He lowered his mouth to hers as he walked toward the back of the bus and laid her down on his bed. Somehow, somewhere, she must have done something really right to get to be here tonight with the most incredible man on the planet.
He traced one of her eyebrows and then the other with the tip of one callused finger. "What are you thinking, Ash?"
She didn't want to hide anything from him, so she told him, "How lucky I am."
"I'm the lucky one." He crawled over her on the bed, then took her hands in his and lifted them so that he was holding them on either side of her head. "So damned lucky I can hardly believe it."
He was a master lyricist, knew exactly how to bend words to tug at people's heartstrings. But every word he spoke while she lay beneath him on his bed rang pure and sweet, straight to the center of her heart.
He lowered his head so that the tips of his hair tickled her skin, and he began to run more of those impossibly soft, heady kisses down from her lips and over her jaw. She arched her head back to give him better access to swipe his tongue into the hollow of her throat and lightly scrape his teeth over her collarbone.
Her breath came faster and faster, making her breasts swell up from the top of the pink sleeveless dress. She was dying for him to touch her there, but he didn't just touch. Didn't just kiss. Instead, he said, "I need to see you, Ash."
"I need it, too." So badly that she was trembling with anticipation.
He moved his hands from hers and slipped them under the thin straps holding up her dress and slowly slid the fabric down, kissing first one shoulder and then the next as he bared them to his hungry gaze. His hands were warm and strong as they slid behind her back to unstick her zipper and open it all the way. And then, finally, he was drawing the fabric down, and she was holding her breath waiting, waiting, waiting for--
Oh God, the way it felt when he put his lips, his tongue, on her. She'd never felt anything like the sensations currently rocking through her, never knew any part of her body could be so wonderfully sensitive. The dress had slid up her thighs when he'd laid her down on the bed and now she wrapped her legs around him to bring him closer.
He cupped her breasts in his big hands, and she marveled at how pale her naked flesh looked against his tanned skin. How right in a way she'd never been able to see her body before. Somehow, when Drew was touching her, the curves she'd never known what to do with finally made sense.
With every swipe of his tongue over her nipples, his groans vibrated through her. He'd told her that her voice was the prettiest melody he'd ever heard, and now the sounds of his pleasure, and his excitement at being with her, were easily the best song she'd ever heard. A song she wanted to play over and over and over again until she'd memorized every tone, every dimension, every subtly changing pitch.
"You're so pretty." His dark eyes were wild with need as he lifted his head from her chest, and she couldn't stop herself from falling even deeper as she reached out to run her fingers through his hair. "All I want is to make you feel good." He pressed another hot kiss to the pulse jumping at the side of her neck.
"You do. You are. Better than I knew it was even possible to feel. Especially when you..."
"Especially when I...?" he prompted her.
They'd already gone further than she had with any other guy, and it was difficult not to be shy. It would have been easier not to say the words aloud, but she refused to let herself hold anything back tonight, no matter how scary it was to put herself out there like this. "When you're kissing my breasts. Please, do it again."
"I could do it for hours and hours," he told her, but instead of going straight back to her breasts, his mouth captured hers.
Every time they kissed he poured even more passion into it, into her, and she wondered how she'd lived twenty-two years without ever feeling this way. By the time he finally pulled back from her lips to kiss his way back down her naked skin, she should have been ready to feel the wet heat of his mouth over her breasts again. But when he took one taut peak against his tongue and rolled the other between his thumb and forefinger--oh God, the things he could do with his hands and mouth--she cried out so loudly that anyone standing outside the bus surely would have been able to hear it.
"All of you." He moved his hands to the fabric pooled around her waist. "I need to see all of you."
The desperate need on his face stole her words, so she lifted her hips to show him that it was what she wanted, too. He wasn't moving slowly anymore, the way he had with her shoulder straps. Instead, the silky pink fabric came down in one hard yank.
