Searching for Neverland (22 page)

I reached my hands out to Josh and attempted to pull him to his feet, but he resisted, laughing as he said, “I’m nowhere near as toasted as you, Ms. Ellison, so I think I’ll abstain.”

“But it’s Fall Out Boy,” I whined. “They were my favorite band like six years ago.”

Josh’s mouth dropped open in mocking surprise. “Well in that case, hell no. I didn’t dance to Fall Out Boy six years ago, and I don’t plan on starting now.”

I pouted. “You suck.”

“I’ll just watch you dance,” he said, as he mixed himself some sort of drink – I wasn’t skilled enough to know what
it
was – and settled back against the couch. “Please proceed.”

I sank down to my knees in front of the coffee table in defeat. “It’s not as fun by myself,” I pouted, as I mixed one of the few drinks I was capable of making and settled back onto my butt.

“Well if you’re not going to dance, you can make me a Long Island Iced Tea,” Josh suggested.

I raised my eyebrow at him. “Doesn’t that have a lot of stuff in it?”

“Yeah, but you need to learn how to make it. Go get the bartending book I bought for you.”

I sighed and rose to my feet. “I’ll be right back,” I said, downing my drink in a few gulps before I ran upstairs.

“Um, are we having a clothing optional evening?” Josh asked when I came back downstairs wearing a fitted t-shirt and panties.

I grinned. “It’s No Pants Tuesday. Didn’t you get the memo?”

Josh laughed. “No, I didn’t. Does that mean I have to take my pants off too?”

I shook my head. “No, it’s just for girls who are drunk and hot.”

Josh raised an eyebrow at me. “That’s generous of you to say about yourself.”

I rolled my eyes. “I mean heat hot, dumbass,” I said, as I settled on the other side of the coffee table with my book.

Josh rattled the ice in his empty glass and looked at me expectantly. “Miss, I was waiting for a Long Island Iced Tea,” he said in mock impatience.

“It’s coming right up, sir,” I said, studying the ingredients listed on the page.

“Tick tock,” Josh said, and I shot him a dirty look. “Hey, customers get impatient.”

I ignored him and took my time measuring out the ingredients for his drink. Ten minutes later, I triumphantly set it in front of him, and when he didn’t move, I looked up to see he was pretending to sleep. So I threw a maraschino cherry at his head.

“Hey,” he said, as soon as the cherry smacked his forehead and dropped into his lap. “What the hell was that for?” He wiped his forehead and then plucked the cherry off of his jeans and popped it into his mouth.

“Do not make fun of me,” I said, narrowing my eyes at him.

He gave me a taunting look, so I got up and moved in front of the couch, but
I stopped
short when I watched Josh’s distracted gaze drift from my bare thighs, over my hips and my stomach, to my chest and finally to my face.

I reached out and slapped him across the face, and his head snapped up in shock. “What the fuck was that for?” he asked, rubbing the side of his face.

“You were totally checking me out,” I admonished.

“You’re half-naked, and I’m half-drunk. What do you expect me to do?” he a
sked
in typical clueless guy fashion.

“What do you want to do?” I asked, as I took a step forward and sunk down on his lap so I was straddling his legs.

“What are you doing, Swift?” he asked slowly, cautiously.

“Nothing,”
I said, as I sat back on his thighs
and watched him swallow hard. “Take off your shirt.”

“Excuse me?”

“Take off your shirt, Josh,” I commanded in a low, even tone. And with his eyes never leaving mine, Josh lifted his t-shirt over his head and dropped it onto the floor by the couch.

My gaze dropped to his defined chest and down to his rippling abs, and I felt a clenching in my stomach, as my breath started to become shallower.
The man was cut.
He worked out religiously, and it paid off.
Damn
.

When I looked up at him, I noticed he was watching me carefully. “You can touch them,” he said, as he took my hand and placed it on his stomach.

I ran my hand over his muscles, feeling a twinge between my legs at how hard they were. I moved my hand to his hip and sat up on my knees, as I pressed myself closer to him. And damn if I didn’t want to descend my mouth upon the little barbell in his left nipple and suck on it for a little while. Just for fun, of course, because I’d never been with a guy who had
a
bod
y piercing
.

He leaned back against the couch and looked up at me, so I took the opportunity to drink him in. His light brown hair fell over his forehead, covering half of it and falling over his right eye.
He had a small smile playing on his lips, and I found myself wanting to trace the line of his jaw. He closed his eyes but that smile didn’t leave his lips, and I reached out and ran my index finger over them.

“J?” I asked, reaching out to push his hair back from his face. He kept his eyes closed.

“Hmm?”

“You’re very pretty.”

His smile broke into a grin, but he didn’t open his clear blue eyes. “Oh yeah?”

“Mmm-hmm. You’re very pretty. I never noticed it before.” 

I ran my fingers through his hair, playing with it.

“Yeah? That’s not really the kind of thing you say to a guy. Can you at least tell me I’m hot and sexy?”

“Yeah, I can tell you that,” I said, as I trailed my finger down his jawline.

I let my finger slide gently over his nipple, and he inhaled a sharp, slow breath which made me wonder how it felt to him. Then I let my hand slide down to trace the words tattooed over his left rib. They read ‘Seize the Day’, and I could guess why he’d chosen that phrase, although I’d never asked him about it, even though I’d seen that tattoo hundreds of times.

He looked down at my hand. “I got that after Jer died. It pissed me off that his life was cut short, and I told myself I was going to live ever day to its fullest. And each time I look in the mirror, I have a reminder of that.”

“That’s why you quit your job, isn’t it.”

He nodded. “That’s exactly why.”

