Hell, I would. Right now.
I drew her nipple into my mouth and sucked, feeling her body stiffen and hearing her breath catch. Then I nipped her at the same time as I began to grind against her once again, trying to go slow, to tease her, to draw out the pleasure as long as I could.
But she wouldn’t let me.
Her legs tightened around my waist as she lifted her hips against mine and arched her spine again, encouraging me to suck on her harder, deeper.
‘Yes,’ she gasped thickly. ‘Oh, Ajax, yes...’
She was so fucking sexy. That taste of her was in my mouth, her wet little pussy soaking my goddamn jeans.
Jesus, she was going to make me come like a bloody teenage boy.
I teased her nipple with my teeth until the words she was muttering became incoherent cries. Until she went suddenly stiff in my arms, calling my name as she came.
CHAPTER TEN
Imogen
I SHUDDERED IN Ajax’s arms, mind-blowing pleasure ripping through me, making me feel like I was glowing, lit up from the inside by the sheer ecstasy of his touch.
Hell, if I’d known sex would be like this, I’d have tried a lot harder to escape Dad.
It’s not just the sex. It’s Ajax.
I had my head tipped back against the closet door and my eyes were closed, but now I opened them a crack, half afraid to look at him, yet at the same time half desperate too.
His eyes were cobalt with desire, his expression feral with possessive hunger.
My soul shivered in instinctive response.
I’d told him just before that it was him, that he was different, and that had been instinct. But now I knew for certain. This feeling inside me, this pleasure. It was all because of him.
For a second I tried imagining doing this with anyone else and I...couldn’t. I’d wanted him from the moment I’d first seen him, on a visceral level, but he also made me feel safe and protected.
Yet he wasn’t a safe man. He was dangerous. And that excited me for reasons I didn’t understand. There was a physical energy that drew me to him, yet it was about more than that.
I affected him. I’d seen him trying to resist me and being unable to. I liked that. I liked that a lot. It made me feel powerful and strong, and it had been too long since I’d felt either of those things.
‘Still with me?’ His voice was rough black velvet brushing over my skin, dark and sensual with a husky edge.
And this time my body shivered along with my soul.
I still had my legs wrapped around his lean waist, the ridge of his cock nudging my throbbing clit. The pressure of his fingers around my wrists was getting me off too, as if part of me enjoyed being held helpless like this.
I should have been embarrassed by the way I’d clawed at him and climbed him, losing control of myself in a way my father would have despised. But the way Ajax was looking at me made all my embarrassment fade away.
‘Um...yes.’ God, I sounded croaky. ‘Unless those videos were wrong, we haven’t finished, though, right?’ I couldn’t quite hide my uncertainty, a part of me worried that this was all he was going to give me. That he might change his mind and leave me here, sated yet still starving.
He shifted, the hard ridge between my thighs brushing against my sensitive sex, sending a shockwave of pleasure through me, his free hand cupping my bare breast.
His palm was hot, searing against my skin, and when he brushed his thumb over my nipple, still slick from his mouth, I groaned.
‘No, we’re not finished.’ He watched me, gauging my reactions. ‘After all, you’re still a virgin.’
‘Well, right?’ A weird reaction was starting to set in, a burst of intense emotion sweeping over me, making me feel like crying.
Okay, now this was embarrassing.
I never cried. Not ever. Not even the day Dad had informed me that I’d killed my mother by being born and he’d never forgive me for it. And that if I ever wanted even a crumb of attention from him, I’d have to work for it.
Not that I’d ever think about that day again.
‘I mean, this hymen isn’t going to break itself,’ I babbled, trying to talk away the vulnerability that was getting wider and larger inside me. ‘And it’s not going to be much of a revenge if—’
Ajax lifted his hand from my breast and laid his thumb against my mouth, stopping the flow of words. His gaze narrowed, focusing intensely on me. ‘Little one, are you okay?’
