Right Where You Are Read online

  I snorted out a sharp laugh. “I don’t even know how to check my oil, much less repair something on a car. Good guess, though. It could be a lucrative career choice given my past.”

  “Well, I know you’re not a dancer, so given that you are such a bad ass, I’m going with lion tamer. Final answer.”

  “God, you suck. I’m going to sound completely boring now when I tell you what I’m actually studying. Maybe it’s not too late to switch my major. Lion tamer has a nice ring to it. And people always threaten to run away and join the circus, so it must be fun.”

  “But then you’d get hit on by the two-headed man, and that would just be awkward. What if you liked one head but not the other? How would you be alone for some quiet time?”

  “Earmuffs and a blindfold, of course,” I said without missing a beat.

  “For which one?” he asked with a huge smile.

  This verbal foreplay that had nothing to do with sex was turning me on. This side of Seth, the goofy laid-back one with the panty-dropping grin was very dangerous. Much more than broody bad boy Seth.

  I needed to catch my breath. “I’m prelaw. I’ll be starting law school in the fall. I haven’t decided which one yet, though.” My father expected me to pack up and go to Harvard, had already pulled those strings my freshman year, but I was undecided. I liked UNC, and they had a really good program there as well. Which I’d applied and been accepted into, but my father didn’t know that yet.

  Seth pushed to his feet and held his hands out in front of him. “Whoa, hold on. You’re telling me that you’re going into law and you broke the law? Didn’t they cover property destruction in like, Law 101? Were you asleep in that class?”

  “Oh, it gets better. My father is one of the best attorneys in the city. He tried to get the charges dismissed, but there was a small problem. Someone uploaded a video to YouTube.”

  “Please tell me it was a sex tape?” Seth said.

  The half-hopeful, half-pleading look on his face undid me. I could not stop laughing. “It was not a sex tape,” I said between gasps for air. “But it was me, beating the shit out of Grant’s truck. Couldn’t really deny it at that point. My father was so pissed.”

  “And the rest is history,” he said.

  “Pretty much.” I stood up and sucked the last dregs of my milk shake through the straw, then Seth took it and his garbage and threw it away. My eyes were glued to his ass as he walked away from me, and I didn’t realize he had turned around until he cleared his throat loudly.

  Busted.

  “Not like I don’t see it every day,” I said with a casual shrug.

  Seth raised his eyebrows and stalked toward me. “Are you telling me that you have been checking out my ass every single day for two weeks?”

  I walked right into that one. “Maybe.”

  He stopped only a step away, but didn’t make any other move. His gaze kept dropping to my lips, and I licked them unconsciously. The flare of heat in his eyes before the black seemed to eat away most of the color made my knees weak.

  I didn’t want today to end, but I’d already put it out there that I wanted to have sex with him. Wasn’t going to happen again. If he wanted me, he had to make the first move.

  Yet he stood perfectly still, just watching me.

  “I’m probably going to lose my man card for saying this, but I’m glad we didn’t have sex that first night,” he said finally.

  “Wow, way to make a girl feel special,” I said.

  “Because,” he said, taking that last step and closing the distance between us, “it would have happened and we would have gone our separate ways and we wouldn’t be here right now. I didn’t want to like you, Avery. Hell, I didn’t like you after that night at O’Malley’s, but you’re not what I expected.”

  “Is that a bad thing?” I asked a little breathlessly.

  “Yes. No. I don’t fucking know.” He drove his fingers through his hair and looked past me. “I’ve got so much shit sitting on my shoulders right now that I can barely stand up, but you’re like this light I can’t stay away from. My life is a mess and I don’t have a lot to offer anyone, much less someone like you.”

  “Someone like me? In case you haven’t noticed, Seth, I’m right there beside you every day stabbing garbage . . .”

