“Fuck me.”
She gives a throaty laugh. “I was so wrong about you.”
I can’t look away from her hand. It mesmerizes me with every torturous pass over my cock, never gripping me fully or pulling me completely from my jeans. But she circles her palm over the crown, spreading my pre-cum, and I’m powerless to the guttural groan that escapes me. “How?” I finally grunt, thrusting my hips upward.
Another swirl of her palm over my dick. “I thought you were rigid.” She tightens her legs around me, and the very rigid part of me strains against the very soft part of her. “Cold,” she adds softly. “But clearly I just need to listen for when you start cursing in English.” Hooking a hand around the back of my neck, she drags me close and molds her mouth to mine for a hot-as-hell kiss. She pulls back only long enough to whisper, “It’s your tell, how I know you’re teetering on the edge of showing whatever you’re really thinking.”
I nip at her plump bottom lip. “Oh yeah?”
It’s then I feel the button of my jeans come loose. The zipper inches down, far enough for Mina’s slender hand to dive inside my briefs and circle my hard-on with a tight, confident fist.
Holy hell, she feels good wrapped around me. She pumps her hand once, twisting at the crown, and stars dance in front of my vision. Shit, “good” doesn’t even cover it. This is . . . this is—my mouth parts as she glides up and down, up and down, never losing pace. She squeezes at the base, then allows her thumb to run along the vein on the underside of my dick on her next pass up my length. Another groan frees itself from my chest.
“That,” she says, her honey eyes colliding with mine, “and I thought you’d be quiet in bed.” Her lips curl flirtatiously. “Or maybe that was wishful thinking on my part, a way to make me feel better about not having you for myself.”
A way to make me feel better about not having you for myself.
Her words only make my cock swell more. I’ve never thought about how I am in bed, aside from the basics: that I know exactly how to make a woman orgasm. But the particulars of how I am? Yeah, it’s not something I dwell on. And it’s not like anyone’s ever called me out for being vocal in the sack—except for Mina.
The one woman who never fails to challenge me, no matter where we are, including an old and rickety stairwell, the location of our first kiss. It’s a major contrast to my time on Put A Ring On It, when every date and every moment was orchestrated for a panoramic view and a drone flying high above us to catch an embrace from all angles.
I’d prefer the raw honesty of this moment with Mina any day of the week.
I lean down and whisper my lips over hers. Her fist circles my cock.
“You keep doing that and I’m gonna come.” Without waiting for what I know will be a sassy comment, I hold her tightly against me and swivel away from the wall. I head up the stairs, ignoring the creaks and whines beneath my feet, and focus on the woman in my arms.
Except maybe I focus a little too much—on the soft skin of her neck and her full, kissable lips—because I fail to notice the wood groan on the third rung from the top of the stairwell. Not until my foot’s already sinking down, down, down and Mina’s crying out in panic and the rung gives out completely beneath me.
19
Mina
It’s not every day that a first kiss with your lifelong crush ends with him thigh-deep in a stairwell.
I’m not sure which shocks me more: the kiss (God, that kiss) or the fact that Nick is seconds away from plummeting to his death. All right, so he probably won’t die, but only because he’s got the muscles of Ares and the self-discipline of the almighty Zeus.
In other words, Nick is a gravity-defying beast.
With his arms braced against the walls to balance his weight off his submerged leg, Nick’s biceps strain with maximum, veiny effort. My gaze gleefully tracks the inverted triangle of his chest, and then lowers. His jeans are ripped at the thigh, torn through by jagged, splintering wood, and it’s probably not the time to bring this up, but . . .
“Nick, your—”
He doesn’t make eye contact. His cheeks do, however, flush with color. “Please, don’t.”
I swallow past the lump in my throat. “Is . . .” I lick my dry lips. “Is The Great One—”
Every line in his body sharpens. “Ermione. Please.”
Wringing my hands in front of me, it’s all I can do not to burst out laughing. Going from straight-up alpha, I’m-going-to-make-you-mine mode (not that I’m complaining) to wiping out from a weak plank of wood is something that would happen to Nick Stamos. Though I suppose we’re both to blame since I was in his arms. His muscular, I-lift-things-for-a-living arms. Hold me while I swoon. Plus, now that I know he’s not actually going to fall straight to his death, seeing Nick like this has me feeling like I’ve won the lottery.
All those years of me losing bikini tops and other, more humiliating moments, have culminated in this one moment where we’ve swapped places.
