"Good, because I like touching you."
He released the lock of my hair he'd been toying with, and his hands drifted downward to alight, like nervous birds, on my waist. "The thrill of my hands on your body is electric. It sends a strange, manic energy through me."
"I like it. The feel of your hands on me, I mean."
"You do?"
"Of course. Quite a lot."
"May I ask you a question?"
"Anything."
"Is this flirting?"
I touched my lips to his cheek, not quite a kiss, really, just a brush of my lips across his skin, just beneath his cheekbone. "No, I'd say this is quite a bit more than just flirting."
"Oh." He swallowed hard again, and his hands moved down to rest on my hips--he was taking liberties, exploring a little, and it made my heart beat like a tribal drum. "Another question, then, if I may--when I showed up here, the last time, and you were naked...you put on your kimono, and we watched that show." He blinked, his fingers tracing around the waistband of my bikini bottom. "More than once throughout that evening, you bent over or otherwise moved in such a way as to allow me a glimpse at your bare flesh. Was that intentional? If so, why?"
I took a huge risk, then, and pushed his shirt up, gently easing it off his head and tossing it onto the chaise lounge. I touched a kiss to his jawline, next. "Yes, Xavier, it was intentional."
He tensed again as I dragged my fingernails down his chest. "Why?"
Once again, I couldn't help laughing. "I was hitting on you, Xavier."
"Which is like flirting, but more aggressive or intentional."
"Yeah, exactly." I pressed our torsos together, flattening my tits against his chest, wrapping my arms around his neck. "You want me to break that down for you?"
He nodded, his palms exploring my back, roaming from shoulders to waist to hips in random patterns; the warmth of his touch sent shivers down my spine, and had my thighs clenching. He was touching my back, innocently enough, and I was responding like this? God, what was it about this man that affected me so potently?
"It feels weird to explain this kind of thing in so many words," I said, laughing, "but here it goes. Basically, when I bent over so my robe opened, or when I crawled across the ottoman to get the popcorn, that was an invitation."
"To what?"
I lifted an eyebrow. "What do you think?" His hands stilled on my back, his eyes hunting, darting, as if he was nervous to say the answer wrong. I laughed again, and kissed another spot on his jaw. "This isn't an exam, Xavier. I honestly want to know what you think the reason would be behind me doing that."
"Because you like me."
"Well yes, but I've said as much. Try again." I tugged at a strand of his hair. "Why do you think I would intentionally expose my naked body to you, Xavier? Just say what you think, the first answer that pops into your head--go."
"Because you want me to touch you."
I grinned. "See? You understand more than you think."
"It's not a matter of understanding, but one of believing you really mean that."
"Why wouldn't you believe it? What reason have I ever given you to think I wouldn't mean it, or that I don't truly want it?"
"It just..." He sighed, eyes closing momentarily. "It falls under the umbrella of 'if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.' I want so badly to touch you, Low, to be allowed the glory and wonder and privilege of touching you--an angel made flesh--and I do not believe myself worthy. Just being near you is a privilege. To be your friend, to spend time with you is a privilege. To be allowed physical intimacy with you? How can that be real? I would never, could never presume that someone as...as incredibly, stunningly, blindingly, perfectly lovely as you would want me to put my hands on you."
"I'm not just allowing it, Xavier," I said. "I want it."
"Truly?" he breathed.
Rather than answering in words, I slid out from between him and the railing, led him by the hand inside and up to my room.
The sliding door to the balcony was open, letting in a cool breeze off the water, and the sound of squawking gulls and the gentle lap of the water against the hull.
Xavier stood in the middle of the room, shirtless in his jeans, belt, and sneakers. He was a vision of lupine male sexuality, all hard muscles and planes and curves and ridges, with that messy dark hair and those vivid green eyes. He was staring at me as if he'd never seen me before, his gaze raking over my body hungrily. His hands were at his sides, rubbing up and down his jeans, a gesture I don't think he was aware of.
I was nervous too, for some reason. My heart was pounding, and my skin was tingling as if his gaze had a physical effect on my flesh, and my thighs were clenched, my core throbbing.
