Man's Best Friend ☾ When Did You Get Hot?
pairing – garrett graham x kitty!reader summary – the plan is simple: take garrett home, satisfy the curiosity and move on. the plan fails spectacularly. warnings – 18+, smut, protected sex, fingering, oral stimulation, multiple orgasms, praise, scratching and biting, playful banter notes from me – the first fic in this series!! so excited for you guys to read this one and let me know your thoughts! this fits in as the first time kitty & garrett sleep together! <3 word count – 7k
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The red wine has made the pavement look shinier than it is. That’s the only explanation she can come up with for the way everything seems slightly richer around the edges when they spill out of the restaurant into the December cold: taxi lights dragged gold over wet asphalt, steam breathing from a grate near the kerb, the dark windows above Mercer Street reflecting little broken pieces of the city back at itself.
Her friends are laughing about something that stopped being funny inside, all three of them crowded beneath the awning while the hostess tries to arrange cars nobody actually wants yet.
She pulls her coat tighter around herself, black fur swallowing the narrow straps and short hem of her dress until she looks significantly more prepared for the weather than she feels.
The cold catches instantly at her bare knees. Her heels click against the pavement when she steps aside for a couple pushing past, and she’s halfway through telling one of her friends that they are absolutely not going uptown yet when Sophie grabs her forearm hard enough to interrupt the sentence.
“Wait. Oh my God. Hey!”
She follows Sophie’s line of sight mostly because the girl is already waving both arms like she’s flagging down a rescue helicopter.
A group of guys is coming toward them through the foot traffic, broad shoulders and dark coats breaking apart the smaller bodies moving the opposite way. Dean Di Laurentis is the easiest to recognise. His coat is open despite the cold, his hair still perfectly arranged, one hand lifted in answer to Sophie’s wave.
Beside him are Tucker and Logan, both familiar enough from Briar parties and the occasional photograph Dean has posted from some ski trip or boat or stupidly expensive dinner. Beau is there too, laughing at something Logan says.
And then there’s Garrett Graham. Her eyes pass over him once, then come back. Then, humiliatingly, leave and return for a third time as if the first two inspections could not possibly have collected enough evidence.
Oh. The plot has thickened.
Garrett had been hot at the hockey house. Obviously. She hadn’t mistaken him for an accountant while he leaned against the wall in his own team sweatshirt and tried to call her Madison.
She had seen the curls, the shoulders, the grin. She had noticed enough to let him spend nearly an hour asking around for her name rather than simply walking away and forgetting he existed.
But that had been hockey-house hot. Campus hot. A little drunk beneath ugly lighting with a red cup in his hand and an entire building arranged to remind everyone he was important. This is something else.
The dark knit sweater sits snug across his chest and arms, fitted enough to show exactly how much body is hidden beneath it. A thin chain catches at the base of his throat whenever he moves. His jeans are loose, riding low over heavy tan Timberlands, and he walks with an easy, grounded weight that makes the women coming toward him shift aside before they consciously decide to.
He walks, she thinks faintly, like whatever is happening beneath those jeans requires consideration.
Which is a disgusting thought to have on a public street. She has it twice.
Garrett sees her just as Dean reaches them. There’s a flicker of recognition across his face, quick but unmistakable, before his mouth curves.
Dean sweeps Sophie into a hug and kisses the side of her head. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I live here, idiot.”
“No, you don’t. You live at school nine months of the year and terrorise Manhattan recreationally.”
Sophie rolls her eyes. “That’s still living here.”
He laughs and turns, attention landing on her. “There she is.”
Dean hugs her with the easy familiarity of someone she has known through Christmas parties, charity dinners and summers where both their families kept ending up in the same places without anyone admitting they had coordinated it. He smells expensive and cold from outside.
“Your mother told mine you were home,” he says as he releases her.
She scrunches up her nose. “That sentence made me want to walk into traffic.”
“Yeah, well, our mothers are obsessed with each other,” Dean grins, then gestures carelessly at the men behind him. “You know everyone, right?”
She looks past him. Garrett’s still watching her.
“Yeah,” she says, because her voice has apparently decided to become perfectly normal at the least convenient moment. “More or less.”
Logan leans in for a quick hug, Tucker offers her a warm, slightly apologetic smile as though he already knows whatever Dean is planning will become everybody’s problem, and Beau greets Sophie by name. Garrett waits until last.
Up close, the sweater is worse. His shoulders are worse. The little glimpse of chain at his collar is so much worse she briefly considers whether she has been unknowingly ovulating for the entire length of Mercer Street.
“Hockey boy,” she says.