  “Wearing your designer clothes and driving a Beemer. Come on, Avery, we both know that as soon as this is over, you go back to your real life. This will just be a blip on your radar. An inconvenience.” He finally looked me in the eyes, and I saw the pain he was trying to hide. “You’re looking for a distraction, and I get it. Hell, I’d be up for it if I wasn’t holding on by a thread here. If we got involved, even for a few weeks, it would not end well.”

  His rejection hurt. A lot. Especially after the last half hour. I pulled every ounce of self-preservation I could find inside myself and nodded.

  “So we should probably get back so you’re not late for your check-in with your parole officer.” I pushed open the door and walked into the suffocating outdoors without waiting for him to follow.

  Halfway to the car, Seth stopped me with a hand on my arm. “Avery.”

  God, he was the king of mixed signals. The longing in his voice pierced through my thin layer of control like it was nothing. To survive the next six weeks, I’d have to keep away from him. Far away. Starting right now.

  “I get it. It’s okay. But really, we need to go. I don’t want you to miss your appointment.” My voice sounded neutral, and I gave myself a mental high five. I made it to the car by taking steady, even breaths with each step. One car ride and then I could go home and wallow in self-pity and rejection. And wine. Lots and lots of wine.

  “Damn it,” Seth exhaled. His hands were on my shoulders and he spun me around, leaning his hips against me, pressing me against the car again. “You don’t get it at all.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath in. When he opened them, the want in them nearly sent me to my knees. He leaned in so close I thought he was going to kiss me. “A few weeks would never be enough,” he said against my lips. “If anything more happens between us, I won’t be able to walk away and forget. We haven’t done anything except kiss, and I can’t get you out of my fucking head. If we have sex . . .” Seth shook his head.

  “What if I don’t want you to walk away?” The whispered question slipped from my lips before I even knew what I was saying. Was that what I wanted? Wasn’t it way too early to think about getting involved with someone else? I’d just gotten out of a four-year relationship.

  But I hadn’t expected to meet Seth. Or to like him this much after I did.

  He groaned. “You don’t even know me. Christ, I just got out of prison, you should be running the other way.”

  There was only one thing I really needed to know. One thing that would be a deal breaker. “Were you selling drugs? Is that why you were there?”

  He reared back and anger flashed across his face. “Fuck, no.”

  Before he had a chance to get any farther from me, I curled my fingers in the loops of his jeans and brought him back against me. “That’s all I needed to know. The rest, well, I think you should take a chance. On me. On us.”

  “I don’t have a fucking thing to offer you. I can’t give you fancy dinners or expensive jewelry. I’ve got a rusted-out truck and about two hundred dollars to my name. That’s it. That is me.” He tried to move away, but I kept a tight grip on him.

  “And that’s who I like. I’ve had the country club and cocktail parties, and you know how that ended. I’m tired of doing what everyone else wants me to. This, between us, is the first thing in my life that I’ve wanted just for me. I don’t even know what I’m doing here . . .”

  Seth’s arms were around me, and his lips took mine in a hungry kiss. I opened under the assault as he devoured me, stroking the inside of my mouth in frantic slashes of his tongue.

  I groaned and wrapped my arms around his waist.

  The out-of-control feelings returned a hundred times
more powerful. I ran my hands under his T-shirt, up over the hot skin of his back. His growl vibrated my mouth and the kiss deepened.

  He pressed his hips against me.

  I rocked against the hardness in his jeans.

  After several more minutes of forgetting my own name, Seth pulled back and rested his forehead against mine. His eyes were practically glowing, and under the desire, there were hints of vulnerability. “I don’t know what the hell this is, but you’ve got me, Avery. For however long you want me.”

  My heart lurched in my chest.

  “Will you come over tonight?” I held my breath, waiting for his answer. “I’d like to make you dinner.”

  He kissed me again, only this time it was teasing and gentle. His hand curled around my jaw and he stroked his thumb over my kiss-swollen lips.

  “The fucking zombie apocalypse couldn’t keep me away.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Seth

  Avery’s place was crazy nice.

