Mess To Be Made

53

            I wasn't sure what I was expecting. A 50-minute drive wasn't it though.

When I planned on following Tyler, I didn't think it would involve nearly an hour of navigating through traffic, trying to keep his Suburban in sight without being seen. Fortunately, most of the ride was on highways, making it easy to blend in. Unfortunately, driving 45 miles into the East Bay was not an area I was familiar with.

I thought about turning around too many times to count. I knew what I was doing was wrong. I knew it was out of line. Yet with every minute that passed, every mile I marked, I couldn't help but feel like I was getting closer.

To what, yet, I wasn't entirely sure. But at least I was moving forward.

The past few weeks with Tyler had been amazing. Honestly surreal.

I was happy. Truly, genuinely happy. My grades were the best they'd ever been. I'd laughed harder than I thought possible. I smiled more than I ever have—real smiles, as Tyler called them. Not that "fake ass smirk" I, apparently, always wore.

"You make me happy," I told him when he pointed this out one afternoon while we were studying in his room.

He raised his eyebrows at me, moving his textbook off his lap. "Was that a compliment I just heard?"

"Don't push it, Hen—"

He'd tackled me before I could finish, pinning my arms down on his bed and slanting his lips across mine. His knee nudged between my legs, spreading them further apart. The gasp that left me opened my lips for him to explore, deepening our kiss as he pressed himself further against me.

"Say more nice things," he murmured, his lips releasing my tongue as they moved along my jaw, down the column of my throat.

I suppressed a moan. "I didn't know you had a praise kink."

The hot breath of his laughter fanned over my skin and had me writhing deeper underneath him.

"Tyler."

His knee moved further up between my legs until it pressed against my throbbing center. "I said," he murmured huskily, his lips brushing against mine again. "Say more nice things."

I gasped as one of his hands skimmed the waistband of my shorts teasingly, finally landing on the top button.

"I'm waiting, Princess."

"Fuck you."

His laughter came out like a cough—uncontrollable and relieving. Seemingly loud given how hushed we'd been speaking this entire time. His lips found the spot right below my ear as his fingers fiddled with the buttons of my shorts. "You're so sweet to me."

"Don't get used to it," I panted as his lips traced down my body until they met his hands, grasping my now undone shorts as he slowly pulled them down my legs, over my ankles, and off my feet.

"I don't think I'll ever get used to this," he muttered, pressing his lips to the inside of my thigh, causing me to squirm again. "You say I make you happy?"

Suddenly he was hovering over me, his hazel irises alive with color as he locked eyes with me. My voice was trapped in my throat, right along with my breath. I could only give a slight nod.

"You'll never even begin to understand how happy you make me." He leaned in, pressing his lips to mine so gently, so intimately, that it didn't make sense why this had me bucking underneath him more than anything.