His smile pulls wider. “Manwhore girl.”
Her friends go silent with the speed and precision of animals spotting movement in tall grass. She arches one brow. “That isn’t what I called myself.”
“No, but it’s the only name you gave me.”
“I gave you my actual name eventually.”
“After I conducted a campus-wide investigation.”
She rolls her eyes. “It was forty minutes.”
“Forty-seven.”
She stares at him. “You timed it?”
Garrett’s eyes move over her face, dark and amused, then dip for one brief second to the fur folded at her throat. “Maybe.”
“Oh, that’s embarrassing for you.”
“It worked.”
Before she can answer, Dean looks between them. His head turns once toward Garrett, once back toward her, his expression brightening with a level of interest that should legally require a permit. “You two know each other?”
“Barely,” she says.
“At a deep spiritual level,” Garrett says at the same time.
She gives him a flat look. “You forgot my name while speaking directly to me.”
“And then I learned from adversity.”
Tucker makes a quiet sound that might be a laugh. Logan looks delighted already. Dean, naturally, looks ready to cancel every other plan he has ever made. “Okay. Great. We’re all going out together.”
“We’re already going out,” Sophie points out.
“Perfect. So are we.”
“To where?” her other friend asks.
Dean gestures vaguely down the street, as if New York has been waiting for him to choose from it. “Next place.”
“That’s not a place,” Tucker says.
“It will be when we get there.”
There’s some discussion about a club downtown that Sophie knows, another place Logan heard about from a guy on the team, and whether the table Dean has access to is real or the result of him once again treating his surname as a universal keycard.
She hears almost none of it. Garrett has shoved his hands into his pants pockets, which pulls the knit tighter over his arms. He’s standing half-turned toward Dean, listening, his weight settled back on one heel.
Every now and then his eyes return to her, not lingering long enough to be called staring, but doing it often enough that she feels each glance like the brush of fingers along the exposed skin above her dress.
It’s been a little while since she has had sex.
Not an alarming length of time, nobody needs to establish a welfare committee. She’s been busy, and the last man she entertained spoke about venture capital for twenty-two uninterrupted minutes.
Still. It’s been long enough. Getting back on the horse is healthy. Sensible, even. Her eyes drift down Garrett’s body once more, taking in the heavy boots and the loose denim and the sheer size of him.
That’s a very large horse.
“Are you coming?” Garrett asks.
Her gaze snaps to his face. His mouth is twitching.
She narrows her eyes. “Where?”
“The club.”
The bastard knows she was looking. She steps closer as the rest of the group starts moving, letting the fur coat fall open just slightly at her throat. Garrett’s eyes drop before he catches them. Better.
“Try not to lose track of my name on the way,” she says.
His smile turns slow. “Think I’ve got it now.”
The club is beneath a hotel with no sign outside and a doorman who looks at Dean for approximately two seconds before unclipping the rope.
“See?” Dean says, glancing back at Tucker as they descend the narrow stairwell. “Real table.”
The music reaches them before the room does, bass climbing through the stairs and into the bones of her feet. Downstairs, everything is low red light and mirrored walls, bodies packed beneath a ceiling deliberately made to feel too close.
Someone takes their coats. Someone else appears with champagne Dean insists he didn’t order, which means he absolutely ordered it.
She turns away from the coat check, smoothing one hand down the side of her dress. Garrett stops speaking.
It’s subtle enough that nobody else catches it. Logan is arguing with Dean about the table. Beau has already disappeared toward the bar. Her friends are being drawn into a conversation with girls they know from Spence. But she sees Garrett’s mouth close.
The coat had hidden most of the dress. Without it, the black silk skims close over her body and ends high against her thighs, while lace climbs over her chest in thin, delicate shapes that reveal skin. The back dips low. She had chosen it because it made her legs look excellent and because her mother had once called it a little severe, which had been all the encouragement required.
Garrett looks from her heels to the lace at her chest, then drags his eyes back to her face with visible effort.
She pretends to check her bag. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
She tilts her head, smiling. “You look confused.”
“I’m adjusting.”
“To what?”
His gaze flicks down once more, quick and unrepentant now. “New information.”
Heat slides pleasantly beneath her skin. “Try to keep up.”
He huffs a breath. “I’m trying.”
Dean pushes a glass of champagne into Garrett’s hand, breaking the line between them. Garrett takes it without looking away from her.
The first half-hour passes around them rather than through them. Their group expands and contracts as people recognise Dean, then Logan, then Garrett. Girls approach the table with that particular bright confidence athletes attract, already knowing the answer they want before asking a question.