I wasn't sure how much longer I could hold back my desire for Xavier--his body tempted me, called out to my hands, my lips. I wanted him naked, and I wanted him beneath me, above me, behind me. I wanted to hear his voice crying out in guttural pleasure; I wanted to feel his hands on my skin, possessive on my curves.
I bit my lip, the mental images I was torturing myself with making my core clench and throb and seep the liquid essence of desire.
I tugged my hair loose from the knot and shook it out, combing my fingers through it. I took a step toward Xavier, who was standing frozen in the middle of the room. Reaching behind me, I untied my bikini top--a halter that tied at my neck and at my back; I used my elbows to keep the cups pinned against my breasts, drawing out the moment. I paused like that for a moment, watching Xavier's reaction: he shifted his weight from foot to foot, his jaw clenched, and he swallowed and licked his lips, hands clenching and unclenching then rubbing his palms against his legs.
My smile was lopsided and shaky--as if I'd never taken my clothes off for a man before. But somehow, this felt different. His gaze, the intensity of it, the hunger in it, the need, the utter self-control he displayed as he stood stock-still, waiting, watching, not allowing himself to move--this was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. Xavier made it that way, just by virtue of who he was.
Desperate to feel his touch and to feel wanted simply for who I was, I dropped my arms and let the halter fall to the floor at my feet, standing topless in front of him.
He took a step toward me, and my heart raced in anticipation. "You are..." He shook his head, as if unable to finish the thought.
I closed the space between us, stopping when my nipples brushed against his bare chest. "What, Xavier? What am I?"
"Perfect," he breathed. "Fucking perfect."
I palmed his abs with both hands, ran my palms up his chest, down his biceps. "So are you."
"Your skin...it looks so soft."
"Touch me and find out," I murmured.
"Where?"
I laughed at his question. "Anywhere you want. Just touch me."
"You're always laughing at my questions."
"Not at you, not in the sense that I think you're stupid for asking. It's just...no one has ever said things this way to me before."
He reached up, and my nipples hardened in anticipation of his touch, but his hand went instead to my face, cupping my cheek, his thumb brushing my cheekbone. His fingertips traced the column of my throat, and then his palm skated over my bare shoulder. My whole body trembled under his touch, and yet he still didn't reach for the obvious fruit. He glided his hand down my arm, to my forearm, and then to my hand--his fingers interlaced with mine, and his eyes locked on me.
"Low, my attraction to you is...it's more than I know how to process. If you're not...if this is a game or a joke, please--tell me now. Because I can't handle--"
I lifted up on my toes, silencing him with a kiss. A brief one, meant only to shut him up, to prove my desire.
Only, it morphed into something more.
I felt him tense at the contact of my lips, as he always tensed at first touch, but then he relaxed, shifted forward to tower over me so I had to tilt my face up. He made a low noise in the back of his throat, and he let go of my hand, pressin
g his hands to the small of my back and deepening the kiss.
I moaned--an unaffected noise of genuine surprise at the power of his kiss, at the hunger of it. He went from zero to sixty in an instant, and my tongue instinctually slid out to seek his. Slowly at first, but with increasing fervor and confidence, Xavier kissed me. I felt him hardening behind his zipper, felt his breathing hitch.
I buried my hands in his hair, lifting up onto my toes to kiss him harder still, deeper yet, and then let my hands wander down the strong expanse of his back. I cupped his ass, moaning again at the firmness of it, the hardness, and then--god, yes, finally, his hands left the small of my back and drifted up and around to my front. They alighted at my diaphragm, just beneath the low hanging swell of my breasts, paused, and he broke the kiss, his forehead against mine.
I waited, my breath caught in my throat. I wanted to beg for his touch, but I didn't--not yet.
What was he doing to me? He made me feel as if this was as new to me as it seemed to be to him. His reverence, his hesitation...he wasn't a hard-charging, take-whatever-he-wants super dominant alpha, and yet he was still utterly male, intensely masculine, and totally himself. He made me feel like what he'd said I was--the most beautiful woman in the world. And this feeling he gave me, it meant more to me than all the attention the media could give me--because it was about me, about who I was, about how he saw me, absent of any guile or pretense or ulterior motive.
