“We could turn on a light, I suppose, but I’d rather not.” He reached for her then. “You know, the blind see with their hands.” He found hers in the dark and placed them on his chest. “I think they have the right idea.”
She sucked in a breath. Her fingertips brushed along his chest, and she felt the delicate lines of his collarbone. “You want me to explore you?”
“I’d like nothing more,” he said, voice husky.
Maylee shivered at that, and she stepped a bit closer to him, only to feel his erect cock brush against her thighs when she moved closer. Oh. He definitely was naked. Heat scorched her cheeks and she wanted to check him out with her hands to see if he was as long as he seemed to be, but she wasn’t ready to do that just yet.
So she let her fingers draw tiny circles on the skin of his shoulders, feeling the muscles there. Then, she slid them lower and felt his biceps, giving a sigh of appreciation when he flexed under her hands. “I thought you were more of a scholar.”
“I am.” Oh, his voice sounded so close to her ear, and so elegant. She could listen to him talk for hours and hours about nothing in particular.
“You have quite big muscles for a scholar.”
He chuckled. “Sometimes the only chance I get to catch up on my reading is in the gym. So I visit it fairly often. I like to be in shape in case one of trips is someplace off the beaten path. In college, Jonathan and I recreated Hiram Bingham’s original journey up the Peruvian mountains to Macchu Picchu and it nearly kicked my arse. After that, I decided I needed to be fit.”
“Mmm.” He definitely kept in shape. She squeezed his arms again, and then moved her hands back to his chest. Her fingers slid lower, and she brushed them over his nipples, pleased to hear his sharp intake of breath. She wanted to put her mouth on them, to see how he reacted if she took one in her mouth and gave it a little tug with her teeth, but she couldn’t bring herself to drag her hands from him. Instead, she raked her nails lightly down his chest, a little breathless moan of pleasure escaping her when she felt him shiver in response.
“I love your hands, Maylee,” he told her in that elegant, husky voice that was knotting up her insides. “I was thinking of ridiculous lines when I came back here, to try and figure out how to get you to put them on me. I thought about burning myself with a curling iron like Alex, except I didn’t have one. And then I thought about simply telling you that I had a burning ache in my pants, but then I thought that sounded like an infection.”
She giggled again. “You really aren’t very good with people.”
“I’m really not.” He sounded rueful.
“All that just so I’d put my hands on you?”
“I would do anything and everything so you’d put your hands on me,” he admitted.
Oh. Such sweetly romantic words. Maylee moved in and put her hands around the back of his neck, drawing his mouth toward her own. She wanted to kiss him so badly, to make sure that what they’d shared the other day wasn’t simply a figment of her imagination.
His mouth descended on hers hungrily. She was taken aback by the intensity of his kiss, but only momentarily. Being devoured by this man, she decided, was a wonderful thing. And as his tongue slicked into her mouth and danced with her own, she gave herself over completely to the long, passionate kiss that seemed to arouse every last inch of her body.
Eventually, his mouth pulled away from hers, leaving her breathless and clawing at his shoulders. “Oh, lordamercy. You don’t kiss like a scholar.”
“That’s rather good to hear,” he said between nibbles on her earlobe. “Have you kissed a lot of scholars?”
Her fingers found their way to his hair, which was soft and tousled because she’d convinced him not to slick it down. She liked touching it. “Just you.”
“Good.” That possessive note in his voice was rather pleasing.
Maylee moved closer to him, unable to avoid the press of his cock into her stomach. Her fingers were aching to curl around his shaft, but she didn’t want him to get the wrong idea about her. She was all for kissing and making out and cuddling in bed, but she wasn’t sure she was ready for sex with him. She wanted commitment, and she knew he wasn’t sure he was going to head in that direction, ever. That was fine with her, but they needed to be clear on things. “Griff,” she murmured, and clenched as his tongue slicked against her sensitive earlobe. “Oh, lordamercy.”