Garrett is polite. He smiles. He leans down to hear people over the music. He doesn’t touch anyone. She notices this despite having absolutely no reason to.
She also notices when he notices a man at the bar offering to buy her a drink. Garrett’s jaw shifts once before he lifts his own glass to his mouth.
Interesting.
She refuses the drink, because she already has one and because the man has a scarf tied around his neck indoors. Then she turns back toward the table and catches Garrett watching.
“What?” she asks when she reaches him.
“Nothing.”
“That looked like something.”
He takes a slow sip of whiskey. “Thought you might’ve found your next victim.”
She glances back at the scarf. “Please. I have standards.”
Garrett looks down at her. “Do you?”
Her mouth opens in theatrical offence. “You’re standing dangerously close for someone who’s saying things like that.”
The music shifts, something heavier moving through the speakers. Around them, the dance floor packs tighter, hands lifting through red light, the mirrored wall flashing pieces of skin and jewellery and open mouths.
Garrett leans closer, his voice warm near her ear. “You gonna threaten me all night?”
A shiver moves over the back of her neck, too quick and fine to hide. She turns her face toward his. They’re close enough now that she can see the faint shadow along his jaw, the small movement of his throat above that stupid chain.
“Depends,” she says. “Are you going to do anything worth threatening?”
His eyes drop to her mouth. Something settles over his face, darkening the amusement without removing it.
“You tell me,” he says.
She could stand there and keep sparring with him. She could let the entire night collect itself in little looks and unfinished sentences, then return home alone and think about his shoulders while pretending she had made a point.
Instead, she puts her glass on the table and holds out her hand. “Come dance.”
Garrett looks down at her fingers, then back up. “You ask everyone like that?”
“No.” She curls her fingers once. “I usually don’t have to ask.”
His hand slides into hers, large and warm enough to swallow it entirely. “Lucky me.”
She leads him into the crowd before her body can do anything humiliating about the contact. The dance floor is hotter near the centre, all perfume and sweat and the sweet chemical fog spilling from a machine above them.
Garrett stays close behind her as they move through, one hand briefly touching the small of her back whenever somebody presses too near. It should feel presumptuous. It feels useful. Worse, it feels natural, his palm broad and steady against the bare dip above her dress.
She finds a pocket of space and turns to face him. For the first minute, they’re almost respectable.
Garrett moves better than she expects. Easy in his body in the way athletes tend to be, shoulders loose, weight shifting naturally beneath the music. His eyes stay on her, mouth curving whenever she catches him watching.
She steps closer. He looks down at the diminishing space between them. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
“You always this friendly in New York?”
She smirks. “I’m being welcoming.”
“To the city?”
“To you.”
Garrett’s eyebrows lift. “That so?”
She turns before answering, putting her back to his chest. His hands catch her hips on instinct. The reaction moves through both of them at once. She feels it in the way his fingers tighten against the silk, then deliberately loosen as if he’s giving her space to change her mind. She doesn’t. She settles back, letting the music move through her knees and hips, the hard length of him aligned behind her.
Jesus Christ. He’s even bigger from this angle.
His chest brushes her shoulders when he bends, mouth near her ear. “This your idea of welcoming?”
She grins, though he cannot see it properly. “You complaining?”
“Trying to understand local customs.”
“Keep your hands where they are and you’ll learn.”
A laugh leaves him, low and warm against her neck. His thumbs move once over her hips, almost absent, and her stomach tightens. She starts slowly because she’s not completely cruel. Then the chorus drops, bodies surging around them, and she rolls her hips back into him.
Garrett’s breath stops. It’s only half a second, a small interruption against her hair, but she feels it. Feels the way his hands clamp more securely around her, the heavy press behind her turning unmistakable beneath those baggy jeans.
There you are.
She does it again.
His mouth touches her ear when he says, “You’re doing that on purpose.”
“Doing what?”
He laughs without much humour. “Right.”
She turns her head just enough that her cheek brushes his jaw. “You seemed very confident at your party.”
“I am confident.”
“Are you?”
His fingers spread over her waist, thumbs nearly meeting beneath the lace at her sides. “You want proof?”
The words settle low in her body. Heat pulses between her thighs, thick and immediate, and suddenly the red wine explanation seems stupid. The pavement hadn’t made him look better. The city hadn’t done anything. Garrett is simply built like a personal failing and currently hard against her ass.
She looks back at him over her shoulder. His eyes are darker now, the teasing dragged thin beneath something focused and hungry. He’s still letting her control it. Still waiting, even with his hands on her and his body saying something much less patient behind her.
