Page 39 of Sheltered

“You’re only a couple feet away on this couch, and it feels too far,” he said as he shifted himself closer and wrapped his arms around me.

“I was thinking the same thing,” I returned as my arms went over his shoulders.

Blaze effortlessly managed to shift the both of us on the couch, so our bodies were running the length of each other. It reminded me a lot of our drive-in theater date, and as much as I adored the closeness, there were a lot of nerves.

Because there was no movie to distract us from one another.

And it took both of us almost no time to find something to busy ourselves. Blaze took one look at me up close, smiled, and touched his mouth to mine.

It started off sweet and innocent enough, but it quickly turned into something else, something far more consuming.

In so many ways, I thought that was a great thing. It was wonderful to know all Blaze had to do was kiss me, and I’d be lost in him.

But there was a part of me, the part that had been worried about what I needed to share with him, that believed it might not be so wonderful that I got lost when it was important for us to talk.

Because we did need to talk.

The more we kissed, the more we tasted. The more we tasted, the more we touched. And the more we touched, the more we moaned.

Plus, with our bodies pressed close together, I could feel how turned-on Blaze was. We desperately needed to talk before things got too out of hand.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t manage to stop us.

I was learning Blaze could say a whole lot to me without speaking a word. All he had to do was kiss me.

His kisses communicated everything.

His kisses proved he couldn’t get enough of me.

God, I hoped he could feel it was the same in return.

I just didn’t know for sure, though. I didn’t have that confidence, because I didn’t have the experience.

When Blaze’s hand moved from around my back down to my ass and squeezed, I told myself I needed just one more minute to kiss him before I stopped us. But it wasn’t even half a minute later when that hand made its way to my hip, slid up my side, and ultimately landed on my breast.

My belly was trembling.

Blaze was taking us further than we’d ever been before, and he had not a single clue about what he was getting into with me.

So, the moment he stopped holding my breast possessively in his hand and swiped his thumb up and over my nipple, forcing a guttural moan from me, I pressed my palm into his shoulder and reluctantly tore my mouth from his.

“Wait, wait,” I begged, completely out of breath.

Blaze’s hand instantly moved back to my hip. “Are you okay?”

I shook my head, nervously biting my lip. I liked him so much, and I was terrified this was going to change everything. “Blaze, I’m… I’m so sorry, but I really need to talk to you.”

ELEVEN

Blaze

I was horrified by the look on Harlow’s face. On a night when I believed everything had been going exceptionally well between us, seeing just how scared she was now didn’t leave me feeling very good.

My only concern was her. “Baby, what’s going on?”

Her body was tense, her eyes were filled with worry, and her breaths were coming quickly.

“I… I… I think I need to sit up,” she stammered as she squirmed in my arms.