The Bachelor's Promise (Bachelor Auction)

by Naima Simone

  Her fingers flexed against his scalp, her fingernails biting into his scalp. Aiden grunted, and she breathlessly apologized, easing her grip. But he nipped the peak, nuzzled it. “Don’t apologize. You can’t hurt me. Mark me up, sweetheart. Do your worst.”

  She took him at his word and clung to him as he switched his attention to her neglected breast, licking and savoring her like his favorite treat. And when he trailed a damp, hot path down her torso and dipped his tongue in her belly button, in that moment she believed she was something treasured and favored. All her insecurities were long-distant memories, because here, in this quiet guest bedroom in a penthouse fit for a king, he made her feel like no other woman existed. Like no other had ever roughened his breath until it came heavy and ragged from his chest. Like no other woman mattered. No other woman except her.

  It was a fairy tale. An instant of sex-induced hysteria.

  But for now, for tonight, she would bask in it. Greedily.

  With deft movements, he released the pants fastener at her waist and slid down the zipper. The whisper of the metal teeth separating seemed deafening in the thick silence. She clenched and unclenched her fingers in his hair, anxiety-edged excitement knotting her stomach, pulsating in her clit and deeper within the core of her. Knowledge of what he intended, of where the feather-light caresses across her lower abdomen were headed rocked through her. Nerves jangled under her skin, and she shook in his grasp, the only thing holding her up his strong, wide hands on her hips.

  He tipped his head back, studying her. “Have you ever allowed a man to taste you here, Noelle? Let him eat you like a meal he can’t get enough of?”

  Oh shit. She’d heard men describe oral sex in crude ways, but never like this. Never like it was all his pleasure, something he hungered for.

  “Noelle?”

  “N-no,” she stammered. Kisses, yes. Even touching. But no, she’d never permitted any this particular intimacy. Being this…exposed, this vulnerable with someone? The thought had made her skittish. Until now.

  “Will you let me?” He pressed his thumbs into the spot just above her sex, inches away from her aching, pulsing clit. His stare dropped, as if he could see her flesh through her black panties.

  “You really want to…” She trailed off, not sure what or why she was asking.

  Aiden was already nodding. “Fuck you with my mouth? Get you off with my tongue? Suck your clit and lick you until you come? Hell. Yes,” he ground out, his thumbs massaging small, tight circles into her pelvic bone. “The only thing I want more is my cock buried inside you.”

  Oh, God, this man could talk her right into orgasm. He should have an advisory label slapped on his forehead. Warning: Ovary Explosion Ahead.

  He leaned forward, planted an openmouthed, wet kiss over the band of her underwear. “Will you let me?” he repeated. Another kiss. “Say yes.”

  “Yes.” The answer burst out of her.

  In the next instant, her back pressed against the bed instead of the wall, her pants were removed, leaving her naked except for her black panties. She blinked, and the ceiling disappeared, replaced by Aiden. His lips covered hers, his tongue thrusting past her lips, sweeping inside, stretching her wide for his possession. Just as he would her body with his mouth and then his dick.

  Before she could claim his head again, he drifted down over her neck, chest, doling out a lazy lick to each nipple, then lower still. His large body skimmed down hers, the solid weight of him a caress in itself. He wedged his wide shoulders between her thighs, and his breath bathed the flesh at the juncture of her thighs.

  He lifted his head, met her gaze, and, hooking his fingers in the band of her underwear, drew the material down her legs, not freeing her from his visual ensnarement. Not when he dropped the clothing on the floor. Not when he dipped his head and licked a scorching path up her drenched cleft.

  Electric. Sizzling. Her spine arched hard, as if whipped. Her lips parted on the cry that surged up from within her, but it lodged in her throat. Jesus. Oh, Jesus. She scrabbled for his head, his shoulders, but couldn’t reach them. Instead, she clawed at the covers, grasping them in a stranglehold. And as he repeated the caress, his tongue circling and stroking her clit, she couldn’t prevent the scream that ripped from her throat.

  “Where’re you going?” came Aiden’s dark whisper. His hands clamped down on her hips, controlling the frantic bucking and rolling. “I’m not nearly satisfied. I could stay here feasting on you all night.” He flicked the small bundle of nerves, drawing on it, tormenting it. “Maybe I will,” he growled, then proceeded to devastate her.