“What is it?” His fingers brushed aside her curls, and she felt the hot press of his chest against her pajama top. The tips of her breasts were scraping against him in the most wickedly delicious tease ever.
“We should talk about . . . uh . . . this.” She was having a hard time concentrating as he nibbled on her earlobes. Who knew they were so sensitive? Every time his teeth grazed over them, it felt like they were touching other, more sensitive parts of her anatomy.
“What about this, exactly?”
“I’m just not sure how far I’m ready to go . . .” Oh, his mouth was making things so difficult to concentrate.
“I told you, Maylee,” he murmured against her throat, and she tilted her head back so he could continue to run his mouth along the sensitive skin. “We’ll go as far as you want to go. I will follow your lead.”
“That’s good,” she told him. “That’s really good.” His mouth found her earlobe again and her knees went weak. “Oh, God, that’s really good.”
“Want to get on the bed?” His husky whisper made her sex clench in response, and she felt her pulse pounding in response.
“Yes,” she breathed. “Let’s.”
Griffin gently tugged her with him, and the backs of her knees hit the mattress. She fell backward, and a moment later, Griffin was on top of her.
A low moan escaped her when his thighs pushed between her own, and his cock rubbed against the cradle of her sex.
“You feel so good under me,” he murmured, still kissing her neck. “Did you want to be on top since you’re in charge?”
“No.” Her voice was so breathless. “I like you there.”
“Do you like me here?” He thrust against the crotch of her pajamas, his naked cock rubbing against her.
She gave a whimper of pleasure in response. She liked that far too much. Her nails dug into his back again, and she pulled his mouth to hers for another wild kiss.
“How about,” he murmured between frantic, licking kisses, “tonight you keep everything on and we’ll take it from there? Yes?”
Oh, lordamercy, his mouth was making her regret her initial reluctance. It was doing sinful things to her. “You don’t mind taking it slow?”
“Not if you don’t mind me running my hands all over you.”
She shook her head. She rather liked that, actually.
“Can I put my hands on your breasts?” His tongue slicked into her mouth again, distracting her from the question for a long moment. He stated it again.
“Yes,” she breathed, practically arching against him at the thought. Oh, she wanted his mouth there, but his hands would be the next best thing.
One large, warm palm cupped her breast and Maylee sucked in a gasp.
“Mmm. Perfect size,” Griffin told her. “Plump and delicious. What color are your nipples? Pale pink?”
“Y-yes.” His fingers were rubbing the tip of her breast through the fabric, and her hips jerked involuntarily in response. God, it had been so long since she’d had sex. Had it always felt this good to fool around?
“They feel tiny,” he told her, and his thumb traced the tip. “Small, pale nipples on plump breasts. I can’t wait to see that for myself.”
“Soon,” she breathed.
“Not tonight,” he agreed. His hips wedged further between her thighs, pressing deeper, and before she knew what she was doing, Maylee flexed her knees and then she wrapped her legs around his hips, pulling him in until he rested perfectly atop her pussy.
Her hands moved to his ass, and she felt the taut muscles there. “Mmm. Not a scholar’s ass, either.”
>
Griffin chuckled at that. “I’m glad you find me so appealing.”
“Oh, I do,” she said dreamily. “I do indeed.”
He thrust between her legs, and she gasped. The fabric protected her from penetration, but she still felt the heat of him wedge against her in hopeful glory, felt him push against her aching sex, skimming over her throbbing clit.
“Like that?” There was a tension in his voice that hadn’t been there before, as if he were holding back, judging. If she said no, she knew that he’d stop.
But she didn’t want him to stop. “More,” she begged, her fingers pressuring.
He thrust again, and she moaned. Oh, God, humping with clothes on was almost as good as humping with clothes off. It was way more of a tease, because neither one of them could entirely get what they wanted, but the delicious anticipation was an entirely different level of pleasure. When he thrust again, she heard him groan, too. The friction of the clothing was driving them both insane with lust.