That restraint does more to her than it should. She turns in his arms. Garrett makes room, but his hands remain at her hips. Their bodies stay close enough that the lace over her chest brushes his sweater with each breath.
She slides her hands up his chest, feeling the dense muscle beneath the knit, and nearly loses the next sentence to the fact that he’s even harder than he looks. “Come home with me.”
Garrett goes very still. The music keeps pounding around them, light moving over his face in red and black. His hands tighten once at her waist. “How much did you drink?”
The question surprises her enough that she blinks. “Excuse me?”
“You were drinking before, and champagne here.”
“I had two glasses of wine over dinner and approximately four sips of champagne because Dean ordered one that tastes like shit.” She tilts her head. “Are you rejecting me?”
Garrett’s mouth twitches, but he doesn’t let the joke move him off the point. “I’m asking.”
She studies him for a moment. The confidence is still there, but it’s no longer careless. He wants her. She can feel exactly how much. He’s simply not going to make wanting her the only relevant fact in the room.
Something unexpectedly warm shifts beneath her ribs. “I’m not drunk,” she says. “I’m making a completely sober bad decision.”
“That supposed to reassure me?”
“No. It’s supposed to get you into a car.”
His grin returns slowly. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah.” He bends until his mouth is near her ear again. “Let’s make your bad decision.”
They don’t tell everyone immediately because Dean would become unbearable. She retrieves her coat while Garrett finds his. By the time they reach the stairs, Tucker has noticed anyway. His eyes move from Garrett’s face to her hand wrapped around his sleeve, then lift with quiet understanding.
“You leaving?” Tucker asks.
Garrett nods once. “Yeah.”
Tucker glances at her, not judgemental, only checking something she cannot quite name. She gives him a small, easy smile.
“Have fun,” he says.
Logan hears that and turns. “Who’s having fun?”
“No one,” Garrett says.
Dean looks up from the table. His eyes sharpen instantly. “Wait.”
She pulls Garrett toward the stairs. “Goodnight, Dean.”
“Wait. Are you guys–”
The music swallows the rest as the door shuts behind them. Outside, the cold hits her hot skin so violently she laughs. Garrett looks down at her while the attendant brings their coats, his cheeks faintly flushed from the club, curls pushed messier than before.
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing.”
“You keep looking at me weird.”
She accepts her coat, then lets Garrett hold it while she slides her arms into the sleeves. His hands settle briefly at her shoulders, adjusting the fur around her before stepping back.
“I’m processing new information,” she says.
He recognises his own line and laughs. “About?”
Her eyes travel pointedly down the front of him.
Garrett’s face changes. “Jesus Christ.”
“What?”
“You’re not subtle.”
“I’m wearing lace to my waist in December. Did I seem committed to subtlety?”
The car ride uptown is fifteen minutes of concentrated poor judgement. She takes the middle seat despite there being no reason to, her thigh pressed along Garrett’s while Manhattan moves silver and black outside the windows. His hand rests near his knee at first.
Then she places her own over it. His fingers turn beneath hers, threading through. It’s a strangely intimate thing to do on the way to have sex with someone she barely knows.
That thought arrives, waits for her to feel alarmed, then leaves when Garrett’s thumb strokes once along the side of her finger.
Her building rises above the park in pale limestone and glass, every window lit warm against the dark. The doorman greets her by name, opens Garrett’s door and very carefully doesn’t look at their joined hands.
Garrett tips his head back as they cross the lobby, taking in the stone, the enormous arrangement of white flowers, the chandelier descending through three floors of open space. “This is where you live?”
“One of them. This where I live when I’m home.”
The private elevator doors open. She steps inside and presses the button for the penthouse. Garrett looks at the single option above the lobby, then at her.
She folds her arms. “Don’t.”
His laugh bounces softly off the mirrored walls. “One of your homes is the most– like, Dean answer you could’ve given.”
“Do not compare me to Dean while I’m trying to sleep with you.”
“That’s fair.” Garrett steps closer as the elevator begins to rise. “Really kills the mood.”
She looks up at him. “Is the mood dead?”
His gaze drops to her mouth. “Not even a little.”
He kisses her before the doors open. There’s no careful beginning to it. His hand comes around the back of her neck, warm beneath her hair, and his mouth finds hers with the confidence he’s been holding behind his teeth all night.
She catches the front of his sweater in both fists, dragging him closer until her back touches the mirrored wall and his body settles against hers. He kisses like he talks: a little smug, a little demanding, deeply pleased whenever she pushes back.
Her lips part beneath his. Garrett makes a low sound into her mouth when she bites his bottom lip, and the noise sends a quick, molten rush through her. One of his hands slips from her neck to her waist, pulling her flush against him.
