Since I Saw You

by BETH KERY

  “I’ve never seen an Asian woman with curly hair. It’s beautiful,” he muttered, distracted by the sensation of it coiling around his fingers. Her hair was a lighter weight than he would have thought considering the mass at the back of her head, but there was tons of it. The fragrance of the liberated tendrils reached his nose—fruit and flowers, musky and sensual. It whisked next to his calloused fingers, feeling like silk and air combined.

  “It’s not that common. The humidity makes it worse,” she said huskily, staring up at him with a solemn, dark-eyed gaze.

  His jaw tightened as he reached to unfasten her bra, the anticipation cutting at him. He could tell by her shape in the clinging bra she was going to be lovely. After he’d removed the bra, he just stared for a moment, lust and something sharp and unexpected tightening his throat and cock. When air finally escaped his lungs, it did so on a rough, uncontrollable groan.

  “Lin,” he said as he opened his hands along her rib cage, feeling the delicate lines of her carriage, her rapidly beating heart, her softness, her heat. He went lower, encircling her waist. He’d been right. He could nearly encompass her in his grasp. He scooted her farther up the bedcover and came down over her. Their mouths fused, hot and voracious from the first. He’d realized earlier that although her figure was slender and her features small, she was tall for a woman. Their fit was ideal. He rested one hip on the bed, but she curved against him like a heat-seeking kitten, cupping his aching cock between her thighs. The evidence of her returned ardor inflamed him further.

  He rolled on top of her, pressing her down into the mattress and ravening her mouth, suddenly too hungry to be polite.

  “Ah God,” she whispered when he raised his head a moment later and flexed, his straining cock pressing against the juncture of her thighs. She gyrated her hips, and he saw red. His lips found her cheek and her ear. He kissed the opening and she squirmed beneath him, gasping. He bit gently at the shell and brought her earlobe into his mouth, laving both skin and the smooth pearl inserted in the flesh, licking at the succulent contrast of smooth hardness and tender softness. The feeling of her sleek body writhing beneath him almost made him go berserk. Only his single-minded desire to taste more of her stopped him from driving into her then and there, from discovering firsthand if she was as soft and warm on the inside as she was on the surface.

  Her neck was fragrant, her trapped cries delicious against his lips and gently scraping teeth. She craned her head up, trying to find his mouth again. Her hands moved frantically over his back, scooping his light jacket and the material of his shirt with them. He lifted his head and hissed when her fingernails scraped against bare skin and a shiver of sharp sensation rippled through him.

  Their stares met briefly as he shifted on top of her, gathering her hands. He held her wrists and pressed them to the pillow above her head. He waited two heartbeats . . . three, but she didn’t protest at his restraint.

  Instead, she arched her back in an offering.

  Lust tore at him, undeniable. Feral. She’d exceeded his expectations. Her breasts were mouthwateringly beautiful. They had the thrusting firmness of small breasts, but they weren’t small. They were fleshy and ripe, and the way they stood out from her narrow, delicate rib cage drove him mad. He transferred her wrists to one hand and used the other to shape a breast, plumping the tender, extremely firm flesh.

  “C’est si bon,” he muttered before he went lower. Her skin was so flawless, so transparent, that he could see the delicate blue veins beneath it. He slipped a crown between his lips and laved the pebbled flesh against his tongue, drinking in her moans of pleasure, becoming drunk by her softness and scent, by her responsiveness. When he drew on her more forcefully, she bucked her hips and moaned her approval. Her pussy rubbed against his heavy erection, beckoning him . . . taunting.

  He snarled in barely leashed restraint and secured his hold on her wrists. He transferred to her other sweet breast, keeping her immobile for his ravening mouth by cupping her rib cage with one hand and pressing her wrists down into the pillow. After he’d sucked and laved at her nipple until it grew tight and distended and her desperate cries told him how sensitive the flesh had become, he transferred his mouth to the sides of her heaving ribs.

