“I asked you first.”
“I asked you last.”
He cocks a brow at me. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
“Demanding information because you’re first is just as arbitrary as demanding it when you’re last.”
“It’s really not,” he tells me with a grin. “But in the interest of keeping the peace, I’ll say, I’m open to whatever you want to do.”
“That’s not keeping the peace. That’s a cop-out. But I’ll go with it. I don’t actually care what we do. If you’re sleepy, we can sleep. If you’re not, we can do whatever.”
“Is that what they’re calling it these days? ‘Doing whatever?’ ”
I flip him off. “You know what I mean.”
“I do know exactly what you mean. I also know that you never answered my question.”
“Yeah, well, you never answered mine.”
His response to that is a grin and a wink. And then he’s rolling on top of me, his body pressing mine into the bed. While he bears most of his weight on his arms, his legs are tangled with mine and even with the towel between us, I can feel his cock—long and thick and hard—nestled up against my sex.
There’s a small part of me that’s excited at the contact, that’s thrilled to have this beautiful man stretched above me. But the rest of me is on the brink of wigging out, adrenaline shooting through me as every instinct I have screams at me to fight or flee.
Nic’s studying me, his keen green eyes following each move I make. I try to keep my face composed, to hide the panic that’s starting to spiral out of control inside me, but I must not be doing a very good job of it because he brings a hand up to cup my cheek even as he asks, “You okay, baby?”
I nod even though I’m not. But at this point, I don’t trust myself to speak. Don’t trust my voice not to betray me.
“You’re doing it again,” he murmurs quietly.
It’s Nic, I tell myself again and again. It’s Nic. It’s Nic. It’s Nic. It helps calm the panic—not a lot, but enough that I can squeak out, “Doing what?”
“Lying to me.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.” He bends his head, presses soft kisses against my jaw. I know they’re meant to reassure me, know he’s trying to prove that he won’t hurt me, but all the contact does is make me more tense. All it does is shove my brain back to the night three years ago that I don’t remember much of, except for the feel of some frat boy on top of me, his hands grabbing my breasts while he pounds—
I cut the thought off, try to shove it back down where it came from. But it’s too late. The panic I’ve fought so hard against is taking over, clouding my brain and bringing with it the claustrophobia my therapist tells me is a common side effect of PTSD. I try to tamp it down, try not to let Nic see how freaked out I’ve become. But I must not do a very good job, because the next thing I know, he’s pulling back. Lifting his body off mine. Giving me room to breathe.
Thank God.
I want to say something, want to explain, but I’m too busy trying to pull air into my starving lungs to actually force any words out. But Nic seems to get it even without me saying anything, because he slides one big hand beneath my back to keep me close as he once again rolls us across the bed. But this time he doesn’t stop until I’m sitting on top of him, my knees straddling his hips and my hands braced on his lean, washboard abs.
“Breathe, baby,” he whispers to me, his hand sliding up to cup my jaw. “Just breathe.”
I close my eyes, turn my face away from him even as I do what he says. Now that the panic is gone, now that I don’t feel like the whole world is closing in on me, I’m humiliated by my weakness. Humiliated by the way I lost it in front of him.
But Nic refuses to let me wallow in my embarrassment, refuses to let me throw myself on the mercy of the universe and beg the ground to swallow me up. Instead, he grabs my chin between his thumb and forefinger and twists my face around so that I can do nothing but look at him.
“Don’t hide from me,” he says, his voice low and gravelly and so sexy that I can’t help but respond to it. To him.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Don’t.” He presses a finger to my lips. “Don’t apologize to me, not for that. We all have things in our past that we can’t escape, things that shape us into who we are. You don’t ever need to apologize to me for your past, Jordan, or for the scars it’s left on you. Just because I don’t know what they are doesn’t mean I don’t see them. Because I do. I see them. I see you. And what I see is so damn beautiful to me, baby. You’re so beautiful. So strong. So goddamn perfect. And the idea that you think you need to apologize to me, for anything, makes me want to put my fist through the nearest wall. It makes me want to—”
Unable to take any more, I slam my mouth down on Nic’s, stopping his words but not the upswelling of joy and tenderness and want they bring to life inside of me. That he brings to life inside of me.
He doesn’t fight me, doesn’t try to take control. Instead, he turns himself over to me. Gives me complete control of the kiss and of him. And just that easily, the last of my fear is replaced by mind-numbing, bone-melting need.
Chapter 18
Nic
I don’t have a fucking clue what to do here.
Anxiety wells up inside me, blends with the desire that’s been riding me hard since Jordan opened the shower door tonight.
Hell, who am I kidding? I think as I tangle my hands in the cool, wet silk of her hair and let her take the kiss even deeper. Need has been razor sharp inside me ever since she climbed on my lap at the beach this morning and let me rock her to orgasm.
Ever since she kissed my cheek at the garage last night.
Ever since she tried to beat the hell out of me in that parking garage yesterday.
And though we’re only two days in, there’s a part of me that knows that this need isn’t going away. Even after I have her, it will still be there. Hot, sharp, electric, clawing at me until she’s all I can think about. Until she’s all that I want.