The tremble in his hands brought me out of my thoughts and back to him, to us, to the moment. He slid his hands upward, gently taking the weight of my breasts into his palms, and his thumbs grazed over my nipples.
I gasped audibly at the blazing thrill of sensation that shuddered through me, and he froze.
"Don't stop," I murmured. "That feels amazing."
He lifted my breasts, ran his palms over my nipples, and then let their weight fall, swaying and bouncing gently. I hooked my fingers in the front pockets of his jeans, pulling him against me even as I leaned my upper torso away so he could keep touching me. His gaze was locked on my tits, on his hands moving over them, watching himself caressing and exploring their weight and shape, and I felt his cock hardening with each passing moment until he was surely so hard it had to be painful.
Keeping my fingers hooked into his pockets, I walked us backward until my knees hit the bed, and I fell to my back, laughing at his surprised expression as I brought him down onto me.
"Hi," I breathed.
He was on top of me, his weight on me, one hand fisted against the mattress beside my ear, his hips between my thighs, his erection at my core, separated by his jeans and my bikini bottom.
"I'm going to kiss you again," he said.
"Good," I breathed. "I love the way you kiss me." I laughed, interrupting him before he could speak. "Yes, I absolutely mean it."
He laughed as he bent to claim my mouth, and this time there was no hesitation, no freezing, no tensing, just Xavier taking what he wanted--my kiss, my mouth, my lips.
My core ached, throbbed, begging wetly for attention, and as the kiss exploded our hunger for each other devolved into a mad need. I ground against him, unable to stop myself. He ground back against me instinctively, and his hand palmed my breast, cupping it, thumb and forefinger tweaking and twisting my nipple until I gasped into the kiss.
"They're sensitive," I said.
"I'm sorry," he murmured.
"Don't be sorry, just be gentle."
He caressed and fondled my breast with exquisite gentility. "Like this?"
"Yes," I breathed, arching my back, "god, yes...just like that."
I ran my hands across his back, scratching my fingernails down his spine to the waist of his jeans. Traced my fingers around to his navel, to the button and zipper. He sucked in his stomach, gazing down at me.
"I want to touch more of you, see more of you," I whispered.
"Okay," he said, backing away, preparing to open his jeans.
I caught at his hands. "Let me."
He sat up on his knees, hands at his sides, watching as I knelt in front of him and slowly slipped the button out of the opening, and then drew the zipper down. Immediately, his erection, straining at the gray cotton of his underwear, sprang forward, freed from the prison of the denim and zipper.
He rolled to his back and shimmied out of the jeans, tossing them to the side and then, before he could rise up again, I moved to lean over him, letting my tits drape against his arm and chest. I skated my palm over his stomach, teasing the waistband of his underwear.
He breathed slowly, deeply, evenly, his eyes roaming my face and then down my body, devouring the way the pale flesh of my tits looked against his tanned skin. He stared at my breasts for a moment or two and then swept his gaze downward, to my core. I was so wet with arousal, the fabric of the bikini bottom stuck to my nether lips, outlined and obvious. Blushing, I resisted the urge to cross my thighs, to cover up the evidence of my need.
He bit his lip, his eyes narrowing, nostrils flaring, chest swelling with a deep breath. I caressed his chest and stomach, letting him get used to the feel of my hand on his skin before I dared do anything any further. I was on my side, facing him, propped on an elbow, leaning most of my weight onto Xavier; his fingers trailed over my breastbone, down between the valley of my breasts, to my stomach, hesitating at the waist of my bikini. His eyes met mine, looking for demurral or disapproval; I rolled to my back and let my thighs splay apart.
He followed me, rolling to his side now, and his palm spread over my navel and carved down my left leg, fingers exploring the delicacy of my inner thigh. My breath caught when he dragged his middle finger up the seam of my core, over the fabric of my bikini bottom.
"Another gasp," he noted. "You enjoy that."
I nodded. "Keep going. Please."
