His chest is smooth and sculpted, packed with muscles and so hard it makes my mouth water with the need to taste him again. To run my tongue over the long, lean muscles of his sides and shoulders. To kiss my way across the heavy thickness of his pecs before taking first one nipple and then the other in my mouth.
He groans at the first touch of my lips on his skin, his hand moving to cup the back of my neck and hold me in place. It’s such a proprietary hold that it should freak me out, should have me breaking away, but instead I just give myself up to it. To him.
But just because I let him guide me doesn’t mean I don’t have some tricks of my own, and as he presses my mouth to his skin, I sink my teeth into his pec. He stiffens, curses, but his cock twitches against my sex, and he doesn’t pull away. It’s all the encouragement I need, so I swirl my tongue over the small hurt before biting him again. And again.
His reaction is explosive, immediate and desperate—so desperate. Almost as desperate as I am to feel his mouth on me. To feel him inside me. He thrusts his hand into my hair, then yanks none too gently until I’m sitting up and we are face-to-face.
My first glimpse of his eyes has me gasping, growing wetter. His gaze has gone midnight black—his pupils blown wide with lust as they turn his normally calm and caring eyes dark and dangerous and oh-so-tempting. I can see his need for me flickering in the depths of his eyes, as well as the razor-thin edge of control that he’s walking. One look tells me how close he is to the edge, warns me that—like me—he’s hanging on by his fingertips.
There’s a part of me that wants to back off, that wants to see what happens if I let him stay on that edge of his control for a little longer. But seeing him like this, pushed so close to the edge because of me—because he needs me, the same way I need him—is everything I want and more than I thought to ask for.
I never realized how easy hiding was before this, never realized how easy it is to use my security blanket as a shield between me and all the messy feelings and experiences that come my way. Shawn ripped that blanket—that shield—away in one fell swoop. But as I look at him, as I hold him and kiss him and prepare to take him inside of myself, I can’t feel sorry for it. I’m smart enough to know it’s going to hurt when this is over, smart enough to know I’ll have to fight to feel safe again. But right now, that doesn’t matter. Nothing does but making Shawn feel as good as I do right now.
Because there’s something in knowing I’m not alone, in knowing—really knowing—that he’s right here with me, that makes okay even the desperate maelstrom of need roiling inside me.
I lick my lips, watching as his eyes follow my every movement like I’m his salvation. I do it again and revel in the groan he doesn’t even try to hold back. Then I do it once more, this time allowing my tongue to linger on my lower lip as I use my eyes to make all kinds of promises that I have every intention of keeping.
He reaches for me then, slides his hands down my neck before resting his palms against my collarbone and his fingers against the pulse points at the base of my throat. It’s an intimate hold, and a dominant one. I’ve never let anyone touch me like that before in my life, never even imagined that I would want to. But there’s something powerful in giving Shawn that right, something powerful in letting myself trust someone—letting myself trust him—enough to allow it. The fact that every part of me is saying it’s okay, that he won’t hurt me, tells me more about how I’m starting to feel about him than I’m ready to admit.
But that doesn’t mean I want him to back off, because I don’t. And I sure as hell don’t want him to stop.
I’m not sure what all this says about me, about him, about us—if there even is an us—and right now I don’t actually care. Not when the heat we’re generating has lightning crackling between us, ripping into my body. Burning through my veins and muscles. Tearing at my soul. Touching, destroying every defense I had until Shawn is all I can think of, and all I want.
His other hand is still on my breast, and the tug of his fingers on my nipple is only making me crazier. I lean forward, press my lips to his with a desperation I never thought myself capable of feeling. I’m the one who is always in control, the one who always looks before she leaps, thinks before she acts. Yet now, here, with him, all I can do is feel. And all I feel is need.
Suddenly our clothes are too much of a barrier between us. I want us naked, want his athletic shorts out of the way and my yoga pants on the floor as he slides himself deep inside me. Everything I am pulses at the idea, my sex aching emptily even as my hands move to tug at his shorts.