The elevator chimes. They separate by approximately two inches, and the doors open directly into the penthouse.
Garrett looks past her at the dark sweep of the living room: floor-to-ceiling windows, the park below them, pale furniture arranged around a low marble table, art her mother bought because somebody in Paris said it mattered.
“Holy shit,” he says.
She grabs his hand and pulls him inside. “Don’t make it weird.”
“I’m not making it weird. Your elevator opened into your house.”
She nods seriously. “Our neighbours are very dangerous.”
His head whips toward her. “Your neighbours can access your living room?”
“No, but it sounded mysterious.”
He laughs as the doors close behind him. The apartment is silent. Her parents are in Palm Beach until after New Year’s, the staff gone for the night, every lamp controlled by a panel she cannot operate properly despite growing up here. She hits three buttons before the lights near the windows soften on.
Garrett shrugs out of his coat. She takes it and drops both of theirs over a chair that’s almost certainly not meant to hold coats. His eyes track the room once more, curious but not impressed in an overeager way. He doesn’t start asking what things cost. He does not look at her differently.
Instead he glances at the enormous abstract painting above the fireplace and says, “That supposed to be anything?”
“My mother says it’s about grief.”
“It looks like ketchup.”
She stares at him for one second, then laughs so suddenly she has to press her lips together.
“What?” Garrett asks.
“Nothing. I’ve been saying that for four years.”
“So I’m right.”
She shoots him a look. “You’re definitely not cultured enough to be right.”
He steps closer. “You gonna throw me out?”
“Maybe.”
“Before or after?”
Her breath catches slightly.
Garrett’s gaze drops to the lace over her chest. He reaches up, not quite touching, one finger tracing the air near the delicate edge at her collarbone. “This dress has been making my life difficult for two hours.”
“Only two?”
“Started when the coat came off.”
She slides both hands beneath the hem of his sweater, palms meeting warm skin at his waist. His stomach contracts beneath her touch.
“And the sweater?” she asks. “That was an accident?”
Garrett glances down at himself. “It’s a sweater.”
“It’s working very hard.”
His mouth curves. “You’ve been staring all night.”
“So have you.”
“Yeah.” He takes her face in both hands, thumbs resting near her jaw. “I have.”
Then he kisses her again. They nearly knock over the lamp beside the sofa. Garrett catches it one-handed without taking his mouth completely from hers, setting it upright with a muffled laugh when she pushes him back into the console behind him.
“That expensive?” he asks against her lips.
“Probably.”
“Great.”
“Stop backing into things,” she murmurs, her lips brushing his.
His hands slide up her dress, then stop. “Bedroom?”
She looks toward the hallway. “That’s very efficient.”
“I’m trying to protect your furniture.”
She smiles. “How responsible.” She takes his hand again and leads him down the hall.
Her room has barely changed since she left for college, except that her mother replaces things whenever she decides they no longer represent the adult daughter she imagines having.
The bed is enormous and neatly made, the windows looking south over the city, her old photographs arranged beside newer perfume bottles and jewellery trays. Garrett pauses in the doorway.
She turns. “What now?”
His eyes move over the room, then settle on a framed photograph of her at sixteen in riding clothes, one hand resting on the neck of a chestnut horse.
A grin spreads across his face. “You ride?”
She follows his gaze. “Don’t.”
“You actually ride horses.”
“I used to.”
She grabs his sweater and pulls it over his head. The laugh disappears. So does most of her ability to form language.
Holy fuck.
His body is broad in a way clothing had only suggested, shoulders packed with muscle, chest solid and warm beneath her hands. His stomach is leaner, cut deeply above the waistband of his jeans, a faint trail of dark hair disappearing beneath the loose denim. She stares.
Garrett drops the sweater near his feet. “You okay?”
“No.”
His eyebrows lift.
She reaches for the button of his jeans. “This has become a much more serious situation.”
He catches her wrist, smiling. “Thought you had standards.”
“I have eyes.”
“That’s romantic.”
“I’m not trying to romance you.”
“No?” His hand slides around her waist, fingers finding the zip at the back of her dress. “What are you trying to do?”
She leans closer until her mouth brushes his. “Take a guess.”
Garrett pulls the zip down. The dress loosens over her body, silk slipping from her shoulders beneath his hands. He watches it fall, and this time the expression on his face is not playful at all. His eyes move slowly over the black lace beneath, over her waist and hips and bare thighs, the look so open and concentrated that her skin warms everywhere it touches.
“Fuck,” he says quietly.