“Do you feel like you’re living every day to its fullest now, Josh?” I asked, as I let my fingers dance with a feather light touch over his stomach, and his muscles tightened involuntarily. I smiled as I gazed down at what I was doing to him, and he wasn’t pushing me away.

“Sometimes I do, and sometimes there are things that I don’t capitalize on in the moment.”

“Why not?”

“Fear.”

“Fear of what?” I asked, looking back up at him through my lashes.

“Failure, rejection, pain.”

“None of those sound like fun,” I said, as I laid my palm flat over his taught stomach.

He lifted his head and looked at me with such intensity that I didn’t know what to make of it. “I wouldn’t reason to believe that they are.”

In an ordinary, non-alcoholic state, the look would have made me back away. It would have been a warning sign. But not that night. That night I found myself paralyzed as I stared back at him, trying desperately to both read his mind and sort out the rush of feelings that were flooding me as I looked into his eyes and listened to his words. My heart was suddenly racing, and I knew what I wanted more than anything. 

“But sometimes, if you take a risk, the reward is
greater than you ever imagined,
”
I reasoned.

“This is true.”

“So, I was thinking,” I said, watching him closely, as I ran both
hands up to his chest and laid
them flat over his pecs.

“Yeah?” he asked, looking down at my hands before coming back to my eyes.

“
I was thinking t
hat I might want to seize the day – you know, take your advice, since I don’t think you are.”

He cocked his head to the side, and I smiled before I moved my right hand and lowered my lips to his pierced nipple, licking rhythmically over the small barbell before sucking it into my mouth. Josh went rigid under me and hissed out through his teeth. I let his nipple go, smiled against his skin, and then swirled my tongue around it
once more. Then I sat up slowly
and saw him gazing at me with hooded eyes.

“I think I want to kiss you again,” I told him before he could say anything.

“Didn’t you just do that?” he asked huskily.

“I mean here,” I said, as I pressed my index finger to his lips.

After a few beats, he opened his mouth and captured my finger, sucking on it and causing shots of pleasure and longing
to
flow throughout my body and pool between my thighs. I pressed down against him to gain some friction and was met with a hardness that only succeeded in exiting me further.

Then Josh released my finger and shifted his hips slightly, so I
was
angled toward him and his hands moved to my waist. My blood rushed through my body, warming me and urging me to finish what I’d started.

“You see,” I said, slightly breathless as I tried to maintain my composure, “the last time we kissed, you were drunk, and I was sober. I’m not sure I gave you a fair shot at rating the quality of that kiss because of your intoxication. Now that were both drunk, I can rate it better.”

This seemed perfectly logical in my intoxicated mind, but at that point, I was pretty sure I was equally drunk o
n
alcohol as I was on Josh.

“So this is merely a scientific experiment?” he asked, a small smile playing on his lips, as h
is hand
pressed my hips
, pushing me
down against his erection.

I leaned in closer, dragging my hand along his stomach slowly and settling it on the place where his jeans met his tanned skin. “That’s one way of looking at it.” 

I moved in slowly, keeping my gaze locked with his the whole time, knowing that I was going to give into my instincts and the uncontrollable draw I had felt toward him since we went out
the
week before. It was that same feeling that was overcoming me with such an intensity that I knew if I didn’t do something about it, I might combust. And quite frankly, if I was going to combust, I wanted him to light the fire.

“Do your worst,” he whispered. His arm snaked around my back, and pulled me closer to him, so we were mere inches from each other’s lips. 

“Carpe Diem,” I told him. 

Then very slowly, I closed the gap between us. My eyes moved to his lips and then back to his eyes once. I licked my lower lip and bit it slightly. Josh was watching me intently, his arm holding me tight. When I got within an inch of his lips, I closed the distance in seconds, crushing my lips to his, diving in without fear. 

And he kissed me back with such fire and intensity, it nearly made me gasp. His lips moved methodically against mine, melding us together, and he pulled my body flush against his, the heat between us swirling around our bodies. When his tongue probed my lips, seeking entry, I parted my lips and gave in as he deepened the kiss and drove me deeper into need and want.

And I would never doubt his kissing abilities again.

Then, before I knew what was happening, he leaned forward and in one swift movement, I was on my back, and he was on top of me. I wrapped my arms around him, holding him close to me, my nails raking his bare back, as he pushed his body down onto mine. 

He finally broke the kiss and moved his lips to my neck, kissing and sucking and making me moan. I inadvertently wrapped my legs around his waist, feeling the hardness between his legs.
The room was spinning as he kissed a trail down to my chest, but I didn’t know if it was from the alcohol or the guy.  Everything was a little fuzzy, and Josh was making it worse as his lips met my
collarbone, and his hands slid up my stomach to cup my
breasts. Knowing I wanted more than his hands on me, I leaned up and tugged my t-shirt off over my head.

“What are we doing?” he asked, as his lips closed around my nipple and he started sucking, and I knew it was a half-hearted attempt to question what was happening between us. I let my head fall back and squeezed him tighter around the waist with my legs. Fire spread throughout my entire body from the spot where his mouth was anchored. “Is this what you want?”

His teeth bit down on my flesh, and I couldn’t help but cry out.

“Yes. No. I don’t know,” I said. My alcohol and sex soaked brain was very confused. “Don’t stop.”

“I don’t want to stop,” he confirmed.

When he moved his mouth to my other nipple and trailed his hand up my side, I let out a long gasp, followed by a low moan.

“Oh, my God,” I murmured, as my hands ran roughly through his hair, anchoring him to me. “Josh, what are you doing?”

“The same thing you did to me. Payback’s a bitch.”

“Payback’s fantastic,” I moaned, as I reached between us for the bulge in his jeans, cupping it and rubbing my hand back and forth methodically.