  God, it wasn’t neat or quiet or decorous. No, it was messy, and full of wet smacks and hungry moans. He left no part of her a mystery. With one palm shoving her thigh back and the other cupping her ass, he devoured her. Sucking her clit, raking his teeth over her folds before diving between them, lapping at her, dining on her. Driving her crazy with a jagged pleasure that threatened to tear her into ribbons. She alternated between wanting to curl in on herself and spreading herself wide…squirming away from this terrifying lust and begging him to give her more, show her more…

  A blunt fingertip rimmed the entrance to her body, and she stiffened. The last man to caress her there, to penetrate her, had been Aiden.

  “Shh,” he soothed, continuing the same rhythmic rubbing. “Let me in, sweetheart. Let me in.” Slowly, he entered her, and she whimpered at the fullness, the sound almost drowned out by his moan. He was thicker, longer than her, and though it was just his finger, it stretched her. He withdrew, eased back inside. Then again. “So fucking tight. Just like before. And wet. You love my mouth on you. Love it so much I can get my finger inside you. Take another one, sweetheart,” he urged. Maybe he knew she wouldn’t deny him or had faith she could accept him. He returned to her, sliding two wide digits into her, simultaneously easing the ache and exasperating it.

  He was preparing her; she realized it. But, Christ, this invasion battered the breath from her lungs. How would she… His lips closed around her clit, his fingers burrowing deeper. And then she didn’t care. Didn’t give a damn. Not with him shoving her closer and closer to an orgasm whose heat reached out, singed her, beckoned her. Helpless, she let him play her like a newly constructed, young instrument, unaccustomed to the demands placed on her but so damn eager to learn.

  Humming, he coiled his tongue around the bundle of nerves and plunged his fingers high inside her, hooking the tips and pressing against a spot that tore a scream from her. And catapulted her into a white-hot release that left her shuddering. Damn near babbling. Over the harsh gasps of air she diligently sucked in and the aftershocks rippling through her body, she was dimly aware of Aiden rising off of her. And the whisper of clothes sliding over flesh.

  She forced her eyes open, because as heavily as the sensual lassitude weighed her down, no way in hell was she missing a naked Aiden.

  Beautiful. He was a thing of absolute beauty. Bright hair tumbled by her fingers. Green eyes blazed with lust. That full, sensuous mouth. And miles and miles of golden, taut skin stretched over firm, toned muscle and tendon. Wide shoulders and chest, a ripped abdomen, thick columns of thighs and powerful calves. And his cock. She swallowed. A flash of feminine anxiety shimmered through her, stronger than moments earlier. The thick column of flesh protruded from a dark brown nest of curls, capped off by a swollen, flared tip. It was gorgeous in a primal, almost brutish way. She’d never really understood women’s fascination with dicks, big or otherwise. But then, she hadn’t seen Aiden’s. Now she not only got it, she was running for president of the club.

  Before she registered her intention, she sat, extending her arm toward him. Needing to touch him, wrap her hands around him. Pump that intimidating flesh.

  Aiden encircled her wrist, edging closer until the outsides of his legs spread her thighs open. With the other hand, he brought a foil packet to his teeth and ripped it open. Releasing her, he quickly rolled the condom down his length and crawled on top
of her like the big, dangerous cat he reminded her of. Her belly twisted with nerves. Excitement crackled under her skin like a live wire. Desire rolled through her veins, drugging and energizing her. And this man—this powerful, enigmatic, sexy-as-hell man—enraptured her.

  His elbows bracketed her head, and his emerald gaze burned down into hers. “Tell me you want me buried inside you, Noelle. Taking you, claiming what no man has ever had. Tell me it’s what you need. That I’m who you need.”

  She stared up at him, her breath like small blasts against his lips. The words wedged in her throat. He referred to her body, giving him permission to have the body no man had ever been inside. And he’d been the only man to ever possess her heart and trust before crushing both. If she repeated the words he wanted her to state, which would she be attesting to? She didn’t know. Didn’t want to analyze it and find out, because she was too frightened of the answer.