The single word does more than an entire prepared speech could have. She steps out of the dress and pushes him backward toward the bed. Garrett lets her. Mostly. His hands remain on her hips as he sits, pulling her between his knees.
Up close, his lashes look offensively dark. His mouth is already swollen from kissing her. She puts one hand beneath his chin and tilts his face up.
“You’re very pretty,” she says.
Garrett’s hands tighten. “Pretty?”
“Mhm.”
His brows furrow. “I’m six-two.”
“Congratulations.”
“I play hockey.”
“I’m sorry.”
He laughs and turns his head, kissing the inside of her wrist. The gesture is so casually soft that she goes still for half a second.
His eyes lift to hers. “Still good?”
The warmth beneath her ribs deepens by a degree. “I’m good.”
His mouth presses to her stomach just above the lace, then lower, one slow kiss near her hip. Her fingers slide into his curls before she’s decided to touch him there.
Garrett looks up. “You want me to slow down?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“I invited you into my parents’ home and took off your clothes.”
“Technically, you only took off my sweater.”
She reaches for his belt. “Do you want to keep arguing?”
“Little bit.”
She opens the buckle. “I can send you back to Dean.”
Garrett immediately catches her around the waist and flips her onto the bed.
A startled laugh breaks out of her as her back hits the duvet, his body coming over hers without crushing, one knee pressing between her thighs. “That was rude.”
“You threatened me.”
Her brow arches. “With Dean.”
“Exactly.”
His mouth finds her neck. She turns her head, giving him more room before she can pretend otherwise. The first drag of his lips beneath her jaw sends heat rushing down her spine. Garrett kisses lower, slower than she expects, one hand spreading over her waist while the other braces beside her head.
For someone with manwhore energy, he’s irritatingly attentive. He watches every small reaction. The way her stomach tightens when his fingers skim beneath the lace. The hitch in her breathing when his mouth closes over her breast through the fabric. The sharp little pull of her hand in his hair when he finally moves the lace aside and takes her nipple into his mouth.
“Garrett,” she breathes.
His eyes lift. The smugness there is unbearable.
“Don’t look so pleased with yourself.”
He drags his tongue slowly, making her back arch before she can stop it. “Hard not to.”
She tugs his hair. Garrett groans against her skin, and the sound goes directly between her legs.
“There,” she says, breathless but triumphant. “Better.”
“You like hurting people?”
“Only athletes.”
“Specific.”
“You’re very annoying,” she gasps.
His hand slides down her stomach. “You’re very wet.”
Her next answer disappears. Garrett pauses at the edge of her underwear, eyes on her face. She nods before he asks, and his fingers move beneath the lace.
The first touch is slow. Almost cautious. Then he feels exactly how ready she is and his forehead drops briefly against her ribs. “Jesus.”
She smiles at the ceiling. “Problem?”
“No.” His fingers slide through her again, gathering the slick heat there before pressing with more purpose. “Just adjusting to new information.”
Her laugh catches when one finger eases inside her.
“Still funny?” he asks.
“Still hate you.”
“Sure.”
He takes his time, which she both appreciates and resents. One finger, then two, curling until the pressure catches somewhere that sends her hand flying to his shoulder. Garrett watches her face as though this is the only subject he’s ever studied seriously, his thumb moving in slow circles that make her thighs tense around his wrist.
It’s been a while. Her body is making that information humiliatingly clear.
Garrett bends and kisses her, swallowing the sound that escapes when he finds the angle again. She grips the back of his neck, dragging him closer, kissing him harder because every careful little stroke of his hand is pulling her apart too quickly.
“You always this impatient?” he murmurs against her mouth.
“You always talk this much?”
“Usually more.”
She bites his lip. His fingers press deeper in retaliation.
Her hips lift. “Fuck.”
“There she is.”
“Don’t start.”
“At the party you looked at me like I was wasting your time.”
“You were,” she mumbles.
His thumb moves faster. “Am I wasting it now?”
The answer breaks into a moan before it becomes a word. Garrett’s mouth curves against her throat, but whatever smug thing he might have said stays there. His other hand slips into hers against the mattress, fingers locking, and he keeps touching her until the tension low in her stomach twists too tight to hold.
It hits quickly enough to embarrass her. Her thighs close around his hand, breath breaking as the room goes white and soft at the edges. Garrett kisses beneath her ear, his fingers slowing but not stopping, working her through the sharpest part until she pushes weakly at his shoulder.
“Okay,” she gasps.
He lifts his head. “Okay good or okay stop?”
“Stop.”
His hand stills immediately. The obedience of it lands strangely. Comfortably. She lies beneath him breathing hard, skin hot against the cool sheets, and Garrett waits without crowding her, pressing a brief kiss to her jaw.