  “Please . . . Kam,” she whispered frantically when he opened his mouth and scraped the skin covering her ribs. A shudder ran through her, delicate and delicious as the rest of her. His tongue ran over her skin, feeling the slight bumps his caresses had raised. He released his hold on her torso—it excited him how much of her trembling body he could hold with even one hand—and ran it over the mound between her thighs. She parted her legs immediately, and he looked into her face. Her cheeks were flushed, her pink mouth a parted invitation as she panted shallowly.

  Fuck.

  It was as much a curse as it was an order from the primitive part of his brain.

  “You want it now, ma petite minette? You want it fast and hard?” he muttered roughly through clenched teeth.

  “Please,” she repeated, this time soundlessly.

  He fell on her, ravaging her mouth. So sweet. So responsive. His hand moved, pulling up the edge of her skirt, fingers skimming across smooth, taut thighs partially covered in cool, smooth, clingy material. Arousal spiked through him and he lifted his head, staring downward. Jesus. She was wearing some kind of lacy, thigh-high stockings that were nearly as pale and soft as her skin. His cock lurched at the vision she made. Frenchmen were supposedly used to women in luxury lingerie, but the women Kam bedded usually weren’t the type to wear such refined, feminine, frilly things—or to afford them, for that matter.

  Spellbound, he moved his hand over her silk-covered mound. He felt her heat and jerked the pretty panties downward roughly. A groan scored his throat when he touched her. She was smooth here, too. Warm, sleek, and creamy. He dipped the ridge of his forefinger between shaved labia. Desire had softened and plumped her flesh. He leaned down and ate her aroused cries. She strained against him and writhed when he inserted a finger into her clasping vagina.

  He lifted his head, his breath sounding ragged as he stimulated her and met her gaze. A primitive pulse pounded in his swollen cock, demanding he act. She was going to squeeze him until he didn’t know his own name. She was going to wring him until he was an ecstatic, rutting savage.

  Something hit him like a dull thud to the gut.

  “I don’t have a condom,” he ground out, the harsh reality penetrating his rabid lust. He always brought condoms when he planned to be with a woman, but it wasn’t part of his normal routine to carry one around. He was used to living in isolation in the country.

  None of this—from the glittering city to these new clothes to this stunning woman beneath him who had been both what he expected and drastically different—remotely resembled his typical life.

  She lifted her head slightly and glanced at the bedside table where he’d tossed the hairpins. “There,” she said.

  Caught between the choice of continuing to bind her wrists or remove his hand from her slippery, tight pussy, he let go of her wrists and strained toward the table, whipping open the small drawer. His hand moved over items in blind desperation.

  “Merde,” he muttered under his breath, forced to remove his hand from paradise in order to eventually achieve even more sublime raptures. He scooted up on the bed, peering into the drawer. He shoved aside a small bottle of lotion, a jar of lip emollient, a couple of elastic headbands, some pens, and what appeared to be several carefully dried and pressed purple lotus flowers inserted into a plastic sleeve. He finally spied an unopened box of condoms.

  Her palm cupped his cock from below. She slid it along the shaft, as though testing his weight. He hissed and clamped his eyes closed as she closed her fingers around him, her touch even through his clothing thundering through him. He felt huge in her small, stroking hand, heavy . . . hurting.

  He snarled and reached for
the offending hand. The sweet one.

  “I’m going to come in my pants if you keep that up,” he uttered harshly. He focused on her face with effort. “Put your hand back above your head and keep it there, mon petit chaton. I’m not going to be exploding anywhere but deep inside you.”

  • • •

  Lin tried to control her ragged breathing as she followed his instructions and placed her hands above her head, resting them on the pillow. She failed. Panting, she watched him as he impatiently shucked off his jacket and shirt. There was a good amount of dark hair on his chest, but it didn’t hide smooth skin and flexing muscle. He came down on his hip on the bed and unfastened his jeans. She’d held his cock in her hand, felt his weight and heat throbbing against her sex.