To my horror, I felt my lower lip wobble.
This wasn’t how it went in the videos. The women all moaned and gasped like they were enjoying themselves, but no one cried afterwards. No one talked about feelings.
I knew that wasn’t the point—porn didn’t have feelings attached—but my reaction still caught me by surprise.
Why was this happening? A combination of his physical closeness and the unstoppable pleasure he’d given me? The realisation that this was all centred around him somehow? Or was it something else?
Whatever it was, I didn’t like it. I didn’t want it.
‘What’s wrong?’ Ajax took his thumb from my mouth. ‘And give me the truth this time.’
I swallowed, trying to get rid of the lump in my throat.
Dad would be appalled.
He would. He hated my tears. He thought I didn’t deserve to cry.
‘Nothing.’ Desperately, I tried to salvage the situation. ‘I’m fine.’
But of course Ajax knew I was lying.
‘You’re not fine,’ he said flatly. ‘You were honest with me before, Imogen. Why are you lying now?’
Shit. I was such a failure. This was why I’d wanted to get away from Dad in the first place, because I could never be what he wanted me to be. I could never earn a place in his heart. And my inability to do any of that only got people hurt in the process.
‘Okay, so you’re right. I’m not fine,’ I croaked pathetically, not even trying to hide it because what was the point? ‘I feel...weird. Like I want to cry. But it’s not you. It’s nothing you’ve done. It’s just...’
He didn’t say anything, simply stared at me.
‘Don’t think that this means I don’t want you to keep going,’ I added, angry with myself for ruining the moment. ‘I still need you to take my virginity, okay? I want my damn revenge.’
He remained silent.
Great, so I’d screwed up. I’d been too full-on. Too honest. Too emotional. Too...everything.
I should have remembered that there were always consequences when I didn’t keep myself under control. Consequences such as what had happened to Cameron, the poor guy beaten within an inch of his life.
My fault. I’d never even thought that asking him out would be a problem, I’d simply gone ahead and asked him, too caught up in my attraction to him. And he’d got hurt because of me.
Failing. I was always failing.
Ajax lowered my arms from over my head, chafing my wrists gently. Then he eased me down his body until I was standing on the floor.
His gentleness made the emotions crashing around inside me somehow even worse. I felt like a hurt child in need of comfort.
How humiliating.
I tried to muster up some anger but, before I could get good and worked up, he picked me up in his arms and carried me over to the huge bed that faced the ocean, putting me down on the edge of the mattress before crouching in front of me.
‘It’s okay,’ I muttered. ‘You can leave now.’
‘Leave?’ He frowned. ‘Why would I do that?’
‘Uh, because I’m being pathetic and emotional?’
He shrugged one powerful shoulder as if that didn’t matter at all to him. ‘You’re not being pathetic. Emotional yes, but what you’re feeling is normal. Sometimes it happens when sex is particularly intense.’
Well, it had been
intense, that was for sure.
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. ‘Has it happened to you? Wanting to cry after sex, I mean?’ The question sounded stupid as soon as it came out of my mouth. Ajax King wanting to cry after an orgasm? The idea was as ludicrous as Dad suddenly becoming Prime Minister.
Ajax didn’t laugh, thank God. ‘No, but I know it happens to some people.’
‘Well, I don’t want it to happen to me.’ And I didn’t. Not crying was about the only thing I’d managed to succeed at, the only thing that Dad didn’t criticise me for.
Crying now would be one failure too many.
I blinked hard and looked down at my hands. ‘I don’t blame you if you don’t want to do this any more. I didn’t mean to ruin the mood.’
Strong fingers caught my jaw, tipping my face up.
He’d risen to his feet and was bending over me, his intense blue gaze blazing into mine. ‘You’re not ruining anything. Cry if you want to. Scream if you want to. Emotion doesn’t scare me, Imogen. I’m going to fuck you either way.’