Griffin rocked against her, each thrust rough and wild, and she was safely protected by the fabric of her pajamas. But he wasn’t hitting at quite the right spots; there was too much fabric over her clit, and no matter how much she raised her hips and pressed up against him, it wasn’t quite hitting the jackpot for her. Soft whimpers of frustration rose from her throat.
“What do you need?” he gritted between thrusts. “Tell me, Maylee. I want to make it good for you.”
“Need . . . more. I don’t know.” She panted, raising her hips to press against the bar of his cock.
“More?” He shifted his weight atop of her and then she felt his hand press between her legs. A moment later, his forefinger rubbed her clit through the fabric of her now-soaked pajamas. “Like that, darling?”
Maylee cried out, shocked at how that quick touch could make her entire lower half clench so quickly. She was on the verge of an orgasm instantly, and her cries encouraged Griffin all the more. He rubbed harder, thrusting his cock against her protected wet warmth.
Her legs flailed and tightened around his hips, and then she made the most unladylike sound ever. “Holy Christ on a cracker!”
And she came with a damp rush and a clenching of muscles that made her entire body tremble with the strength of her orgasm. And she kept cussing as Griffin continued to rub her clit through the fabric, his voice soothing even as his cock pushed and drove at the junction of her pants.
When the stars faded from her eyes, Maylee sighed, trembling. “Oh, God.”
Griffin chuckled, the sound strained. “Good?”
“Incredible,” she murmured. Her hand slid up his side, all warm and damp with a fine layer of sweat, and she noticed that he flinched when she touched him. “What about you?”
“I’ll just . . . have a quick shower.” He began to roll off her.
She locked her legs around his hips, trapping him. “Did you not . . . you know.” She could hear the blush in her voice.
“Come all over you?”
“Something like that,” she told him primly.
He laughed at her shyness. “You can’t say it? You were screaming some rude things just a moment ago.”
She blushed in the dark, glad he couldn’t see her face. Her hands stroked up and down his tense arms. “You know what I meant. You didn’t . . . come?”
He hesitated. “I wasn’t sure how far you wanted to . . . proceed. Me jerking off on your belly and rubbing my cum into your skin is probably not what you had in mind for a make-out session.”
She sucked in a breath, the mental image of that scorching. Was it bad that she wanted that? “Well, now I can’t think of anything but that,” she admitted, and her breath hissed out in a laugh. “Do you want to?”
He groaned, and she felt him collapse on top of her, his hands going to the tangles of her hair. “More than anything else.” He thought for a moment. “Well, almost anything else. Burying myself to the hilt inside you and blasting away sounds right jolly at the moment, too.”
Her hands slid on his damp, delicious skin. “Want me to bare my stomach for you, then?”
This time, it was gratifying to hear him suck in a breath. “Maylee, you don’t have to—”
“I don’t have to do anything,” she reminded him gently. “But I want you to come.”
And she took his hand in hers and began to use their twined hands to drag her sleep shirt up her stomach.
He groaned and sat up over her, still between her legs. She could make out his big form rising over hers in the bed, and she moaned when he fisted a handful of her top and jerked it up to her breasts.
His fingers trailed down her bare stomach and he groaned in response, his breathing becoming jerky. “You can still back out,” he warned her, rasping.
“Don’t you want to come on me?” she asked him softly.
He groaned again, and his hand pushed under her clothing, grasping her naked breast. Maylee whimpered in surprise, especially when his fingers roughly began to pluck at her nipple. “Damn. So beautiful.” His voice was a near growl. “So . . . damn . . . beautiful.”
Hot, liquid heat spattered on her stomach, even as he groaned her name.
Maylee lay back, stunned by the eroticism of it. Why was it that what was supposed to be a quick dry-hump had turned into one of the most erotic sexual moments of her life?
Panting, Griffin’s hand moved to her belly and traced around the cum he’d left there. “I should have left the lights on.”
She touched her stomach, uncertain. “Did you get it everywhere? Should I get a towel?”
He chuckled. “No, I just wanted to see you under me, covered in my cum. It’s a primal male thing, I suppose.” He bent down over her and gave her mouth a hard kiss. “And I’ll get the towel.”