The knowledge scares the hell out of me. She scares the hell out of me and I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do about it.
I know what I want to do. I want to lower my head, to kiss and lick and suck at her beautiful breasts—at her gorgeous strawberry-colored nipples—for hours. I want to slide two fingers inside of her, to feel her hot and wet and tight around me as I stroke her clit, her cunt, as I make her come again and again and again.
I want to slide down the bed, want to move her up until she’s straddling my face as I lick and suck and kiss my way along her beautiful pussy until she comes some more. And then I want to fuck her, want to watch her come apart on my dick until she can’t talk, can’t think, can’t do anything but feel.
That’s what I want to do. But I don’t know if I should. Don’t know it it’s enough for her—or if it’s too much. She’s a fighter, no doubt about that, but here, now, like this, she’s also fragile. Delicate. And so, so breakable.
But breaking her is the last thing I want to do.
I pull away reluctantly. She whimpers a little, her hips rocking against mine as she leans forward, tries to take my lips with hers again. I stop her with a light tug on her hair that gets her attention, though I’m careful not to pull hard enough to hurt.
“It’s okay,” I tell her, pressing soft kisses along her neck, her shoulder, her collarbone. “I’ve got you, Jordan. I’ll take care of you.”
“I can take care of myself.” She’s leaning away from me now, her body stiff and her eyes wary as she watches me. It’s the opposite of what I was going for and I’d kick myself if I could.
But since that would mean dislodging her from my lap—exactly what I don’t want to do at this point—I settle for cussing myself out as I cup the back of her head in my palm. “Of course you can,” I murmur even as I draw her face back to mine.
She doesn’t fight me, but she doesn??
?t give up control, either. She comes slowly, carefully, her eyes on mine as I press my lips to her forehead, her cheeks, the corners of her mouth. She sighs softly then, her whole body relaxing against me as she tilts her head back and bares her throat to me.
Heat tears through me at the sight and this time I lean forward, skimming my lips along the soft skin of her neck until I get to the hollow of her throat. I pause there, spend several long minutes kissing and licking my way over the delicate pulse point. Her heart is beating fast and hard beneath my tongue—out of fear or desire, I don’t know—so I run a hand down her spine to soothe her, stroking, stroking, stroking until I feel her relax just a little bit more.
My hand is on her lower back now, my fingers pressing into the gentle swell of her ass as I knead the last of the tension from her. I keep kissing her as I do, sliding my lips over her collarbone to her shoulder. She gasps as my mouth skims across the spot where her shoulder meets her neck, so I spend a long time there, licking and kissing and sucking at the soft skin until she’s squirming on my lap and each breath she takes is more broken, more tortured, than the last.
A glance in her eyes tells me the fear is fading, the need taking over. Thank God. I can’t stand the fear in her eyes. I know it’s more about the situation than it is about me, but that doesn’t matter. If we’re going to do this—if I’m going to make love to her—I need her to want it more than she fears it. Need her to want it as much as I do.
With that thought in mind, I nip softly at her skin. She cries out—and it’s a good cry not a hurt one—and I lave my tongue across the small hurt until the sting goes away. I do it a second and a third and a fourth time, because I’m addicted to the sound she makes as my teeth close on her delicate skin. Almost as addicted as I am to the wet heat of her pussy as she squirms on my lap.
“Nic, please,” she gasps when I stay in the same spot for several long moments, savoring the taste and scent and feel of her skin beneath my lips.
I want to tease her, want to keep going until she can’t help but tell me what she wants just so I can hear the words fall from her pink, pink lips. But I don’t think she’s ready for that yet, or even if she knows how to vocalize what it is she wants. So instead of asking her to talk dirty to me, I finally move on.
She shudders in relief as I kiss my way across the top of her chest, arches her back so that she’s all but offering her beautiful breasts—her hard, pink nipples—to my mouth.
But I don’t go there, not yet, no matter how much I ache to taste her. Instead, I work my way down her arm, pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses every couple of inches until I get to the bend in her elbow. There, I do the same thing I did to her neck, nipping then sucking then licking the sting away.
She’s crying out now, her hips moving restlessly—recklessly—against my own. My cock is throbbing, every cell in my body screaming at me to slip inside of her and fuck her until we’re both insensate with pleasure.
But no matter how hard her nipples are or how hot her pussy is against my dick, I don’t think she’s ready yet. Not to feel me inside her and certainly not to give herself over to the pleasure I want to draw from her.
I shift her off my lap and onto the bed as her beautiful brown eyes cloud with confusion. “Wha—”
“Ssssh,” I murmur, turning her so that she’s sitting on the edge of the bed, her feet on the floor. Then I slip off the bed, kneel between her knees. And take her mouth in a kiss that leaves us both breathless, both needing more.
“Nic.” One of her hands comes up to clutch at my dreads while the other curls around my shoulder, tries to bring me closer.
“I’ve got you, sweetheart,” I tell her again, and this time she doesn’t protest. Instead, she takes a deep breath and just watches me, her grip relaxing a little as she waits for whatever I’m going to do next.
Her trust humbles me and even though my brain is filled with all the different things I want to do to her—and there are hundreds of them—I settle for kissing her.