  “I want you,” she said, compromising. And from the narrowing of his eyes, he knew it. But the slant of his mouth over hers, the erotic dance and duel of tongues translated his acceptance.

  His hips settled between her legs, and at the first nudge of his dick against her flesh, she went motionless. Her heart hammered against her chest, and her fingers curled into the dense muscle of his upper arms.

  “Easy, sweetheart,” he whispered, smoothing the hair off her damp forehead. “Open up for me. I want to know what it’s finally like to have you wrapped around me, squeezing me. Holding me,” he murmured. A flex of his hips, and he pushed inside her, the swollen tip alone stretching her entrance. She couldn’t hold back her whimper. “All the time you need, sweetheart,” he breathed, drawing back and slipping just a little of himself back in.

  For seconds, minutes, hours, he coaxed her sex to open to him, to accept him. The effort cost him. By the time he nudged up against the part that declared her a virgin, sweat poured off him. Her flesh quivered around him, and she trembled with the strain, the pressure of his cock prying her open and leaving her helpless and strangely empowered. With him burrowing through her, branding her, she’d never been more aware of her femininity. Never felt both fragile and strong. She was pinned under Aiden, but he shook like a leaf caught in a storm above her.

  “Hold on to me,” he rasped, sliding his arms under her back and hooking his fingers over her shoulders. She encircled his neck, clung to him. “Good, sweetheart.”

  With no other warning, he drove forward, and God. She stiffened, the…fullness pummeling the air from her chest. There was pain, yes, but not the kind she’d been led to believe she would experience. But the sense of being possessed, of being filled to the point where it scared her a bit, where she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began…it had her squirming in his embrace, trying to get free. Trying to get closer. Trying to ease the pressure. Trying to get more of it.

  “Stop moving, sweetheart. I need…” He broke off with a grunt, grinding his hips against hers. “Give me a minute to…” Again he trailed off, levering off of her and balancing on his arms. Tendons stood out in sharp relief, a testimony to the control he exerted. “You okay?” he growled.

  She forced herself to relax, breathed deep, and took stock of her body. Already the sting blurred, but the weight of his invasion didn’t. With the panic fading, too, every sense and nerve seemed to focus on him embedded deep within her.

  “Noelle.” He flexed his hips, eliciting a moan from her. “You. Okay?”

  Unable to speak, she nodded. And tightened her grip on him. Maybe he took that as her acceptance, because he pulled back, and damn, every inch and ridge dragged over her sensitive flesh. And when he returned, slowly thrusting into her again, she lifted her hips, meeting him. Pleasure exploded within her, widening her eyes, strangling the breath from her.

  “Again,” she breathed, already snapping her hips back to repeat the movement that had caused lightning to streak through her.

  A low, wicked chuckle reverberated above her, then he submitted to her demand. He’d asked her to hold on to him. That’s all she could do as he introduced her to passion, lust, and clawing need. He rode her, gently at first, tenderly. Then, as she twisted under him, begging for a harder, deeper possession, his strokes lengthened, became fiercer, and maybe just a bit wilder.

  The bed groaned under them, joining the smack of wet flesh against wet flesh, her short, keening cries, his hoarse moans, their harsh breathing.

  “You’re so fucking tight, so wet for me, sweetheart.” He snapped his hips, his dick tunneling into her, plunging, shoving her forward, forward, closer to a release that a part of her reared back from. From the power of it. Maybe she inched backward, because he palmed her ass, held her in place for him, while the other hand cupped her nape. He crushed his mouth to hers, whispering, “So goddamn perfect.”

  Desperate, hungry, she raked his back, hiking her legs higher around his waist, bucking, grinding, demanding. The almost-too-big column of flesh she’d been anxious about she now craved, would’ve begged for if she had any breath left. But that precipice loomed nearer, the crumbling edge beckoning a sweet seduction that with one final, hard thrust had her succumbing to it.

  Jesus.

  She detonated. Exploded into dozens, hundreds of pieces.

  And depended on him to gather them up.

  What did I do?

  The question crawled through her mind, jackrabbiting against the walls of her mind like a pogo stick gone wild. What the hell did I do?