His gaze flicked to the loose bowknots at each hip, all that was keeping my bikini bottom fastened. Moving his hand maddeningly slowly, he reached out and captured one loose end of the ties at my left hipbone, tugged, and the knot came undone, the strings falling open; his fingers danced across my belly, low, following the waistband to the other knot, which he untied. I forced myself to keep breathing, to let him go at his own pace. But god, I wanted his touch. I wanted an orgasm I didn't give myself. I wanted his fingers, his mouth. His tongue.
He drew the small triangle of cloth away from my core, and I lifted my butt up slightly so he could pull it free and toss it over the side of the bed. I lay naked, flushed with desire, aching, trembling, I waited for his touch.
His gaze widened as he stared at me, his eyes roaming my core--the tiny inverted isosceles triangle of reddish gold hair over my core, which I'd recently trimmed and shaped. His hand, once again, spread over my navel, his palm centered over my belly button. His breathing hitched, and he slid his hand downward, fingers first.
Please, please, please, I thought.
His middle finger covered my seam, and then slid with delicate gentility upward, eliciting a whimper from me. I drew my legs further apart, spreading my pussy open for him, letting him see all of me. My heart was hammering, nerves slamming through me as if this was my first time doing this. Was it his? I somehow thought it might be, but I wasn't sure and wasn't going to ask, not in that moment; selfishly, perhaps--I just wanted him to touch me. His touch was beautiful, soft, gentle, exploratory, strong...and I needed more of it. So much more.
I covered his hand with mine, placing my fingers over his. I guided his middle finger into me, inhaling a sharp whimpering gasp at the feel of his thick, strong finger inside. When he drew it out, I guided his finger, slick with my essence, to my clit. Showed him how to touch me--slowly, in wide circles around the hardened nub, occasionally flicking it or brushing side to side. He caught on rapidly, mimicking what I'd shown him.
Within seconds, I was gasping, and my hips were flexing, and my core was spasming and clenching around nothing.
He gazed down at me in concern. "Low? Are you...are you okay?"
I
laughed breathlessly, burying my hands in my curls, whimpering at his touch. "Fuck yes, I'm okay--I'm so much more than okay," I said, writhing against his fingers--he'd added a second finger to the first, smearing my leaking juices around my clit. "So good, so good. Don't you dare stop."
"You're having an orgasm?" he asked, watching me carefully.
"Almost--almost. So close. Keep doing that--just like that, and I will."
"I won't stop."
I laughed again, through a whimper, and grabbed at his face, pulling him toward me. "Kiss me while you make me come, Xavier."
He bent over me, fingers circling, and his mouth claimed mine. His tongue hunted for mine, and the kiss stole my breath, the hunger in him, the power of his kiss, the intensity and the passion of it. He kissed as if kissing me was more important than his next breath, as if he could die if he didn't kiss me.
I knotted my fingers in his hair, and when we broke to gasp for breath, I shoved his head down to my breasts. "Kiss me there," I breathed, "taste me."
He took me literally, kissing the side of my breast, and then again in a different spot. His fingers were still busily circling, bringing me closer and closer to the edge, and I didn't want to get there--not yet. God, not yet. I wanted this to last forever, his weight on me, his fingers on my clit, his mouth on my tits.
"You taste amazing," Xavier said. "Like salt and...and something else I can't name."
"Taste more of me," I said, meeting his eyes. "All of me. I want your mouth on me."
I sucked in a sharp breath as his mouth centered on my nipple and his tongue flicked it, and then lapped at it--when I whimpered, he repeated what he'd done to make me whimper. The other breast, then, and I was a writhing mess of need, gasping, whining, my hands tangled in his dark locks.
I was close, so close.
Heat shattered through me, pressure subsumed me. Need ran through my veins in place of blood. The orgasm that was building inside me was going to be nuclear, I knew.
But I still wasn't ready for this to end.
I caught at his wrist. "Slow--slow down."
"Is something wrong?"
I shook my head. "If you stop for a second and let me catch my breath, let me back away from the edge of coming, when I do get there it'll be all the more intense for me."
He busied himself kissing my tits, his lips and tongue paying homage, again and again, his kisses covering them all over. He lapped and licked, teased and flicked, and then suckled one nipple until I shrieked.
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