  Her heart began to race in her breast as adrenaline poured into her veins.

  He unceremoniously jerked the jeans down his hips and over long, muscled hair-sprinkled thighs, his taut abdomen and powerful biceps flexing hard. His fingers hooked into the waistband of his boxer briefs and pulled them forward over his bulging genitals. He yanked downward.

  His naked cock flipped onto his belly—desire-swollen, flagrant . . .

  . . . indescribably beautiful.

  Her lips parted. Her breath froze.

  He ripped open the condom package and began to roll it down over his erection. She leaned up slightly to better see him, using her elbows to brace her, curious . . . hungry. The head was a succulence from which she couldn’t unglue her gaze, a firm, flushed, and noticeably delineated crown to the long, thick staff. He cursed when the condom ran out with several inches to go to his testicles, covered by dark hair.

  The prophylactic wasn’t long enough.

  “Is it okay?” he asked roughly, glancing up in her direction.

  She nodded, unable to speak. It was like some pagan god of virility had landed in her bed, when before she’d witnessed only mortals.

  He grunted softly at her permission. “Put your hands back,” he prodded gently. While she followed his instructions, he lifted her skirt all the way to her waist. He rolled between her legs, and she opened her thighs to accommodate him. She bit her lip, anticipation cutting at her from the inside out, when he came down over her, bracing his body with a hand on the mattress. His other hand captured his suspended cock.

  She exhaled the air she’d been holding in her lungs when he used the bulging head of his cock to rub between her labia, wetting the tip with her juices, stimulating her clit. She moaned and watched him as he stared between her thighs, moving his cock, finding her slit unerringly.

  “Oh,” she mumbled, shock and arousal flavoring her tone when he flexed firmly, working the fleshy cockhead into her. He paused, looking up at her, his jaw tight.

  “You’re tight. Try to relax,” he said in a gravelly tone. “Spread your thighs apart farther and bend your knees a bit.”

  She moaned after she’d followed his instructions and his muscles contracted, pushing his cock farther into her. He stared at her face fixedly as he began to flex his hips, gently sawing the end of his cock back and forth in her slit.

  “That’s right,” he muttered through a rigid jaw, his low, hoarse tone coaxing her . . . arousing. “You’ve got a tight little pussy, but you’re going to let me in, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” she hissed at the same moment she flexed her hips upward determinedly. Her pussy stretched around his girth, her softness submitting to his pulsing, hard shaft.

  He made a stifled sound like archg as his flesh slowly fused with hers.

  It was both uncomfortable and headily arousing to hold him inside her. She clenched her teeth and flexed her hips up and down, stroking him, desperate to be filled. Completely. Kam made a harsh sound in his throat and used his hand to still her.

  He met her stare, his teeth bared in a snarl as he held her steady and sunk in her to the balls. Her mouth fell open, and a shaky, disbelieving cry escaped her throat. He pressed closer still, smashing his balls against her outer sex, grinding. She’d never been so inundated, so full. The indirect pressure on her clit was wicked.

  A light coating of sweat shone on his ridged, naked torso as he remained still with obvious effort. His gaze bore down into her.

  “Is it too much?” he grated out.

  “I’m going to come,” she said, the shaky words spilling out of her a shock even to herself.

  “Then do it,” he rasped as he lifted slightly, exposing her outer flesh. He reached between her thighs and slid his finger between the smooth, slippery folds of her labia. He rubbed his fingertip against her clit with matter-of-fact mastery. She cried out and arched her back as orgasm shuddered through her, the ecstasy exponentially powerful with Kam planted deep in her flesh.

  She heard his deep, primal growl as if from a distance. He continued to rub her for a moment. She was still coming—harsh shudders of bliss slashing through her—when he removed his hand. He folded her knees toward her shoulders and leaned down over her, using his body to fix her bent legs in place flush against her torso. He began to fuck while she still keened in climax.