“You good?”
She looks up at him. His hair is wrecked from her hands, mouth damp, shoulders filling the space above her. “Very irritatingly good,” she says.
His grin flashes. “Yeah?”
“Take your jeans off before I reconsider.”
Garrett stands beside the bed, and she props herself onto her elbows to watch. He opens the button. Pushes the jeans and boxers down together. Her eyes widen.
Oh.
Oh, he had not been exaggerating through the denim.
Garrett catches her expression and looks down at himself, then back at her. “What?”
“You’re kidding.”
A laugh escapes him. “That bad?”
She considers the size of him with the grave concentration of someone reviewing building plans. “I have things to do tomorrow.”
He drops his head, laughing into one hand. “Holy shit.”
“This isn’t funny!”
“It’s a little funny.”
She points at him. “You should disclose that before leaving the house.”
“Put it on my medical alert bracelet?”
“Something tasteful.”
Garrett climbs back over her, still smiling. “We can stop.”
She wraps one leg around his waist. “Don’t be stupid.”
His expression settles. “Condom?”
She points toward the bedside drawer. “There.”
He reaches for it, finds the box and glances at her. “You keep these in your childhood bedroom?”
“I’m wealthy, Garrett, not irresponsible.”
“Very inspiring.”
Her eyes narrow at him. “You have one in your wallet, don’t you?”
He pauses.
She gasps. “Of course you do.”
“I went out with Logan and Dean. It felt responsible.”
“Manwhore,” she mutters.
“You started it.”
He tears the packet open, then looks at her again when he is ready, the humour easing from his face. “Tell me if you want me to slow down.”
“I will.”
“Or stop.”
“I know.”
Garrett settles between her thighs, one hand beneath her knee. The first press of him makes both of them go quiet.
She’s warm and loose from his fingers, but he’s still a lot, the stretch sharpening enough that her nails catch at his shoulder. Garrett stops immediately. “Too much?”
“No.” Her eyes close briefly. “Just wait.”
His hand smooths over her thigh. “Okay.”
He stays there, perfectly still despite the tension running through his body, mouth pressing slow kisses to her cheek, her jaw, the corner of her lips. Her body eases around him by degrees.
She opens her eyes. “You can move.”
“You sure?”
“Garrett.”
“Right.”
He pushes in slowly. The breath leaves her in a long, shaking pull. Garrett’s forehead drops to hers, his own breathing rougher now, control showing in the hard line of his shoulders and the careful grip of his hand at her thigh.
“Fuck,” he whispers when he is finally all the way inside her.
She cannot make fun of him because her entire nervous system is busy reorganising itself around the fact that he feels even bigger than he looked, which seems unfair.
“You okay?” he asks.
Her eyes narrow faintly. “I’m good. You’re just… whoa.”
His laugh comes out strangled. “Whoa?”
“Move before I insult you properly.”
The first stroke is slow, drawing nearly all the way out before he pushes back in. Her head tips into the pillow. His mouth catches hers, kissing her through the second, then the third, each movement loosening into something deeper and steadier as her body adjusts.
He feels good. Good in a way that catches her by surprise. The weight of him over her. The broad palm holding her thigh. The warmth of his mouth and the small, involuntary sounds he makes whenever she drags her nails over his shoulders.
She had expected a performance from him. Something polished and self-satisfied, Garrett Graham proving why half the campus knows his name.
Instead he gets messy. His curls fall into his eyes. His breathing breaks whenever she tightens around him. His jaw goes slack when she pulls him closer with both legs and he drives deeper, the practiced control slipping just enough to show her what she’s doing to him. That’s better than confidence.
She scratches lightly down his back. Garrett’s hips snap forward, harder than before. The bed shifts beneath them.
“Oh,” she says, delighted despite the breathlessness. “You like that.”
His eyes open. “Careful.”
She does it again.
“Fuck.” He drops his face into her neck, laughing once without humour. “You’re a problem.”
“You followed me home.”
“You dragged me.”
Her laugh turns into a sharp moan when he changes the angle, lifting her thigh higher over his arm. Garrett’s mouth curves against her throat.
“Not funny now?”
“You’re still annoying.”
“But?”
She digs her nails into him. “Don’t fish for compliments.”
He kisses her hard, rhythm roughening as the humour burns back into heat. The headboard begins tapping softly against the wall. His chain swings between them, cool metal brushing her chest before warming against her skin.
Her hands move everywhere they can reach: his back, his hair, the hard line of his arm beside her head. Garrett watches her whenever he can, eyes dark and intent, catching each shift in her body until he recognises the pressure beginning to build again.