And kissing her.
And kissing her.
We kiss until our lips are swollen. Until my tongue is almost numb. Until the taste of her has crept so deep inside of me that I don’t think I’ll ever get it out. Ever get her out. And then we kiss some more.
She pulls away first and when I look up at her, I finally see what I’ve been waiting for all along. Her skin is flushed, her eyes nearly black with desire, her face slack with a need she can’t resist. The fear I felt so clearly earlier is gone—or at least banished for a little while—and she’s all in.
There’s a part of me that’s screaming that this is it, that I can take her now, fuck her now. Make her mine in the most basic, primal way. And I want to. God, do I want to. But there’s another part of me that wants to be sure. That wants to take her higher, take her deeper, to see just how much pleasure I can give her.
Jordan has suffered—I don’t know how, don’t know what happened, but I know that she has. Just like I know I’ll never be able to make up for what was done to her. But that doesn’t mean I can’t try, doesn’t mean I can’t do everything I can to replace her bad memories with good ones.
Which is why I don’t climb on the bed as she’s begging me to do. Don’t lift her onto my lap—onto my dick—and let her ride me like I’m dying for her to. Instead, I start back at her shoulder, kissing and licking my way down her arm in a leisurely path that has her crying out and arching off the bed.
My head is swimming and my dick is so fucking hard that it hurts, but I tamp that shit down. Shove it back until all there is is her. Until all there is is Jordan and her beautiful smile, her beautiful body, her beautiful soul…and all the pleasure that I can give her.
I kiss my way down the back of her hand and along her fingers. I kiss each of her fingertips, then nip sharply at the pad of her thumb. She gasps and her body jerks against mine, so I do it again and again before slowly sliding her thumb into my mouth. I suck gently for a few seconds, running my tongue up and down her thumb before moving on to her palm, her wrist, the firm mound of Venus at the base of her thumb.
“What are you—what are you doing?” she gasps out as I trace my tongue across the various lines of her palm.
“Making love to you,” I answer, my voice hoarse with the need to be inside her.
“This isn’t—”
I pause for a second, my lips lingering right at the center of her palm as I wait for her to finish that sentence. If this isn’t what she wants, if I’m doing something she doesn’t like, I want to know about it now, before it’s too late. Before she slides from desire back to fear.
She doesn’t say anything else, though. Instead, she brings her other hand up to my face, cups my jaw in her palm. Strokes her thumb along my jaw.
I turn my face into her touch, relishing the feel of her fingers stroking against my stubble. But still I want to know what she was going to say. Still I want to know what she’s thinking.
“This isn’t what?” I prompt.
“Nothing. I just—I didn’t know it could be like this.”
“Like what?”
“So good.”
Relief explodes through me and I lean forward to kiss her one more time before picking up where I left off, my teeth scraping over her mound of Venus until she shudders and cries out my name.
I place her hand gently back on her lap, then slowly, carefully, lift her foot off the floor. I kiss my way down her shin, swirl my tongue around her ankle, lick my way across the top of her foot. Then I sit back on my haunches, find her arch with my thumbs, and press until she turns to putty in my hands.
She moans a little as I continue to massage first one foot and then the other, her hands clutching at the sheets beneath her as I rub the last of the tension away.
Then I put her right ankle over my shoulder and start to kiss my way up the inside of her leg. She gasps, startles a little, but I pet her hip until she relaxes again. She starts to lay back on the bed, but I hold her in place. I need to see
her face for what I do next, need to make sure she’s with me every step of the way and not drowning in the past.
She stares down at me with wide eyes as I lick my way over the inside of her knee and up the silky softness of her thighs. There’s a part of me that wants to rush wildly for the prize, to bury my face in her pussy and sink my tongue deep inside of her. I want to taste her, to lick her, to get her off again and again and again until all she remembers is me. Until all she knows is the pleasure I can give her.
She’s mine, a voice inside of me keeps saying. No matter how short a time it’s been since we met, no matter what happens next, she’s mine. I want to claim her, want to brand her as mine in the most primitive way possible.
I can feel my control slipping as she stares down at me, can feel myself start to give in to the urge to take her right now and to hell with the consequences. I can make it good for her, can make it so all she feels is pleasure.
But that’s not enough. Making her come isn’t enough. Taking her isn’t enough. I want to brand her, want to get as deep inside of her as she already is in me. So even though she’s right there, even though I could be tasting her right now, making her scream right now, I take a deep breath. Force myself to get a grip. To go slow and savor every inch of her body the way she deserves to be savored.
I kiss my way back down her leg, caress her ankle, her calf, the sensitive spot at the back of her knee before finally moving back up. I lick my way along the inside of her thighs, pushing the towel out of the way as I go higher and higher and higher until I finally reach the heart of her. I inhale then, savoring the sweet, musky smell of her before placing my mouth as close to Jordan’s clit as I can get without actually touching her.
She moans again, arches off the bed a little as her hands tangle in my dreads and pull hard enough to sting. It’s a good hurt, though, one that ratchets up my need another notch or twenty and I put my hands on the inside of her thighs, spreading them wider so I can look at her. So I can see every part of her.