I’m secretly living for it.
“We can do this one of two ways,” I tell him, purposely masking my tone of all amusement. Do not laugh. Do not laugh. The full-on dread in Nick’s expression has me biting my lip. Oh God, just don’t make eye contact. I seek strength by staring up at the wood-paneled walls. “Actually, there is a third way, but I doubt you want me hammering anywhere near your leg. Coordination really isn’t my thing.” My nose scrunches. “You’d also probably fall to your death.”
He drops his head forward in defeat. “Death sounds pretty good right about now.”
“Is that because your tsutsuli—”
“It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“You’re the one who squealed as soon as it made contact.”
“I didn’t squeal.”
Fingers suctioned to either wall like he’s sprouted tentacles, Nick moves his free leg into a wide kneeling position to better distribute his weight. God, his abs must be insane to hold himself steady like that. Though his cheeks are rosy, he’s yet to break out in a sweat. Impressive. Though not nearly as impressive as the size of his hard-on. The dick-print from my admittedly active teenage imagination was not misleading, thank you, Sweet Baby Jesus.
“And,” Nick spits out, clearly desperate to defend his manhood—literally—“no man likes to have his junk flattened. It’s like sitting on your balls—it happens all the time, but it still hurts like a bitch.”
I consider him with a tilted head. “You say this like you’ve had previous experience.”
“Mina.” He mutters the two syllables of my name peevishly, in that way only a male whose pride has taken a beating can. “I’ve worked in construction for fifteen years. There’s not one guy who hasn’t been where I am now, but at least, usually, we don’t have a witness.”
“Aw, are you worried about what I think of you?”
He grumbles something unintelligible beneath his breath.
To fluff up his ego, I drop to my haunches and cup his stubbled jaw. Yup, his cheeks are totally flushed. It says something about the state of my mind that I think it’s adorably cute. Dogs are cute. Babies are cute. Men like Nick are—
Pewter eyes flick up to my face. All train of thought careens to a standstill as I lean in and impulsively mold my lips to his, simply because I want another taste.
Delicious. Men like Nick are delicious.
He tastes better than in every one of my fantasies combined. For years, I’ve pictured him as the consummate gentle lover with a warm but unassuming embrace. Classical music might provide background noise to an otherwise romantic joining. He proved me wrong. Nick’s kiss, his touch, the way his erection hardened unapologetically in my hand, was the very antithesis of unassuming. He took and he pushed and he bit and he sucked, and he almost had an orgasm knocking on my door without removing a stitch of fabric off me.
His body, tailored from years of hard, physical labor, left me breathless.
Leaves me breathless still, even as I fight to keep this kiss one of playful flirtation and not dirty hand jobs and dry-humping sessions against a wall. I kiss Nick long enough to distract him while I reach down and return The Great One to the confines of his briefs. Steel wrapped in velvet—all the authors of the romance novels I listen to would be pleased to know that Nick Stamos not only fits the description, he exceeds it.
I zip up his torn jeans and pat his ridged lower abdomen.
“We’ve got to keep him safe,” I say with a grin.
Nick looks like he doesn’t know whether to laugh or shove the rest of his body through the broken slat.
Taking the decision out of his hands, I pop a quick peck on his mouth and spy the staircase over his shoulder. Stairs that now taunt me like a deathtrap in the waiting. Ten minutes ago, my only concern was my condom-less apartment. A tragic ending to a hot, PG-13 groping session, but one easily solved with a run to the corner store down the block. Now these stairs are just one more thing to add to my never-ending list of Shit-That-Needs-Fixing around here. It’s not as if my bank account can cry anymore at this point.
Carefully, I step over Nick’s extended arm. “Hang tight, will you?”
“Mina.”
“Too soon?” I deadpan, trying not to laugh at his expense. Clearly, the two of us together were too much for this old stairwell to handle. But I’ve gone up and down these flights tens of times on my own, and I’m confident they won’t buckle under my weight alone. Hopefully. “I’ve got to get the guys.”
“Ermione. No. Absolutely not.” I glance over my shoulder in time to see him struggling to yank his leg out from the hole. He freezes within seconds. The broken wood is gnarly. One wrong move and it’ll slice right through his skin. Something he must realize, too, because he blows out a long-suffering sigh. “I’m going to regret this.”
In the end, Nick doesn’t live to regret anything.
“No mean jokes,” I warn the guys after I’ve filled them in downstairs.