Now and Then Read Online Free Page B

and sucked—but only for a second. Just until she clutched
harder
and shifted her hips against him. “They only make me want to hear them
louder.
”
    Forget louder. Whatever that unintelligible sound was she’d just made—gasped—whimpered—hell yes, he’d take it. He’d take it all night long.
    Only then she shook her head and pulled back to meet his eyes, and damn it. When she looked at him like that, pleading and half undone, he knew down to his soul there wasn’t a thing he could deny her. Including letting her go, if that’s what she asked for.
    Her slim shoulders rose and fell with each ragged breath. She licked her kiss-swollen lips and blinked at the few snowflakes clinging to her dark lashes. “I—I can’t—”
    His eyes closed, his head dropping forward until their brows touched.
Fucking nice guy.
He was going to have to let her go. No matter how good that connection had felt. How unique. How
right.
    He’d tried, but she couldn’t—
    “Ford.” Her fingers slid up his neck, over the sides of his face, and into his hair. “I can’t stop.
I don’t want to stop.
”
    —
    She’d gone crazy. Lost all sense. Or at the very least, lost the will to fight what had begun to feel a whole lot like the inevitable. Because it was that kind of pull between them. Insistent and demanding. And once she’d given in to that all-too-persuasive whisper wending through her thoughts—
One night. Why not just one night?—
it was like relief she’d never known buoying every part of her as Ford took her hand in his and, that criminally hot smile stretching wide, began pulling her down the street after him. Fat flakes of snow were drifting around them, catching in Ford’s hair and settling on the shoulders of his down coat. He was walking backward, as if taking his eyes off her would break the spell—maybe it would.
    All she knew was she couldn’t look away. Couldn’t do anything but follow and laugh as Ford periodically glanced behind him to check their progress, sigh as he drew her closer to steal a kiss just the other side of “quick,” and moan when that kiss wasn’t enough and she found herself pressed against the bricks of an apartment building on North Honore just before the tracks. Until finally they made it to the gray stone building across from the park.
    And now she was floating. Or rather stumbling.
They
were stumbling down the hall toward Ford’s bedroom, desperate hands pulling at clothes still in the way, feet catching together until finally, Ford wrapped his arms around her and straightened, pulling her up and against him. Completely off the floor.
    She giggled breathlessly as he carried her the rest of the way.
    “You’re strong,” she gasped, running her hands over his shoulders and back, finding muscles bigger than she’d remembered beneath his shirt.
    “Yeah?” he answered with another one of those grins she kept getting caught up in. “You like it?”
    She nodded, because what wasn’t to like? He’d had a beautiful body at nineteen, but this, now—she couldn’t stop touching him, running her fingers between the valleys and cuts delineating each muscle. Licking at the strong column of his neck. Pulling more at his clothes because she didn’t want her mind to have even a second to think about what she was doing and how bad a mistake it might be.
    All she wanted was to feel. Just give in.
    Something she never let herself do, but being with Ford was different. She trusted him. No matter how many years had passed.
    Ford cut to the left, and they were inside his bedroom. His hold on her loosened, allowing her to slide down his body, even as their kiss continued. Her toes touched the ground and he bowed her back, his mouth burning a trail over her jaw and neck.
    “Jesus, Brynn, I can’t believe you’re really here,” he growled against her tender skin.
    She shouldn’t be, but before that thought had even a second to take root, to taint something so incredible, she shifted her