Will stared at her, concern coloring his features.
“No tattoos,” she finally choked out. “No piercings. Pretty boring over here.”
He grinned at her. “You, love, are anything but boring.”
Chapter Sixteen
Ivy’s face flushed brightly as Will watched. Her bruise was healing nicely. He’d noticed that earlier, but he’d been far too distracted by convincing her to stay.
“Not really,” she murmured. “I’m not that interesting. Maybe the women you know are just spectacularly dull.”
He nodded. “Some of them. And some of them are perfectly lovely, but I’m not interested in them. I’m interested you.”
Disbelief was clear on her face. Almost as clear as the discomfort that seemed to plague her as soon as he’d returned to the room. He wanted to ask what was upsetting her, but he knew she’d just shut him down again. Well, she’d try, anyway. Sooner or later, he’d get it out of her.
“And your...” he made air quotes, “non-existent kinks.”
She rolled her eyes.
“So, I’m imagining that you enjoyed having your hair pulled?”
She shifted slightly on the bed but didn’t respond.
“And that wasn’t a little whimper of pleasure when I grabbed hold of your hips and pounded into you?”
She moistened her lips and cleared her throat.
“And obviously, you weren’t screaming behind my hand and coming so hard I could barely move. I’m completing misremembering that, right?”
She took another swallow of water then looked at him. “You’ve had too many concussions. It’s left you unable to discern fantasy from reality.”
His lips twitched. He was relieved to see that she seemed to be relaxing a bit. “Is that it?”
She nodded, her color still high. “Perfectly reasonable explanation.”
He grabbed the takeaway container and popped it open. “I suppose that I must be delusional, and this crème brûlée is just a figment of my impact-addled mind.”
He grabbed a spoon and broke through the caramelized top of the dessert and popped a bite into his mouth, closing his eyes as the sweet vanilla custard slid over his tongue. Opening his eyes, he grabbed another spoonful and offered it to Ivy. “Care for a bite of my imaginary sweet?”
She laughed, and he couldn’t help but smile at the sound. He got the feeling she hadn’t done a lot of that lately. He was now on a mission to see that she laughed more often. Came more often, too, for that matter.
Leaning forward, she accepted the bite he offered, then closed her eyes and groaned in appreciation. His cock twitched to life at the throaty sound.
“Oh, my god,” she said, her eyes flying open.
“That good?” he asked.
“That is, by far, the best imaginary dessert I’ve ever had.” She grinned. “The best actual dessert, too.”
“I’d hoped you’d like it,” he admitted. “You know, if you come to London with me, we can do a dessert tour of the best restaurants.”
Her brow furrowed the tiniest amount, and she shifted on the bed, drawing her legs up toward her chest, almost as if she were feeling self-conscious. As he watched, she seemed to sink in on herself.
“That’s probably not the best idea,” she murmured giving him a half-hearted smile.
“And why is that?”
She glanced down at herself then back up at him, looking uncomfortable. “Let’s be honest, a dessert tour is the last thing I need.”
He set the takeaway box on the floor and skimmed his hand over the outside of her leg. “Is that your opinion or your knob of an ex’s?”
She looked away. “Does it matter? Either way, it’s true.”
He shifted until their faces were level. Cupping her chin, he guided her until she met his gaze. “It does to me.”
“Look, I know I don’t look like the other women you normally...” Her words drifted off.
“Have relationships with?” he supplied.
Her lips quirked. “I was going to say fuck, but okay, ‘have relationships with’ works.”
“So, you’ve been...” He waited for her to say more, and she didn’t disappoint.
“I’m not saying that I’ve been stalking you to see who you’re with...but you know, every once in a while, Charlotte posts a link on Facebook to an article about you or the team. Sometimes, there’ve been photos of your dates, too.”
He opened his mouth, but before he could speak, she blurted, “I’m self-conscious, okay? You’re really fit and fucking gorgeous. And I’m overweight and boring and dumpy, and now that you don’t have me shoved up against a wall and I can think straight, I can’t figure out why you’re interested in me when you could have probably any woman you want.”
She took a breath and immediately continued, “I’m not looking for compliments. I want you to know that. That’s not what this is. This is just me freaking the fuck out because, other than nostalgia, I’m not sure what we’re doing here. And nostalgia is fine. I mean, I get that. I get why you might be curious about the first woman you’d ever had sex with. Of course you would. So, I guess what I’m trying to say is, you don’t need to take me to London for a dessert tour or whatever. You don’t need to worry about entertaining me. I don’t want to be some sort of obligation for you now that Charlotte and Caleb are gone.”
Will frowned as he stared at Ivy, and all of the post-sex relaxation and warmth faded away. He shifted to his knees. “Did I somehow give you the idea that I was in any way feeling obligated to entertain you because my sister had to leave?” Without giving her a chance to respond, he added, “Are you under the impression that I made you come so hard you screamed—twice—out of some warped sense of hospitality? If that’s hospitality, I’ve clearly been staying at the wrong fucking places.”
Her eyes widened. “I didn’t mean...”
