She couldn’t stop herself from saying, “Yes,” and the next thing she knew, he was lifting her up onto the tabletop and moving to stand between her legs. It was pure instinct to throw all caution to the wind and wrap her arms and legs around him as his mouth crashed down on hers.
While their first kiss out on the beach had been gentle, this kiss was ferocious, as if both of them were desperately trying to get their fill before they were yanked apart again. She threaded her fingers into his hair to bring his mouth even closer, and when his tongue swept out against hers, she gasped at the pleasure of it.
“The sounds you make when I’m kissing you, touching you,” he said in a raw voice against her jaw as he nipped at her. She arched back to give him better access, and he nuzzled in against her neck, his stubble grazing her skin in the sexiest possible way. “There’s nothing sexier, Ash. Not one goddamned thing.”
It was warm on the bus, so she’d worn a tank top with her jeans today. Drew clearly appreciated the bare skin as he first ran his big, warm hands over her shoulders, and then bent his head to follow up that caress with a trail of kisses.
“Your skin is so pretty, so soft. I can’t wait to see all of it. All of you.”
She shivered at the thought of being completely naked in front of Drew. Not only was she a virgin, but the truth was that she hadn’t actually gone all that far with any of the guys she’d dated. Clothes had been unbuttoned and unzipped, but her panties and bra had always stayed on...and no one else had ever made her come. Not because she was a prude—she figured she had the same sexual urges as anyone else. But because none of those guys she’d dated had turned her on that much.
Not like this. Not the way just one look, one touch, one kiss from Drew did. Heck, she was nearly all the way there, and she still had all her clothes on.
“Do you want that, Ash? Do you want me to strip you bare? Do you want me to kiss every beautiful inch of your body?”
His eyes were intense as he asked her his sexy questions in a voice made raw with need. The same desire that had been eating her up day by day, hour by hour, second by second, ever since the moment they’d met.
She tried to remember why this was a bad idea, but her brain and body felt fuzzy and thick with wanting. Need that obliterated every rational thought. “Yes,” she told him, “I want that. I want all of that. Now.”
“Thank God,” he said as he put his hands on either side of her face and leaned in for a kiss that she felt in all the places he hadn’t yet stripped bare, hadn’t yet touched. “Because I can’t wait any longer, Ash. I need you bad. So damned bad I’m going crazy from being with you but not being able to touch or kiss you.”
His callused fingers were wonderfully rough on her jaw, and his chest was rock hard where her breasts pressed into him. Slowly, too slowly for the fever pitch he’d roused her to, he slid his hands down from her face and back over her shoulders and arms, until he reached her waist. Her breasts ached for his touch, under her cotton top and bra. But he was teasing her, teasing them both, by coming so close without actually touching her where she needed it most.
Finally, he gripped the hem of her tank and began to pull it up, his fingertips grazing the sensitive skin of her stomach. “Mine,” he whispered against her lips as he drew the fabric higher and higher until it was just below the bottom edge of her bra. “I can’t wait until you’re mine.”
“Yours.”
It was all she wanted, too. Everything she’d dreamed of for so long. His songs had helped get her through her awful teen years...and now Drew would be the one to take her all the way into adulthood. It felt right, so incredibly right, that he was going to be her first.
The knocking came loud and suddenly, jarring Drew so that he jumped away from her, his hands dropping, his face blurring.
Blurring?
Why was his face blurring?
The knocking came again, louder this time, and she closed her eyes and shook her head.
When she opened them, she wasn’t sitting on the table in the bus—she was lying in her bunk with the tank top she’d gone to sleep in bunched up in her hand. That was when she heard footsteps on the other side of the thick, dark curtain that enclosed her bunk, and then the door being opened as male voices drifted into the bus.
Oh God. It had just been a dream.
* * *
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Five minutes later, though Ashley was fully awake, she remained lying in her bunk as still as a statue. She was utterly mortified at the thought that Drew—or anyone else who had come onto the bus with him—might have guessed at the sexy dream she’d been having.