Second Hand: A Tucker Springs Novel 2

could be true, but at that moment, I didn’t care. His touch felt so good. I was fully erect in my shorts. Not only that, I was already terrifyingly close to climax. I wasn’t sure how I’d gone from the verge of tears to the brink of orgasm so quickly, but I wanted nothing more than to see where he’d take me.
He stroked my stomach with his fingertips. “You have this amazing skin that’s so smooth and white. All I ever think about is touching it.” He leaned down and kissed my collarbone. “And tasting it.” With agonizing slowness, he moved his finger down my stomach. “You’re even softer than I imagined.”
I whimpered again, resisting the urge to arch my hips toward him. Somehow, the waiting was better. He circled my navel with his thumb. Trying to fight back the surge in my groin, I rode the waves until I had no choice but to give in to the overwhelming desire to push myself against him.
“You’re not second to anybody, Paul. Not in my mind. I think you’re beautiful, inside and out.”
He moved his hand lower, brushing at the waistband of my briefs, over my hipbone, tickling the sensitive spot where my thigh met my groin, and I shivered. It was the first kiss all over again, except this time it wasn’t pretend. It was real. Or at least it felt real, and I never, ever wanted it to stop. It was a fire burning inside me, each caress making me ache, each spot more sensitive than the last. It was the most amazing thing I’d ever experienced.
“I shouldn’t be doing this,” he said hoarsely. “Not when you’re this drunk.”
No. Not this again. My eyes snapped open to look up into his, but the expression on his face killed my anger. God, his eyes. Dark and sultry and yet with a hint of reservation in them.
I gave up. “Please,” I whispered. “Oh God, El. Please.”
He cupped my erection in his hand, and I gasped. El smiled and winked at me. “Who’s desperate now?”
Desperate? God yes, I was desperate for him to give me more. He touched the head of my cock through my shorts. I cried out, and as I did, he kissed me, gently touching his tongue to mine. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him down to me, chest to chest, his thigh pressed between my legs, kissing him as if I could somehow give up everything to him and become what he claimed to see.
He nuzzled against my lips, breaking our kiss. “I should make you wait until you’re sober—”
“No!”
“But you have no idea how hard it’s been to wait this long. I’ve thought about doing this a hundred times.” His warm hand moved on my cock, changing from a caress to a grip. “I feel like I’ve thought about nothing at all since we met except kissing you and tasting you and touching you and fucking you, or letting you fuck me—”
I moaned, knowing I couldn’t last more than another second. “El—”
He kissed me again, cutting off my voice, breaking my control.
One hard stroke.
Two.
That was all it took.
I came, gasping for air, clutching at him as if he were life itself. I forgot about the day, my failures, everything that had brought me to this place. There was only him, so strong and lean, the exotic taste of his mouth, the rough grip of his hand as he stroked me through my orgasm, his gentle kisses on my cheek and brow and jaw as I fought to catch my breath. The hardness of his erection in his jeans, pressed firmly against my thigh.
All at once I was aware of the fact that I’d simply lain there. That I’d come before he’d even undressed.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
He smiled and kissed my nose. “Don’t be.”
The afterglow of my orgasm made me shiver and sigh. I felt limp and heavy and sated and unbelievably sleepy. Even the idea of waking up stuck to my shorts wasn’t enough to make me do more than settle in comfortably against his weight. He put his arms around me and sighed against my neck. “I hope you don’t hate me for this in the morning.”

    I hated somebody in the morning, but it wasn’t Emanuel. It was whoever had invented the juice of the devil more commonly known as rum.
    I woke around five, my head pounding and my stomach in turmoil. El wasn’t there, which was fine because I threw up for an hour, eventually giving up and sleeping on the bathroom floor between bouts so I didn’t have to move so far to get the job done. When I woke up at nine, the bathroom rug pattern impressed on my face, I finally emerged from the bathroom and collapsed back into bed.
    At noon I woke to the beeping