“Take them off,” I tell him as I rip my mouth from his. Take them off, take them off, take them off. It’s my new mantra now, as desperation overtakes me and I buck and twist against him in an agony of tortured desire.
“Soon, I promise,” he whispers in between kisses to my neck, my shoulder, the tips of my breasts. “Just relax, sweetheart. I’ve got you. I’ve—”
“Now!” The word tears itself from my throat, as I rip at the top of my own pants in an effort to bare myself to him completely. It hurts, this need I have for him. This emptiness that’s burning inside of me begging to be filled. “I need you now.”
“Fuck. Okay. Fuck.” He pulls away and I whine, my hands grabbing for him even as he yanks my pants and underwear down my legs and throws them behind him. Then he’s fumbling with his own shorts as I watch him with a desperation I don’t even try to hide.
His eyes are wild and his hands are shaking as he yanks them over his hips and lets them pool on the floor at his feet. “Shit,” he mutters, pressing close to kiss me again. And again. And again. “I need to get a condom.”
“In my bag,” I tell him, looking wildly around for it. I dropped it when he grabbed me and— “There. It’s over there. Left side pocket.”
He pushes me back on the table, makes sure I’m not going to fall. Then makes a mad dash for my backpack, tearing into the side pocket like it holds the key to his salvation. And maybe it does—God knows, it feels like having Shawn against me, inside me, is the only thing that will keep me sane right now.
I nearly cry with relief when he finds the condom Emerson put there months ago when she was trying to talk me into having a little fun, coloring outside the very rigid lines of the life I’ve built for myself. I ignored her at the time, even laughed at her, but right now—as I watch Shawn rip it open and sheathe himself—I couldn’t be more grateful.
I reach for him, and he comes. He kisses me, full and hard on the mouth as I wrap my arms and legs around him. Then he’s pushing deep inside me with a thrust so hard and deep that it has me seeing stars.
I come, my whole body erupting at that first smooth glide of him. For long moments, everything around me goes black. Pleasure ripples along my every nerve ending until it swamps me and pulls me under. Suddenly I can’t think, can’t move, can’t even breathe. All I can do is wrap myself more tightly around him and take it—take him—as he slides into me over and over again, driving my pleasure higher and higher with each thrust of his hips.
Before this first orgasm ends, I can feel a second one building. It’s even sharper than the first, a razor blade of pleasure so steep, so intense, that it’s nearly pain. It’s a good pain, though, one I’ve never felt before but now can’t imagine living without.
“Shawn.” I gasp out his name, my hands clawing at the scars on his back as I press kisses to his chest, his shoulder, his biceps—any and every part of him that I can reach. He’s breathing hard, too, his eyes endless pools of black as he plunges inside of me harder and harder, faster and faster. He’s close now, too. I can hear it in the disjointed rhythm of his breath. Can see it in his lust-blown pupils and feel it in the crazy beat of his heart against mine.
I tighten my legs around his hips, dig my nails into his back, whisper dark and filthy things into his ear. Then hang on for dear life as he slams me into the table so h
ard the thing crashes against the wall.
“Let go,” I tell him, pressing wet, openmouthed kisses to his crazy perfect jaw and the sensitive spot behind his ear. “Come on, baby. I can take it. I can—”
He cries out, a low, tortured sound that tears right through me, shattering me into so many pieces. And then he’s coming, his hands on my hips, my name on his lips. His whole body is shaking as he empties himself inside me. As he strains against me, hands and breath and body burrowing deep inside of me, as it goes on and on and on.
The rhythmic pulse of him inside of me rockets up my own pleasure, sends me flying up, up, up until I’m right on the edge again.
“Don’t stop,” I plead as I rock and arch and shudder against him. “Please, please, please—”
He doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t. Instead he reaches between us and flicks his finger back and forth across my clit. The pleasure turns insane—white hot and blinding—and I let out a strangled scream as I lift my hips in a desperate attempt to get more. More pressure. More pleasure. More Shawn.