  I gave her the flowers I picked up at the corner market, because I didn’t have a fucking clue what I was supposed to do. It had been a long time since I’d been on a date, and high school Seth had never thought to buy flowers.

  “They’re beautiful,” she gushed. The bouquet of white daisies and pink carnations was probably the lamest gift she’d ever gotten, hell, it was the last bunch at the Stop ’n’ Go. Heat climbed up my neck. Shit, I should have just brought a six-pack.

  That was me.

  “Come in.” She made her way to the other room, then came back a few minutes later with the flowers in a vase that probably cost more than my mother’s trailer.

  What the fuck am I doing here?

  I looked around her place. The high ceilings, crown molding, and hardwood floors were right out of a showroom. She told me she shared the place with Shari¸ aka Bambi, who was back living on campus now. They had a huge white leather sofa parked in front of a flat-screen TV. There was a big window at the end of the room that looked out over some kind of brick courtyard with benches and gardens and shit.

  It was filled with bright natural light, and everything fucking gleamed.

  “Christ,” I muttered. I thought it was a decent place to live from the outside, but seeing this was almost too much. I swallowed back the discomfort that started when I had to be buzzed through the security gate after the guard checked to be sure my name was on the list.

  Earlier I told her that she had me, and she did. I could not get her out of my head, but this was so beyond anything I was ready for.

  Seeing her place drove home the fact that we were fucking worlds apart.

  I could never bring her to my place now.

  “Make yourself at home,” she said. “I’m just going to clean up. I didn’t have time earlier because I have a surprise for you.”

  “Is it one of those lacy kinds of surprises?” I asked with a grin.

  “Not telling.” She smiled over her shoulder. “I’ll be back out in a few minutes.”

  “Said no girl ever,” I yelled at her down the hall.

  Her laughter floated back at me. I settled on the couch and grabbed the remote. Her TV was bigger than my entire apartment. Well, not really, but it felt like it. I flipped through a few talk shows where people screamed at each other about baby daddies and shit, then turned it off.

  It wasn’t the first time I’d heard those kinds of accusations. Not directed at me, but in the surrounding trailers where I grew up. There was always some kind of drama going on.

  A row of pictures lined a narrow table pushed against the wall under the TV, and I walked over to check them out. Avery and the girl I remembered from O’Malley’s were in most of them. In front of a mountain holding up skis. On a beach with the bluest water I’d ever seen behind them. They both had on tiny bikinis. Each picture looked like it was taken in a different country. God, she’d been all over the fucking place.

  I’d never even been out of the state.

  The last picture was of Avery in a cap and gown with two adults at her side. Avery and the woman looked a lot alike.

  “My parents,” Avery said from the doorway. “That was high school graduation.”

  I never graduated from high school. My GED came while inside cement-block walls.

  I turned away from the pictures. Avery had changed into denim cutoff shorts and a tight blue T-shirt. Her feet were bare and her hair was hanging in wet curls around her face. She looked beautiful.

  And fuck if I could figure out why, but that girl wanted me.

  I let my gaze run down, then back up as slowly as possible, savoring every inch of her body. By the time I met her stare, her cheeks were pink and her breath came out faster than before.

  I grinned. We were alone and there was no more bullshit between us. “Dessert first?”

  Her face turned even redder. “If we start with dessert, we’ll never get to dinner. Be good and come help me.”

  “Baby, I’d love to help you come.” Already my dick was pressing against my jeans. Who needed food? This foreplay between us had been going on for two weeks, and I was finally ready to do something about the ache I’d been living with.

  I took a step toward her, and she held out her hand, though desire filled her eyes.

  “Food,” she croaked. “I want to do something nice for you first.”

  I grinned. “How about I do something nice for you first? Like dessert,” I said, grabbing her hand and tugging her back down the hall. She followed with little resistance. There were two bedrooms, one to the left and one on the right.

