Page 95 of Silver Sweet

His strong hands slide down to my waist, and I drop my gaze and distinguish the ink on his fingers that curl around my sweltering, thrumming body. Right hand: L.I.V.E …and then the left hand: H.E.R.E.

Live.

Here.

My lips try to part; a strange, aching breath jettisons out of me. I’m so fucking grateful it’s too loud to hear whatever noise just left my body. I am losing it, especially as I picture his hand between my shoulder blades. As I picture him pushing me down so he can take me from behind—I need to face him.

I can’t let my imagination run away from me. Not while I’m literally with him. So I spin around while I sip my rum and Fizz. Still dancing—we’re still dancing together, only now his eyes are caressing.

Mine are roaming. I love how he’s staring at me. Like he understands exactly who I am, like he could even love me for all the parts other people would prefer to throw away. Riling, demanding, obsessive, dramatic Tom Carraway.

I’ve had what feels like a thousand crushes, and yet, I’ve never wanted to kiss someone so badly in my whole life than I do him.

His fingers find the hem of my muscle shirt, tugging me nearer. I hold the crook of his neck and shoulder. Drawing him closer—I’m drawing him too close.

His knee finds entrance between my legs, breaking them apart so we fit like a perfect puzzle piece. His warm palm is on my back. He pushes me tighter against his muscled build. His erection—hidden in the dark and beneath his clothes—grinds against my throbbing cock. A shockwave shoots up my entire tortured body at the friction.

The music. The movement. The look in his eyes.

I don’t know if I’m breathing. Our foreheads nearly touch. I stare at his pink lips. My hand crawls up to the back of his skull.

Phoenix holds my jaw, his fingers slipping toward my hair, and our eyes meet in a congregation of arousal and need. With his free hand, he pushes back his own damp hair, then his tongue wets his lips in the sexiest slow-mo moment of eternity.Because he’s staring at my mouth. Then he dips his head to kiss me—and I flinch back.

I.

Flinch.

Back.

It’s pulverizing.

22

TOM COBALT

Phoenix has gone deathly still among an oblivious, raucous, dancing crowd. I’m stationary with him, but at least he keeps a hand on my ribs.

He bows close just so I can hear him. “No?” he asks, and it’s this moment that I realize he is willing to risk our goals.

I swallow an ascending boulder in my throat. “The album.”

His nose flares like he’s restraining a surge of crashing emotion. “The album will be fine?—”

“You really want to gamble that?” I choke out.

“Some feelings are worth the gamble!” he shouts as he leans back from me, as his hands drop off me. “Don’t you think?!”

I know I hate the feeling of him leaving me. I hate the absence of his hands on my body. I’m beginning to hate the part of me that won’t allow myself to break free from this constraint.

My eyes burn. “I can’t fail!” I yell, my heart pounding viciously in my chest. “Some feelings I can’t gamble with!” I don’t ever want to feel failure that devastating.

Phoenix sucks in a sharp breath through his nose. He blinks too many times. He can’t even look at me. His hurt iseviscerating me inside-out. Then, he just closes off, walls off. There is nothing legible on his face.

“Phoenix!”

“It’s fine, man.” He turns toward me. “I’m just really pent-up! This”—he draws the air around me with two fingers—“hasn’t helped!”

“Same,” I mention.