He’s still hard, still thrusting, as if his release had done nothing to dull his need for me. The idea hits me hard, takes my pleasure up another notch as he surges against me, each thrust a little more powerful than the one that came before it. He’s moving me up the table now, banging my shoulders against the wall, and I don’t even care. I can’t, not when everything I am is lost in him and the ecstasy he’s bringing me.
“Fuck, Sage. You feel so good. You feel so—” He breaks off as he tilts my hips up, as he lifts me clear off the table and holds me there in midair so he can go deeper, deeper, deeper.
It feels so good—he feels so good—that I can’t even try to think my way through this. Can’t even begin to try to comprehend what’s happening to my body. To me.
Desperate for release now, and for the relief that comes with it, I lock my ankles around his waist and hold tight. I let my head fall back against the wall, let my hands grab on to whatever part of him I can reach. My whole body is wigging out, and I’m spinning out of control—my mind, my body, everything that I am surrendering to him. Opening up to him. Becoming his for the taking.
It should frighten me—should terrify me, if I’m being honest—and maybe it would any other time, with any other man. But right here, right now, with Shawn, all I can do is open myself up to him and let him take all that he wants.
I want it to end, want to feel him empty himself totally and completely within me.
I want it to go on forever, want his strong, hard body plunging into mine until I’ve had my fill. Until my body no longer clamors for his. Until I don’t know where he starts and I leave off.
“Sage.” His fingers dig deep into my hips, but I’m too lost in pleasure to notice. “Sage, look at me.”
His voice is deep, distorted, but so insistent that I know I don’t have a choice. Opening my eyes through sheer strength of will, I stare into his dark ones with their desperate light and blown-out pupils.
The moment our eyes lock, a connection snaps taut between us. I can feel it inside of me, feel it spreading, taking me over. I want to look way, want to break whatever this thing is that’s so powerful, so overwhelming. But he won’t let me, his gaze holding mine, locking me to him.
“Shawn.” I whisper his name, lift a hand to his stubble-rough cheek. He holds my gaze even while he turns his head and presses a kiss into my palm.
And then he’s thrusting faster, circling my clit. I cry out as sensation swamps me and I careen over the edge for the second time tonight. I come with his body inside me and his name on my lips. And still he refuses to relinquish my gaze. Still he keeps me pinned with those black magic eyes of his that somehow manage at the same time to be both the sexiest and the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen.
And when he follows me seconds later—his own release crashing powerfully through him—those eyes demand more than I want to give. Offer more than I’m willing to take.
But as he collapses over me, his body seeking comfort from mine even as he presses me into the table, I refuse to think about that. Refuse to worry over the feelings careening around inside of me like a Ping-Pong ball. Instead I wrap my arms around him and hold him close, whispering silly, soft, sweet nothings in his ear as we both come slowly down.
Chapter 16
“Wow.” Shawn breathes it out on a laugh as he lowers his forehead to mine.
Wow is right. I’m still a little shell-shocked—I think we both are—after what just happened between us.
For long seconds, neither of us says anything else—me because I’m pretty sure I’m not capable of speech right now and Shawn because…I don’t exactly know why he’s not saying anything. But when he lifts his head and tries to look in my eyes one more time, I can’t help but turn my head. Not because what just passed between us wasn’t important, but because it was.
There’s no way I can look into those crazy eyes of his right now. He sees too much at the best of times. I can’t imagine what he’d see if he looked into my eyes at this moment, when I feel so raw, so vulnerable, so laid wide open.
Worst of all, I can still feel the connection, no matter how much I wish I couldn’t.
I try to make up for the slight by pressing soft kisses to his neck, his shoulder, his chest—basically any part of his beautiful, beautiful body that I can currently reach. He’s tensed up a little, which means he definitely noticed me avoiding his eyes, but as I kiss my way up his throat to that jaw of his, he slowly, slowly relaxes again.