  Aiden’s furnace-like heat reached out to her, reminded her he lay naked in the bed behind her. The heady, thick scent of sex still clung to the air, and in spite of the What the fucks pounding in her head, her body lazily pulsed in response to the erotic perfume. Goddamn, not fifteen minutes had passed since her world had erupted in the orgasmic equivalent of Pompeii’s Mount Vesuvius, and already her core clenched around a phantom cock, bemoaning the emptiness. Craving to be filled again.

  Somewhere a village was missing its idiot, and her face was featured on all the milk cartons.

  Because of an apology from a hot man she’d become one of those women she’d vowed not to become. One who knew a man wasn’t good for her, wasn’t meant for her, but fell into bed with him anyway. A woman who substituted desire for common sense. A woman who believed the power of the pussy could change a man.

  Well, no, that crime she couldn’t claim. The other two, yes, but she bore no illusions about how Aiden saw her. He might have apologized for his accusations, but the anger, pain, and…and hatred toward his father and brother hadn’t disappeared. Those emotions ran too deep, were rooted in childhood issues that had spilled over into adulthood. And Tony’s phone call had only ripped off whatever scab had managed to cover the wound. Though Tony had never confessed to her why Aiden hated him, she’d overheard him telling their father the truth. It further solidified her belief that Aiden was so blinded by the last name she shared with the two men he detested most, that their having sex tonight had been the dumbest move she could’ve made.

  Second dumbest. The first would be falling in love with him. And she’d already fucked up once. Losing her heart to a man who could never love her back? A man who was the equivalent of an emotional free fall, who she couldn’t depend on not to abandon her? A man who would always resent her for her family? She wasn’t that idiotic or crazy.

  “Why?” Aiden’s low, rasped question might as well have been a shout in the shrouded silence of the room. She flinched from the suddenness and the inquiry itself. Contrary to what her actions of the past hour would declare about her intelligence, she wasn’t dumb. She understood what he referred to.

  She lifted a bare shoulder in a shrug, keeping her back to him. “It wasn’t on my list of priorities.” It was on her not-to-do list rather than her to-do list.

  “Liar.” The soft word struck the air, reverberating like a quivering dart.

  “It wasn’t anything Victorian. I wasn’t saving myself for marriage or ‘the right man’ to come along,” she scoffed.
Heart tripping in her chest, she sat, clutching the covers to her chest—just like that Victorian miss she’d claimed not to be. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to start envisioning picket fences or two-point-five kids.” Shut. Up.

  “Noelle,” he growled. The bed shifted behind her, and panic flared inside her like an SOS.

  Bounding off the bed, she dragged the sheet with her, twisting around so the material covered her front even as she mooned the window. Damn it. She searched the floor for her clothes, desperation raking her throat, knotting her stomach. Where the hell… There. On the other side of the bed, where he sat, glaring at her. A faintly hysterical gurgle of laughter bubbled up inside her. Screw it. Dropping the sheet, she darted to the dresser and snatched a T-shirt. She swore she could feel his gaze on her breasts, belly, sex, and thighs as she tugged on the top, and the visual caress only hastened her actions. The modesty—and humiliation—that had been missing when he’d stripped her of her clothes returned with a vengeance and a vendetta.

  The sibilant hush of material over flesh sent a jagged spear of dread straight to her chest. She turned, and Aiden—naked, so gloriously naked—stood beside the bed, his pants in his fist. That steady, incisive stare cut through her, and she whipped back around on the pretense of grabbing a band for her hair, which probably screamed “freshly fucked.”

  “Noelle—”

  “Look, according to The Maury Povich Show, women fall on men’s dicks all the time, so this one”—she paused, squeezed her eyes shut—“indiscretion is no big deal. It happened; now we move on.” Pasting a patently false smile on her face, she turned and faced him. The smile slipped at the sight of his wide, taut shoulders and bare chest. Jesus Christ, sex one time, and she was turning into a nympho. “I’m going to shower. Uh…thanks.”

  Thanks? She strode to the bathroom and shut the door behind her before leaning on it and staring up at the ceiling in abject horror. Freaking thanks?

  Goddamn. Sex had turned her into a nympho and an idiot.