He stilled as she lay before him in nothing but a pair of simple pink polka-dot panties. "Forever." He wrapped his hands around her hips as he said, "That's how long I'm going to remember seeing you like this."
The smile he gave her just then made her feel as good as his kisses and his caresses did. What was between them wasn't just physical--it was so much more than that. Because for every moment of sensual pleasure he gave her with his mouth and hands, his sweet words and smiles gave her just as many moments of joy.
And then he was bending forward to press more incredible kisses over her stomach and hip bones at the same time as he slid the final piece of fabric down, pressing his lips over each new tiny patch of skin that he revealed. She'd never been so open for anyone else, never been so naked, so exposed.
And she loved it. Loved knowing that Drew was her first.
Her only.
"Ash." Her name was an awestruck breath against the part of her that was so wet, so hot, so needy. For him. All for him.
"Please," she begged, the same word she'd been saying over and over since he'd brought her to his bed. "Touch me. Kiss me."
"God, yes."
Just those six little letters against her aroused flesh were nearly enough to send her spinning out over the edge. So when she felt the first sweet brush of his tongue over her sex, she couldn't contain her moan of pleasure or keep her hips from arching up even closer to his mouth. His hands slid beneath her hips to hold her steady as he continued to give her the naughtiest, most incredible open-mouthed kiss in the world.
His name spilled feverishly from her lips, and her hands tightened on his forearms as she exploded into a million beautiful pieces. And then, just when she didn't think she could take any more pleasure, he slowly slipped a finger into her, lighting up nerve endings that she'd yet to discover.
She'd been stunned breathless when he'd thrown her into that glorious climax. But now as he continued to play over her sex with his fingers at the same time as he ran damp kisses over the insides of her thighs, her belly, her breasts, she couldn't catch her breath. Couldn't stop begging him for more. Couldn't keep from lifting her hips to try to take more of him. Couldn't get enough of his mouth on her breasts, or the way he was pushing her way past her comfort zones.
Ashley had always been inclined to play it safe, but with Drew, she'd never been able to hide in the background or behind her computer. His music made her dance. His smiles made hers so much bigger. And his beautiful, passionate, heartfelt kisses made all the walls she thought she'd needed around her heart fall away.
So when he came face-to-face with her again and looked down into her eyes with such dark, deep intensity, everything went perfectly still. So still that she could not only feel his heart beating against hers, she swore she could hear it, too. Ba-boom. Ba-boom. Ba-boom. And then hers joining in, in perfect sync. Ba-boom. Ba-boom. Ba-boom.
Two hearts playing in unison until they sounded like one.
"You're so far beyond everything, everyone I've ever known," he whispered into the silence, each word dancing seamlessly over the rhythm section of their hearts. "The most beautiful woman I've ever seen. The most beautiful song I've ever heard."
The stillness shattered then, as the bliss he'd built up with his mouth, and then his hands, began radiating out from somewhere deep inside, growing bigger and bigger. So big that her bones, her skin--her very soul--couldn't possibly contain all the joy.
/> Couldn't do anything but let him play over her body until she truly felt as if she actually was the most beautiful song he'd ever heard.
Chapter Twenty-One
Making love with Ashley was a revelation. She wasn't trying to impress him with how loudly she could moan or the tricks she could do. She wasn't here with him tonight because he was a rock star.
Every touch, every kiss, every breathless move she made beneath him as she came was so honest. So raw.
So damned good.
The hunger he felt for her was unlike anything he'd ever known as he put his hands on her hips, rolled onto his back, and pulled her up to straddle him.
She blinked down at him in adorable surprise at the new position. "Hi."
He reached up to stroke the backs of his knuckles over her cheek. "I swear," he said as he ran his thumb over her full lower lip, "I could just look at you all night."
"I'd rather you touched me all night."
He loved the way she was so easily telling him what she wanted now. "Where? Here?" He stroked her lip again, slower this time, groaning when she licked the pad of his thumb.