His hand slips between them. The first circle of his thumb makes her hips jerk beneath him.
“Yeah?” he murmurs.
“You sound smug.”
“I sound focused.”
“You sound–” The next word disappears when he does it again, pressure firm and exact while he keeps moving inside her.
Garrett’s mouth finds her ear. “What do I sound like?”
She turns her head and bites his jaw.
His groan shudders through both of them. “Jesus Christ.”
“There,” she breathes. “Now you sound better.”
He laughs, ruined and low, and thrusts harder. The room narrows around them. The dark windows. The city spread in lights beyond the glass. The expensive quiet of her parents’ apartment being steadily dismantled by the soft knock of the bed and Garrett breathing her name against her throat.
Her orgasm climbs slower this time, building beneath every stroke until her entire body feels pulled tight around it. Garrett senses the change. His arm slides beneath her back, holding her closer, his mouth moving along her jaw in kisses that become less coordinated with every breath.
“Come on,” he murmurs. “I’ve got you.”
The words should be too intimate from him. They’re not. Her legs tighten around his waist. The pressure breaks bright and hot, dragging a cry out of her before she can swallow it. Garrett kisses her through it, hand steady between them, body moving until she starts trembling beneath him.
“Fuck,” he breathes. “That’s it.”
She clings to him through the aftershocks, nails biting into his shoulder. Garrett’s rhythm loses its careful shape. His face presses into her neck, breath coming apart against her skin.
“Where?” he asks, voice rough.
“Inside.” She catches his jaw, making him look at her. “Condom, remember?”
Something flashes through his eyes. “Yeah.”
A few more uneven thrusts and his whole body locks over hers, mouth falling open around a low, broken sound. She watches the last of his control go, watches his brows pull together and his forehead drop to hers as he comes.
For several seconds, neither of them moves. Garrett’s weight settles carefully onto one elbow. His chest rises hard against hers, chain lying warm between them. She can feel the rapid beat of his heart where their bodies meet.
He lifts his head eventually. His hair is a disaster. There’s a red mark beginning near his shoulder from her nails. His mouth looks thoroughly kissed and slightly stunned. She smiles before she can stop herself.
Garrett narrows his eyes. “What?”
She traces the scratch with one fingertip. “You look a little less confident.”
He glances down at her, still beneath him, legs tangled with his. “Do I?”
“A little.”
“Interesting.” He rolls his hips once, barely. Her breath catches. Garrett’s grin returns.
“You’re deeply irritating.”
He laughs and kisses the heel of her palm before carefully pulling away.
She watches him deal with the condom, expecting the strange shift that sometimes follows. The sudden awareness of a near-stranger in the room. Clothes on the floor. The body beside hers no longer obscured by wanting.
It doesn’t arrive. Garrett comes back with water from the bathroom, naked and completely comfortable, passing her the glass before climbing into bed again.
“You found the glasses?” she asks.
“There were twelve beside the sink.”
“My mother thinks hydration should feel formal.”
He settles against the headboard. “Your bathroom’s bigger than my bedroom.”
“Don’t tell Dean. He’ll become competitive.”
“Dean’s bathroom’s probably bigger than my house.”
She drinks, then hands him the glass. Garrett takes a long swallow from the same side without thinking about it. That shouldn’t feel intimate either.
She shifts beneath the sheet, studying the scratches along his shoulder. “Did I hurt you?”
Garrett looks down. “No.”
“You hesitated.”
“It stings.”
Her brows lift. “So I hurt you.”
“You say that like you’re proud.”
She tilts her head. “I’m… collecting information.”
“About?”
She drags one nail lightly over his chest. Garrett’s stomach tightens. “New information,” she says.
His gaze drops to her hand. “You planning a follow-up study?”
She looks at him. This was supposed to get him out of her system. That had been the point somewhere between the restaurant and the club, before the sweater came off and his hand stopped the second she asked and he kissed her like her reactions mattered more than his reputation.
Instead, Garrett’s sitting naked in her childhood bed, drinking from her water glass, hair destroyed by her fingers, looking far too pleased by the possibility that this might happen again.
The plot hasn’t merely thickened. The plot has developed shoulders, put on a chain and followed her home.
She takes the glass from his hand and sets it on the bedside table. “Maybe.”
Garrett catches her waist when she moves toward him, guiding her into his lap beneath the sheets.
“Good,” he says.
She settles over his thighs, trying not to react to the first unmistakable sign that they might not be finished for the night. “Don’t get cocky.”
His hands move slowly up her back. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
He’s lying, obviously. She kisses him anyway.
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