The words shot down my spine like shocks. His expression was uncompromising and it came to me all of a sudden that of course my emotions didn’t scare him. They didn’t matter to him at all.
Because he didn’t care.
Something tight in my chest, something I hadn’t realised was there, suddenly eased. Like a heavy stone being lifted away.
I could cry. I could scream. I could ask too many questions. Be too restless. Talk too much. Do whatever I wanted.
I could be myself and it wouldn’t matter.
Because Ajax didn’t care and that meant I didn’t need to either.
There is no way you can fail, not here, not with him.
A tear slid down my cheek without my conscious control. Then another and another and, for the first time in years, I didn’t try to repress them or swallow them back, or talk to distract myself from the ache in my heart.
I let them fall.
There was no judgement in Ajax’s face, that I’d seen so often in Dad’s. None of the distaste or the active contempt. He simply...watched, expressionless, giving me some time and a quiet space to cry.
Then, after a while, his grip on my chin tightened and he bent down over me and kissed me.
I tasted the salt of my tears and that rich, dark flavour that was all him, and I was suddenly hungry. Hungrier than I’d ever been in my entire life.
Opening my mouth, I let him in, reaching out to pull him to me. But he was already pushing me back onto the bed and following me down onto it. His body was heavy, solid with muscle and so hot it felt like I was lying directly under a furnace.
He felt so good.
I arched up, pressing myself against him, spreading my thighs so he could lie between them and curling my arms around his neck. I kissed him harder, deeper; kissed him like there was no tomorrow and no yesterday, only now. Salt and Ajax in my mouth, the taste of him imprinting on me so I’d never get it out of my head and never want to.
He kissed me back, demanding, pushing his tongue deep into my mouth. Nipping my lower lip, sucking on it. Licking and taking, conquering. And I let myself be conquered.
Our kisses became more desperate, the sound of our breathing ragged.
Abruptly, he pushed himself off me, going up on his knees, straddling my hips, and he reached for the hem of his T-shirt, dragging it up and over his head. The movement was sexy and when his T-shirt came off I nearly gasped.
He was a work of art. Not only was every muscle from his pecs to his abs cut and sharply defined, they were highlighted by the most incredible tattoos I’d ever seen. Thick black abstract lines running all over his torso, trailing down over the broad plane of his chest and curling around his lean hips, outlining every dip and hollow, every flex and contraction.
I pushed myself up, my breath already short and getting shorter, reaching for him, my palms landing on his stomach. He was smooth and hot, the muscle beneath rock-hard. And I could feel the tightening of his abs beneath my fingertips, the merest hint of the power contained in his magnificent body.
Desperate to touch as much of him as I could, I ran my palms up from his stomach to his pecs, the prickle of hair an added excitement. God, he felt incredible. I leaned in, nuzzling against his abdomen, loving his heat and the woody, spicy scent of him. Then I licked him, tasting salt.
He shuddered, his reaction firing my desire even higher. I tried licking him again, but he caught me underneath my arms and pushed me back down onto the mattress. And then I couldn’t do anything but lie there as he virtually ripped my clothes off.
In the hundreds of romance novels I’d read, I’d always thought that the ripping of the clothes was figurative. Apparently not with Ajax King.
He tore my T-shirt clean down the middle and got rid of the fabric, pulling apart my lacy white bra with the same ease. Then he jerked away my yoga pants and knickers along with them, so I lay naked in the middle of the bed.
He paused a moment, his gaze electric, scorching me every place it touched. And it touched everywhere.
If I’d thought about it I might have been embarrassed. No one had seen my naked body since I was a child. But it didn’t even occur to me. All I wanted was him, naked as I was, his skin against mine.
‘Ajax,’ I said hoarsely. ‘Please.’
He said nothing, watching me with those intense, unfathomable eyes. Then his hands slowly moved to the buttons of his jeans.
Too slowly.
I sat up and reached for them myself, but he knocked my hands away.