"Yes."
He moved his hand to caress her just beneath her earlobe. "Here?"
"Mmm..." She closed her eyes and leaned into his touch. "Yes."
He couldn't resist moving both hands to the undersides of her breasts. "Here?"
She gave him her answer by rocking her hips over the bulge in his jeans. Her nipples beaded up against his palms, and he pinched them lightly in time with her movements against him. Slowly, he ran his hands down from her breasts, over her waist, to her hips.
"Let me help take you all the way again, Ash. I can't get enough of watching you come."
When her eyes fluttered open again, they were foggy with renewed arousal, and he couldn't stop himself from sliding his hand over her hip bone and her gorgeously wet sex. A low moan fell from her lips, and she rocked once, twice, three times against his fingers, taking more of him each time. But suddenly, she stopped.
"Not without you." She was clearly determined as she reached for the zipper of his jeans and began pulling it down. "I don't want to come again without you inside of me."
The hot words falling from her lips were already enough to send him over--but combined with the light pressure of her fingertips as she worked his clothes down over his erection? Holy hell, he had no idea how he didn't lose it right then.
"Drew." She was staring at his shaft as though it held the answers to all the questions she'd never thought to ask. "You're beautiful." She reached out to touch, but then hesitated.
"Please," he begged. "Touch me."
The moment she wrapped her hand around him for the first time, and sighed with pleasure, was one he'd never forget.
"You don't have to be gentle, Ash."
She looked up at him, her hair falling over one eye, and gave him a small smile. "Show me."
He'd known being with Ashley would be good. But the way she made him feel with nothing but a smile and a simple request was so far beyond good that his mind and his body had already erased everyone who had come before her.
She was the only one who mattered.
The one he'd been waiting for.
His hand was shaking as he wrapped it around hers. Together, they stroked up, then down. Up, then down again.
"Your skin is so soft," she marveled, "but underneath..." Her eyes were wide with wonder as they met his. "You're so hard."
"A week, Ash." She tried to move her hand on him again, but he wouldn't let her. Not when he was this close to combusting. "I've been like this for a whole week. Before that, even."
Her voice was husky as she asked him, "Did you want me to do this?"
"Yes."
"What else do you want me to do?"
"Love me."
The answer was out before he could stop it. But he didn't want to take it back. Didn't want to do anything but thread his free hand into her hair to pull her closer for a kiss. Their mouths had barely touched when the vee between her legs naturally settled over his erection. Her heat seared him, her wetness beckoned him, her sweet sounds of bliss seduced him.
One slight shift of his hips and he could be inside her. And the truth was that he'd never been so tempted to break all the rules--every last one--and take her bare, with nothing between them at all. When she rolled her hips against his in just the right way to take him inside, he nearly gave in. But she meant too much to him to ever risk her in that way.
"Ash." He put his hands on her hips, both to still her movements and to lift her slightly. "Protection." He could barely think straight, which made words hard to come by. "I need to put on protection." He nodded at the small bedside table. "In there. Max, he stocks all his buses. But you're the only one for me, Ash."
She pulled out the new, unopened box and took one out. "I've never put one on before. Will you show me how?"
"Next time," he promised her. "Right now, I'm too close." With gritted teeth, he focused on the task at hand, trying not to notice just how avidly, how hungrily, she watched him roll down the latex over his hard flesh--and definitely trying not to think about how it would feel if she were the one doing it.
Finally, she was back where she belonged, straddling his hips. "Let me feel you, Ash, just moving over me."
She laid her hands flat on his chest, and her tongue flicked out to lick her lips as she focused on doing just what he'd asked her to do. She was at once sweet and oh so sexy as she rocked faster and faster over him, pushing her hips harder against his with every stroke. And then, with just the slightest tilt to her pelvis, she began to take him inside.
Her breath caught as she stilled over him.
