with his teeth before letting it go, the cold air scorching her skin. “You like that,” he purred as his mouth moved to her other breast. His fingers flexed at her throat. He was gentle with her neck but the slightest pressure there brought to mind his strength. She felt herself get wetter at the thought of his hand pressing down harder.
“I do, yes,” she managed.
“You have no idea,” he said in between kisses, “how much I have wanted this.” His hand at her hips tightened, dragging her forward in his lap. “How much I have thought about this.” She held back a groan at the friction between their bodies. She rocked forward again, matching the tempo he’d started. “How much I have tried to remember…every…detail of you.”
The idea of Reece scrounging for memories of their short-lived relationship was erotic and laden with meaning. Charlotte took his jaw in her hand and turned his face up to hers, not sure what to say but needing to say something. “I’m here” was what came out, a firm statement of now and I’m sorry.
She had also thought about him in the city on lonely nights when she snuck her hand under the waistband of her pajamas. She thought about his green eyes finding hers over the swell of her stomach. When she found herself stuck on some first date from hell, she remembered how Reece teased her to the brink and then watched her come apart, smug satisfaction curling his mouth.
His thumb found her pulse point, thundering at her throat. “I know,” he said. “And I’m not letting you go. Not until I’m satisfied.”
Then he was kissing her again. Charlotte gasped and he swallowed the sound, his nails biting into her hip. She remembered how tortured he looked last night, his restraint threatening to snap as she pressed herself against the wall. All of that tension burned through their bodies. All of that desire surged through her, finally unbridled.
This was the Reece she knew in college. This was the Reece she’d never forgotten—the Reece who challenged and demanded and took. This Reece bent her over a sink in the bathroom at some party and fucked her, one hand over her mouth to catch her groans. He gave as good as he got, generous and merciless.
Reece bit her lower lip and she whined. She wanted this desperately, to be taken, to be taken by him. She wanted him to fuck her, wanted him to fuck her and kiss her and hold her and then smile at her with his ridiculous, expressive face.
His hand moved from her hip to the waistband of her underwear, teasing the hem. She squirmed against him, forward and down, and he grunted at the friction. “Touch me,” she begged against his lips. “Oh god, please.” She wanted his hands on her, wanted his hands against her where she was slick and hot and needy.
Reece traced her slit through the soaked cotton, his thumb finding her clit. Too much and not enough, the pressure dulled by the fabric. “More. Please, Reece.”
His eyes found hers and the look he gave her—damn was it intense. She tried not to look away from his face as he pushed aside her underwear and eased one delicious finger into her.
An anguished noise escaped his throat, a helpless little groan of disbelief. “Charlie, you are so wet.”
“I know,” she panted. Her voice failed her as he stroked inside. “Since last night.”
Reece moaned at that thought.
He added another finger to the one already moving in and out of her, stretching her carefully. Her eyes shuttered closed, the sensation beautiful torture. It felt incredible to be touched, to be teased and stroked and played with—his thumb found her clit and circled it, pressing down. But it wasn’t enough, nothing would be enough until she had him.