“You didn’t mean what you said?” Her inability to recognize her own self-worth grated on him. He wasn’t sure who he was more frustrated with. Her for not seeing it or her ex for likely reinforcing her already poor self-esteem.
She closed her eyes, her dark thick lashes falling against her flushed cheeks.
“You didn’t mean to say that the only reason I could possibly want to have sex with you was out of curiosity? So, we’ve got curiosity, obligation, and hospitality. What’s next? Pity? Do you think you’re a pity fuck, Ivy? Do you think I wander around, and when I see someone who’s down on herself, I just offer to shag her? Boost her self-confidence a bit?”
Ivy reached out as if she were about to touch him but let her hand fall to the mattress. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
He shifted to sit in front of her and rested his hands on her calves, brushing his thumbs up and down her shin bones.
“I’m not upset.”
She cocked her head to the side and her skeptical expression was clear—even if her snort hadn’t been.
“Okay,” he conceded. “I’m a little upset that you think that I’m the kind of person who’d come on to you because of obligation or hospitality. Was there some curiosity there? Absolutely. But I’m betting you were just as curious as I was.”
She nodded slightly then looked away.
“We seem to do better when I’m direct.”
Her gaze lifted to his, and he leaned forward.
“I want to make sure you don’t miss any of this, so listen carefully, love. You’re not an obligation. I’m the least hospitable bastard you’ll ever meet. And I don’t pity you. We clear on that?”
She nodded again.
“I’m attracted to you. You, Ivy Wright. And yeah, there’s some curiosity tied up in that, too. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t. But you’re sexy as fuck. Gorgeous. Funny. Kind. Smart. Great with kids. What’s not to be attracted to?”
She glanced away from him, but he caught her chin and brought her gaze back to him. “I want to get to know you better. I want you to get to know me. Will you give me a chance?”
Confusion wrinkled her nose. “A chance for what?”
Did she really think so little of herself that she believed he couldn’t possibly be interested in her as more than a quick fuck, or did she think so little of him? Neither option sat well with him.
“A chance to see where this thing between us goes. Explore your non-existent kinks. Introduce you to some of my very much existing ones.”
She simply stared at him, leaving him hanging.
“Unless I’ve completely read you wrong, and you’re no longer attracted to me now that your curiosity’s been sated.”
She moistened her lips and shook her head.
“That little headshake could go either way. Which is it, love? You are still attracted to me, or you aren’t?”
“No.” She cleared her throat. “No, you didn’t read me wrong. Yes, I’m attracted to you.”
Satisfaction that he’d read her correctly warmed something inside him.
Her gaze slid up and down his body. “I’d have to be dead not to be,” she muttered.
He grinned. “Same.”
She rolled her eyes again.
Grabbing her ankles, he yanked her forward, spreading her legs and draping them over his thighs. She gasped as the sudden motion knocked her to her back. He shifted until he was looming over her, his hands on her wrists, pinning her to the bed.
“I need to make something very clear.”
“You seem to have that need quite regularly,” she said, her voice breathy and her eyes dilating.
He glanced down her body to find her nipples taut and straining against the fabric of her bra. “True, but you seem to require frequent clarification.”
“What are you clarifying now?”
He lowered his hips and slowly thrust his hard cock against her fabric-covered mound. Her lips parted as her breath seized.
“I believe we were discussing the fact that I’d have to be dead not to be attracted to you.”
“Oh.”
She turned her head to the side and seemed to be staring at where he held her captive. He ground against her, again, his name escaping her lips on a groan as she lifted her hips in response.
“So, am I imagining that you like to be held down?” When she didn’t respond, he released one of her wrists and tapped the side of her face. “Eyes on mine, love.”
She faced him, her pupils blown wide and ringed by the thinnest ring of color, and shook her head.
“Good to know.”
With her eyes on him, he stretched the arm he still held above her head and grabbed her other wrist with his free hand and transferred it to the first. Sliding his fingers from her wrist down the soft skin of her inner arm, he skimmed them over her upper chest to rest loosely on her throat. Even if he hadn’t been pressed against her, he would have felt her gasp as his fingers closed ever so slightly around her neck. He tightened them slightly, and her hips jerked involuntarily against his.
His cock stiffened further. “What about my hand around your throat?”
“What about it?” she croaked.
“Do you like it?”
Her eyes fluttered closed, and she whispered, “God, yes,” as if she couldn’t quite bear to admit it. She rocked her hips against his, rubbing the crotch of her underwear against his stiff prick.
“You remember your safeword?”
Her eyes opened, and she looked momentarily confused before she nodded.
“Good,” he breathed as he tightened her hold on her wrists and firmed his grip around her neck.
Her whole body shuddered, and his shorts were nearly as damp with her juices as her knickers were.
“Oh, love...for someone who insists she doesn’t have any kinks, you definitely like to be restrained and choked.”
Her hips pumped faster, and he stifled a groan as he watched her strain, working to get herself off against his body. She was so fucking gorgeous. Her hair was a tangled halo on the pillow, and her skin was flushed, and her lips parted as she panted.