"Ash?" Every sign told him she was a virgin. And the last thing he wanted to do was hurt her, or move too fast. "If you're not ready--"
"I am. So ready."
She'd never sounded so passionate about anything, and she backed up her words with another slow, sweet inch of slick heat over him.
He was nearly delirious by now with the need to consume her, body and soul, but he wanted her to know, "Only take what feels good. Only take as much of me as you can."
"All of you." She leaned forward to kiss him. "I want to take all of you."
Didn't she know? "You have all of me already."
"Not yet," she whispered as she took him into herself--slow, trembling, breathless, perfect. "But I will soon."
"Oh God, Ash, the heat of you over me. Surrounding me..." He groaned, trying to hold still, trying to keep from thrusting up, pushing as deep as he was desperate to go. "I've never felt anything so good. Never known anyone so beautiful."
He could feel how small she was, but she didn't stop, didn't pause to catch the breath that he could hear hitching in her throat. Instead, she continued to rock her hips over him, small, intense motions that took him inside of her little by little. He wanted more. So much more. But he couldn't stand to hurt her. Not even the slightest bit if he could help it.
"Ash--"
"I love it," she said now as she bent her arms to lower her face to his for a soothing kiss. "I love the feel of you inside me. You don't have to be careful with me. I won't break, I promise."
He knew how strong she was, but he didn't want her to look back on her first time and remember anything but pleasure. "I don't want to hurt you."
"There's only one way you could ever hurt me. By not being honest with me. By not being yourself. What do you want, Drew?"
"You."
Her lips curved up into the most beautiful smile he'd ever seen. "Then take me. All of me. Without holding any of yourself back."
Between the feel of her wet, hot body over his and the words falling from her beautiful mouth, he was so far out on the edge that he almost couldn't pull himself back. But he knew he needed to try.
"I've wanted you too much, for too long. If I don't at least try to keep control--"
"No." With that one word, she sank all the way down on him. Past any barrier
s that had been there before. Past the point of no return. "I don't want either of us to be in control tonight."
As if her words were the key to the final lock on his self-restraint, in the next split second, Drew had flipped them over so that she was on her back and he was looking down on such pure, sweet beauty that it was nearly impossible to take all of her in. But he already knew that he could look at Ashley for the rest of his life and never stop being stunned by what he saw. Such honesty. Such intelligence.
Such heart.
He rocked into her, and as he drew back, they both gasped as her inner walls clenched at him.
"Again." She grasped his shoulders so tightly he knew there'd be marks. Marks he would be proud to wear. "Do that again."
As he rolled his hips into hers again, sweat dripped from his body to hers. Even as she gasped with the pleasure of taking him into her, she licked out against his shoulder.
"So good." She closed her eyes and shifted her hips to increase the friction between their bodies. "I wouldn't have waited to sleep with you if I'd known it would be this good."
She'd made him smile from the very beginning, just the way he was smiling now. "If you had known, would you have seduced me that first night?"
"Yes." She tilted her hips again to take him even deeper, the most sensual creature ever put on this planet. "Yes."
"I knew," he told her as he threaded his hands through hers and put them on either side of her head. "I knew we would be this good."
"And you still made us wait when we could have been doing this since Los Angeles?"
He laughed into the crook of her neck as he nipped at her sweat-slickened skin, and she moaned at the way the small movement shifted his body inside hers. "A little anticipation never killed anyone."
"It almost did." Her words were borderline accusing, which made him laugh again...setting off another sequence of vibrations from his body to hers and then back again. "You have a lot to make up to me. All those hours without your body over mine. Inside of mine."
If her words hadn't already been enough to send him from still barely rational to pure insanity, the way she sank her teeth into the cords of his neck just then did it. And in that instant, he forgot that she had been a virgin just minutes ago. Forgot everything except how much he wanted her, how much he needed her--and how much she wanted and needed him, too. All that mattered was giving her the pleasure she craved. The pleasure she'd been waiting for.