  “Which one?” I asked, my voice harsher than I intended. I couldn’t help it. Fuck, I wanted her so bad.

  “Left,” she said on a breathy exhale.

  I pulled her into the room and spun her around so that her back pressed against the wall. Her arms wound around my neck. I pressed into her, rocking my hips to ease some of the ache.

  She smelled like flowers and exotic fruit, and I wanted to lick her everywhere to see if she tasted the same way. I ran my tongue up her neck, and she groaned and her head tipped back. I dragged my teeth across her exposed skin, then licked where I’d bitten. Avery rolled her hips, then lifted one leg to wrap around my waist.

  I grabbed her other leg under the thigh and lifted, so that she was wrapped completely around me and wedged between me and the wall. Her arms tightened as she helped hold herself up.

  I bounced her slowly, letting my denim-covered dick rub between her legs.

  Her low moan sent sharp stabs of desire through me.

  “Fuck, baby,” I whispered in her ear. “I want you so bad right now.”

  “Seth,” she groaned.

  I used my hips to hold her against the wall and used one hand to push her T-shirt up over her breasts.

  “You’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?” She wasn’t wearing a bra. Her nipples pebbled when I ran my fingers across them. I shifted her up so that I could get my lips around one of them. The other I rolled between my thumb and finger.

  Soft little moans and sighs filled the room.

  Every single one went straight to my dick.

  I bit down and heard her cry out, then I soothed the tip with my tongue.

  “Bed,” she pleaded. “Please.”

  That worked for me. I had other things in mind before I sank into her. I meant it when I said I wanted dessert first, and Avery was the sweetest kind.

  She held on when I turned and walked the few feet to her bed. It was almost waist high and I set her on the edge. A little set of steps sat next to the nightstand. Images of Avery bent over the mattress while I drove into her from behind filled my head. Oh, yeah. Definitely would try that too.

  I unbuttoned her shorts and she lifted her hips to let me slip them off. Fuck. Me. She didn’t have on panties either.

  “I take it back. You’re not trying to kill me. You already did and this is heaven.”

  “Worst line ever,” she said with a throaty laugh.

  I slid my ha
nds up the insides of her thighs until my thumbs met in the middle. Holding her legs open, I ran them up the outsides of her lips. She shuddered and lifted her hips, offering herself to me.

  It was an invitation I wasn’t going to ignore. “I’ve wanted to see if you taste as sweet as you look since that first night,” I said, pressing my lips to the inside of her thigh. I heard her breath hitch and tried not to groan out loud. I wanted to take my time, to savor every single moan, but I had to know with desperate urgency. “Now here you are, spread out like this just for me, I can’t wait a second longer.”

  I held her open with my thumbs and leaned in closer, flicking my tongue over her clit. She jolted under me, and I dug my fingers into her thighs to keep her still.

  I alternated between light little flicks and whole tongue laps, dragging it up and over while she thrashed and moaned, begging with incoherent words. Her fingers dug into my hair, pulling my head closer to her center.

  I could feel her trying to move her hips, but I kept my grip tight, not letting her move. I kept up a steady rhythm, not speeding up like I knew she wanted. Every stroke of my tongue made her body tighten just a little more. Her legs trembled.

  Desperate pleas fell from her lips. Her voice hitched, and she whimpered, a deep raw sound that almost undid me. I knew she was close, but I wanted her to come undone harder than she ever had before.

  One, two, three more full-tongue licks and she shook so hard that I knew she was right on the edge. I let her hover there for a few seconds, then sucked her clit into my mouth and dragged my teeth over the sensitive little knot.

  Her whole body stretched tight and she strained against my hold. Then a ragged scream flew past her clenched teeth as she bucked against my mouth.

  I kept running my tongue over her until her body collapsed, no longer fighting against me. I kissed the inside of each thigh, then up her body until I could lie beside her. Her eyes were closed and her face was red and her chest rose and fell with fast breaths.