“You okay?” he asks after another couple of minutes pass with us just breathing. Just being. The fact that he doesn’t try to look me in the eye this time should relieve me, but instead all it does is make me sad.
Sad that I disappointed him.
Sad that I maybe even hurt him.
Sad that I’m too scared of getting hurt—too scared of not being enough—that I can’t even try to give him what he wants from me.
I don’t say that, though, when he asks if I’m okay. I can’t. So instead I just nod against his shoulder. “I think I’m good. How about you?”
“I think you’re good, too,” he says with an exaggerated eyebrow wiggle.
I groan and tug on a lock of his too sexy hair. “Cheesy, dude. Really, really cheesy.”
“Hey, now. Cut a guy some slack, will you? I’m pretty sure the last hour fried my brain cells.”
“More like half an hour and I am so not going to cut you any slack,” I tell him as I push against his chest. “I expect more than a giant ball of cheese from GQ’s Most Stylish Man.”
He actually blushes at the moniker, his skin going hot against mine as he buries his face in the curve between my neck and my shoulder. “God. That was at least five years ago. How did you hear about it?”
“It was three years ago and there’s this miraculous thing called Google. You should try it some time.”
“You googled me?” He lifts his face from my neck, and now he’s not looking embarrassed. He’s looking pleased. “You googled me. Does that mean you like me?”
“You just spent the last half an hour inside me, and you think the fact that I googled you is what says I like you?”
“It’s the information age, sweetheart.” The former Most Stylish Man of the Year pushes up on his forearms to give me the goofiest grin imaginable. “Nothing says I like you quite as much as knowing all your social media handles.”
“Then you’re screwed, because I don’t know any of your social media handles.” It’s a lie—I spent over an hour yesterday creeping his Instagram, but what Shawn doesn’t know won’t embarrass me. “Besides, the googling was total self-preservation. When I agreed to meet you alone in your house, I had to do my due diligence.”
When he just looks at me blankly, I roll my eyes. “I had to make sure there were no rumors about you. The last thing I wanted w
as to end up in a pit in your backyard, being starved so that you could make a G-string from my skin for yourself.”
“A G-string?”
“Dude. You’re twice my size. No way could you make a whole suit.”
“I don’t even know what’s most disturbing about what you just said. The fact that you thought I might Buffalo-Bill you or the fact that you think I’d wear a G-string made of human skin.”
“Stranger things have happened.”
“Stranger than The Silence of the Lambs?”
“I don’t know,” I answer with a shrug. “Do you like fava beans?”
He shakes his head, looks mystified. “I’m not sure if I should be impressed or terrified by how your brain works.”
“A question pondered by many. If you want my suggestion, go with terrified.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Sage the psychotic badass, with delusions of Hannibal Lecter.”
I cock my head to the side, pretend to think about it. “You’ve got to admit. It’s got a nice ring to it.”
“I’ve heard better.”
“That’s because you don’t want me to eat your liver with a nice Chianti.”
“Or any other kind of wine, for that matter.” He leans forward and pecks my lips, and now that my defenses have slid back into place, I have no problem looking him in the eyes. His pupils are still blown out from the pleasure, but mine probably are, too.
When he catches me looking, he smiles down at me. I smile back because it’s impossible not to. Partly because I feel really, really good after all those orgasms and partly because Shawn is impossible not to like. He may be wild and impulsive and a total adrenaline junkie, but he’s also, deep down, a really decent, really kind guy. It’s that kindness that’s in his smile right now, that kindness that’s in those eyes that both bewitch and frighten me. The fact that he also gets my weird sense of humor? Big-time bonus points.
He leans down for another kiss—this one deeper and more involved than the last. I welcome it, welcome him, wrapping my arms around his neck and opening myself to him as I start thinking about round two.