The bed creaked as he jumped off, and across the room, a light flicked on. Illuminated by the bathroom light was Griffin’s gloriously naked backside, all tight muscle and corded, thick thighs. Oh, mercy. Wasn’t that a delicious sight. Maylee felt herself getting aroused all over again, and she blinked with disappointment when the lights went out once more, leaving her in darkness.
Then, Griffin was back in the bed, gently wiping down her stomach and tugging at her pajamas. “You should probably take these off. They’ll need a good cleaning. You can sleep in one of my shirts.”
“Oh. I’m sure I have something else I can sleep in—”
“No,” he said firmly. “I like seeing you in my shirt. Humor me.”
She blushed at that. “All right, Mr. Gri—um, Griff.”
When he got up to get rid of the towel, he returned with a soft T-shirt for her to wear and pressed it into her hand. “Need some help undressing?”
“I think I can manage,” she said in a wry, breathless voice. She quickly stripped out of her clothing and tugged on the shirt, mindful of the noises he made as he moved to the other side of the bed. When she pulled the shirt down, her bottom hung out the other side, and she didn’t have any spare panties with her. “Um. Do you have some boxers?”
He chuckled. “If you insist, though I’m a little disappointed that I don’t get the pleasure of having you snuggled up against me all night, bare-assed.”
“Boxers,” she said again, primly.
A moment later, more soft material touched her hand, and she realized he’d had them all along. “You are shamelessly wicked, Griffin Verdi,” she chided him as she wriggled into his boxers. They were a little tight in the ass, as she had more junk in her trunk than he did.
Once that was taken care of, she lay back in the bed and adjusted her pillow. What did they do now? Kiss goodnight and roll over onto their separate sides?
Griffin solved that problem for her. As soon as she lay back, he grabbed her by the waist and pulled her against him, his hips curving against hers. Aha. He was a spooner. Griffin nuzzled her neck as he settled her against him. “This is much better than the pillow fort, don’t you think?”
His words tickled her ear. “It’s definitely m
ore intimate. I hope you don’t snore tonight.”
“I never snore,” he said in that haughty voice. “You, on the other hand, could put a train to shame.”
She snorted. “Now I know you’re lying. I’m a Southern girl. We don’t snore, and we don’t cuss.”
“Mmmhmm. Southern girls are clearly out of touch with reality.”
She tickled his sides before he grabbed her hands and tucked them into his grasp. Then she cuddled against his chest, his mouth teasing her neck, Maylee somehow drifted off to sleep.
***
The next morning, Griffin woke up with a raging hard-on, wild white-blonde curls tickling his nose, and an urge to spend the day in bed.
He sat up and reached over the woman clinging to his front to flick off his alarm, and noticed with amusement that Maylee didn’t even stir. Well, actually, all she did was burrow deeper against his chest, increasing his morning wood problem.
Damn, but he’d liked last night.
He stroked a hand over her out-of-control curls, admiring the way they fluffed and made her look thoroughly, adorably fucked. So they’d had a pajama barrier. He couldn’t deny that fooling around with Maylee had been the best thing to happen to him in a long time. And for the first time, he was rather grateful for the royal wedding and Kip’s inconvenient chicken pox.
Leaning down, he kissed her cheekbone. “Maylee, darling, wake up.”
She mumbled something about feeding the hounds and flicked a hand at her cheek as if brushing away a mosquito.
That was . . . charming. With a grin to himself, Griffin reluctantly released her and made his way to the bathroom. He’d shower and then wake her up when he got back.
He undressed and examined himself in the mirror. He was smiling like a loon. No, he realized, like Reese did whenever someone mentioned Audrey. He normally just rolled his eyes at that dopey, lovesick smile on Reese’s face and figured Audrey could do amazing stunts in bed.
But Maylee hadn’t done amazing stunts. She’d simply been herself—excited, breathless, and wild with need—and he’d thought it was the most erotic thing ever.