  For a few seconds, his demanding possession interrupted her bliss. It was too much, really, having him pound so high and hard inside her. It took her breath away. But then the friction caused by the swollen, defined cockhead rubbing previously untouched flesh began to mount. It was like he was building a fire in her.

  She moaned and stared up at him helplessly. He looked down at her, his handsome face so rigid, his eyes so wild it was almost frightening, like truly being taken by a force of nature. His strokes became longer, even more forceful. She bared her teeth in the face of the intense pressure and mounting pleasure, groaning, and lifted her head off the pillow, glancing downward. The staff of his cock glistened with her juices as it moved like a piston in and out of her, his pelvis smacking against her briskly in an arousing, erotic rhythm that quickened by the second.

  She fell back, gasping against the pillows. “Oh God, the condom.” He was taking her so forcefully, so thoroughly, that the bottom rim of the rubber was coming down off his thick cock.

  “I know it,” he ground out in a strangled voice, never pausing his powerful thrusts. “It’ll hold for as long as it takes. I won’t last. Not in this sweet little pussy, I won’t. I’m going to come.”

  She squeezed her eyelids tight at his harsh, erotic words. He slammed into her and circled his hips, once again overfilling her, grinding their sexes together. She screamed in excitement and felt his cock swell and jerk inside her. His shout was blistering. Raw. She lay back on the pillows, panting in sharp excitement and vague discomfort, watching him as he began to come. Every muscle in his lean, ripped body was contracted tight, rippling and jerking. Spellbound, she realized she’d been willingly depriving herself of his beauty. She reached for him, suddenly wild to caress and stroke what seemed like miles of smooth skin and delineated muscle. But he made a ragged sound and pushed down on her shins, stilling her action.

  He rode her while he ejaculated. The intense friction made her eyes cross. She joined him in climax, too overwhelmed by his stark possession to stand outside the flames.

  “Fuck. I can feel you coming,” he groaned, sounding beyond miserable.

  “No,” she yelped when he withdrew.

  It was like abruptly having ice water poured on her steaming skin, the deprivation of his flesh was so severe. He fell down on the mattress, panting, his pelvis cradling her hip, his damp cock throbbing on her thigh.

  “I had to. The damn condom isn’t going to stay put. I don’t want to spill in you,” he said at the same time that he slid his hand between her thighs. She cried out as her climax ramped up to its original potent blast as he rubbed her slick clit rapidly. Her eyes closed as she shook in pleasure.

  “No, open them,” he ordered roughly.

  She lifted her heavy eyelids. Both of his hands resumed moving, a
nd she realized he stimulated both of them at once.

  It struck her as overwhelmingly intimate, to stare into his fierce gaze while they both shuddered in mutual pleasure . . .

  . . . to stare into the familiar face of a virtual stranger.

  Chapter Three

  He sagged onto the bed next to her, his head falling into the pillow. As she lay there and felt his harsh breathing near her ear, slow and even, her body seemed to liquefy, melting into the mattress. He was warm and solid. Her drowsiness paradoxically alarmed her somehow.

  She’d just had wild, impulsive sex with someone she’d just met. She could count using one finger the number of times she’d done that in her life—and that time on spring break during grad school didn’t really count, given the uncustomary amount of tequila involved and the completely forgettable sexual encounter itself. She’d despised herself afterward for putting herself in that unsavory situation, vowing to never allow herself to lose control in that arena of her life again.

  But tonight hadn’t been some drunken encounter with a cocky yet fumbling college kid. This had been a lightning strike of desire with none other than Ian Noble’s brother, the very man she was supposed to guide and soften for a potentially lucrative business deal. A deal that was certainly important to her boss, because Kam was family.

  Ian.

  A vision of Ian’s laserlike, blue-eyed gaze and impenetrable expression flashed into her mind’s eye. It set off a prickly feeling of anxiety that broke through her delicious lassitude. Realizing her hands were still above her head, she cautiously lowered them, glancing sideways at Kam all the while. Was he sleeping? His breathing had certainly become slow and even.