She arched upward. Her tight nipples pushed against her bra, and he wanted yank down the cups, bare her tits, and pull those hard little peaks into his mouth. But judging from her reaction, the position of his hands on her body was about to send her over the edge. He wasn’t going to jeopardize that just because he wasn’t getting enough of her.
Ivy stiffened beneath him, frozen in place as her release slammed into her, and it was all he could do not to come in his shorts as she trembled beneath him.
Chapter Seventeen
“Christ, that was beautiful,” Will murmured, his hand still resting over her throat.
Ivy forced open her eyes, and her gaze fixed on him as she dragged in several desperate lungsful of air. For fuck’s sake. She’d just dry-humped Will like she was a teenager getting off with her boyfriend for the first time.
Will continued to stare at her, his eyes heavy-lidded and his arousal hot and hard against her still quivering pussy. It took all the restraint she possessed not to rub herself against him again. He shifted to lie next to her, but he kept his hands where they were.
There was a tiny thought vying for attention at the back of her brain—something she knew she should be thinking about—but everything about him overwhelmed and distracted her. Like the way he stared at her mouth before his gaze climbed to hers again. The way his hair fell forward, the shadows deepening the green of his eyes. And the way that each breath he took caused his chest to brush enticingly across her nipples.
That tiny thought vying for attention started to move closer to the surface, but the sensation of Will dragging his fingertips from her throat down over the swell of her breasts to her stomach lured it away. As his hand traveled farther still to tease around the waistband of her underwear, the thought almost vanished completely. All she could focus on were his fingers tracing the edge of her panties instead of stroking her aching, needy flesh like she wanted. The earlier orgasm had taken the edge off, but his hands around her wrists and neck had awoken a need in her she’d had no idea existed.
“You know...” he murmured, slipping a fingertip beneath the elastic and lazily toying with her. “I’m not sure you ever answered my question satisfactorily.”
She squeezed her thighs together and tried to ignore the growing ache between them. “You asked me a question?” she gasped as his fingers inched closer to her mound.
A slowly spreading smile curved his lips, and he lowered his head and nipped at the taut peak of her breast through her bra. She stiffened, arching her back toward his mouth. Instead of taking her ever so subtle hint, he simply raised his head and grinned.
“To be fair, you did answer part of it.” He shifted and dropped open-mouthed kisses over her stomach.
“What part?” she groaned as he moved lower.
He turned his head, lifting it slightly and pinning her with his gaze. “That I hadn’t read you wrong—that you’re still attracted to me.”
“Oh. That.” She crossed her feet at her ankles in an effort to stave off the need that was growing by the minute. “Yeah. I answered that.”
Reaching down, he tapped her ankle. “How am I supposed to get my head between your thighs when your legs are crossed, love?”
Shudders wracked her body. “I don’t remember that question,” she said, closing her eyes.
“That’s a new one.” He skimmed his knuckles across the sodden fabric of her panties, and her hips jerked upward, following his far too brief touch. “But I suppose the answer to that question depends on the answer to the other.”
“I can’t remember the question,” she whispered, her eyes squeezed shut.
He altered positions so quickly that, even if her eyes had been open, she doubted she wouldn’t have been able to follow his movement. When she finally forced herself to look at him, he was straddling her body, resting his ass above her groin. And he looked entirely too pleased with himself.
She swallowed thickly. “What other question?”
He leaned over her,
still holding her wrists and his cock tenting the front of his shorts. The damp spot was impossible to miss. She couldn’t help but wonder if that was from him or her.
“Will you give me a chance—give us a chance?”
Her lips parted, and for a moment, she forgot how to breathe. That’s what that stupid little voice in the back of her mind had been trying to bring to her attention. It all came swirling back, now. He wanted to explore the kinks she refused to admit to. He wanted to see where this attraction between them went. That destination was pretty well obvious. It went straight to the two of them mostly naked and her on the verge of begging him to fuck her. No great mysteries, there.
She moistened her lips. “What would giving you a chance consist of?”
“I’d rather think of it as giving us a chance.” He raised his eyebrows then leaned closer. “I want us to get to know each other better. I want you to be able to explore all the things you think you’ve wanted to try, but that your knob of an ex tried to shame you for. I want to introduce you to things I enjoy. And right now, more than anything, I want to tie you to this bed and bury my face in your cunt.”
“Oh, god,” she breathed. Her pussy clenched emptily, and her skin suddenly felt far too tight.
“So?”
“So?” she repeated, slightly disoriented and more than a little desperate to have him do exactly what he’d just suggested.
“So...tell me what you want, love.”
“I want what you just said,” she blurted.
He leaned over her and ran his lips alongside the sensitive skin of her neck, sending shivers through her. “You’ll need to be more specific. Tell me what you want.”
“You’re the direct one, not me.” Her words ended on a squeal as he sank his teeth into her earlobe.
He moved his head until she was trapped in his dark gaze. “You’ll learn.”
Lowering his head, he captured her lips, delving into her mouth, stroking and tasting her. She kissed him back, drawing on his tongue and biting at his lower lip.
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