‘Lie down.’ His voice was full of authority and darkness. ‘Lie down and wait patiently, and you’ll get what you want.’
A frustrated sound escaped me, but I did what I was told.
I didn’t like to stay still for long and lying there, my breathing fast and hard, the need inside me like an animal tearing at me in its hunger, felt like the most difficult thing I’d ever done.
Slowly, achingly slowly, Ajax undid the buttons of his jeans and pulled down the zip, spreading the fabric. I could see the long, hard length that pressed against the material of his black boxers...
My pulse began to accelerate, my mouth was watering, my breath catching hard in my chest.
Holy crap. He was huge.
I began to push myself up again, wanting to touch him and unable to keep still for much longer, but he got off the bed suddenly, jerking down his jeans and getting rid of the rest of his clothes.
I blinked, staring at him, utterly mesmerised by the sheer masculine beauty of him. All that muscle and power. All that strength.
And his cock too, big and thick and hard, curving up towards his flat stomach. I wanted to touch it, wanted to see what it felt like and whether it would be as hard as it looked, or as smooth.
But I didn’t get a chance to touch because he was back on the bed, sliding his arms beneath me and gathering me up before covering me with his body, pressing me back down onto the mattress.
The slide of his bare skin over mine made me shiver and the weight of him... I didn’t feel crushed or suffocated. I felt anchored. Safe.
I put my arms around him, smoothing my palms over his broad back, feeling his muscles flex as I stroked down his spine, glorying in the feel of him. His hips were positioned between my thighs, his cock lying against my throbbing sex.
So. Good.
His mouth found mine and he was kissing me again, deeply, hungrily. I tried to kiss him back but he’d moved on, kissing a path along my jaw and down my throat, licking and nipping at me like I was his favourite ice-cream and he was making a meal out of me.
I panted as he found my breasts, teasing my nipples with his tongue then sucking hard on each one, making me groan and arch up into him. His mouth was so hot and the graze of his teeth on my skin made me moan.
His big hands glided over
my hips, scorching, then over my thighs and between them, pushing them apart with an irresistible strength that I found shockingly erotic. And then his breath moved over my stomach, his mouth brushing the sensitive skin of my inner thighs.
Oh, God. He could not be doing what I thought he was doing. Could he?
I pushed myself up on my elbows, looking down the length of my body. He was kneeling between my legs, the predatory hunger on his face making me lose my train of thought.
‘What are you doing?’ I gasped, shuddering as he slid his palms under my butt, lifting me.
He merely pinned me with his mesmerising stare, one corner of his mouth turning up in the wickedest, sexiest smile I’d ever seen. Then he buried his face between my legs and the entire world exploded into flame.
I cried out, sensation swamping me as his tongue pushed deep into my pussy, licking and exploring. I’d seen this in the videos but I’d honestly never thought the pleasure would be quite this intense. And then his hold on me shifted, his thumb finding my clit, an added pressure that made me arch back on the mattress in ecstasy.
Oh, God. Oh, God. Could something be too good? Because this was. I had no idea how I was going to survive it.
Gently, he separated the folds of my sex with his fingers so his tongue could explore me deeper, the hungry sounds of masculine pleasure filling the room, making me go hot all over.
I reached down blindly and tangled my fingers in his hair, needing something to hold onto as he pushed me higher and higher. Every lick was a brush of fire, the pressure of his tongue inside me and his thumb on my clit almost unbearable.
The orgasm hit without warning, pleasure detonating like a bomb, making me cry out as the raw ecstasy of it overwhelmed me.
Then I lay there trembling with the aftershocks, my mind completely blown, feeling him move on the bed. The sound of a drawer being opened came and then the crinkle of foil.
A condom. Which meant...
I felt the brush of his skin, hot and smooth, on mine and then his body coming back to cover me again. I forced my eyes open to find him staring down at me, his gaze an intense electric blue.
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