Piece of Work

by Staci Hart

  “This I’ve seen,” I said, trailing my hand up the inside of her leg as I rose, sliding it between them when I reached the top, grazing her heat with a teasing stroke of my fingertip. “This I’ve played a thousand times in my mind, every second we were apart. Turn around.”

  She did. Her blouse barely covered the juncture of her thighs. Her body was cast in shadow, the light pouring in behind her, illuminating her in a burst of light so brilliant, I thought I might be blinded by the sight.

  If this were to be my last vision, I would give the sense gladly.

  Her hands moved to the hem as I watched her, my hands tingling, my eyes climbing the length of her body as it came into view—the point where her thighs met, the rolling curve of hips to waist, of the sensual line of her stomach, which wasn’t flat or defined, the swell and shape so natural and so wholly female. The bottom of her ribs as she stretched her arms over her head, her breasts cradled in the cups of her bra, her shoulders, her chin, her lips—God, those lips—and then her shirt was gone, abandoned in a silky whisper at her feet. She reached back to unlatch her bra, to let it fall from her arms. And she stood before me, her body long and curving, her snowy breasts round and full, her nipples pale pink as I’d imagined, tight and peaked.

  I drew in a ragged breath, the question on my mind, in my heart, the meaning double, a test and a desperate desire. “What do you want, Rin?”

  Her eyes were wiped clean of fear or scrutiny, her face purged of uncertainty. Instead, it held the pure honesty of a woman with nothing to hide, and my heart lurched in my chest when she answered, “You. I only want you.”

  A step.

  A breath.

  A moment.

  And she was mine.

  I pulled her into me, felt her supple body beneath my palms as I lowered my lips to hers with desire in every shift of my tongue and lips and fingertips. I wanted to consume her, breathe her into my lungs, and for a long moment, that was my only purpose, one I fulfilled with my mouth. I bent, snaking an arm around her back, hitching her thigh to my hip when I stood. Her legs locked around my waist, her ass in my hands as I moved for the bed, sitting on the edge with the weight of her in my lap.

  The kiss went unbroken as her hands fluttered over the buttons of my shirt, tugged it out of my pants, her hot palms on my hard chest, down my abs that flexed and released as I met her grinding hips with my own. Weeks of wanting her. Weeks of imagining this—her body at my disposal.

  When she reached for my belt, I hissed, grabbing her wrists to stay her, wrenching them to the small of her back, clamping them in the circle of my hand, pulling to arch her. Her breasts rose in offering, and I buried myself in the sweetness of her flesh, holding her still while I took my pleasure. Her straining nipple against my tongue, the submission of her breast in my palm, the gasp when my teeth grazed the peak as I released her.

  Her hips bucked, a low moan tumbling out of her as I licked a wet trail up her sternum with the flat of my tongue, tasting her on my way up her neck, to her earlobe. The softest whimper from her lips sent a spiraling tremor down my spine, a deep throb shuddering against the place where her legs were split and grinding.

  “Please,” she moaned.

  I nipped her neck with a growl, hooking my arm around her before twisting, tossing her onto the bed on her back. Her breasts jostled from the force, and I looked up the line of her naked body as I whipped off my shirt in a blur, dropping my pants with another. My cock ached, pinned in my briefs; I stroked it once with my eyes locked between her legs.

  I wanted to feast on her flesh, devour her whole. To take my pleasure by giving pleasure.

  Mine. I was savage, hungry, my tongue slipping out to wet my lips and draw them into my mouth in a mimicry of what they wanted to do to the soft, wet skin I couldn’t look away from. Tasting her was my only intention as I grabbed her ankles, pulling her hard and fast, leaving her hair a midnight streak on the crisp white linens.

  Deliberately and not gently, I parted her thighs, knelt at the foot of the bed. Slipped my hands under her legs to grasp her hips and pulled until her ass hung off the bed, hooking those legs I’d dreamed about over my shoulders.

  With my palm low on her stomach, I held her still, my other hand unthreaded, my fingertips on a track for the heat where her legs met. Every sense was centered on those fingertips, the slick, soft line of flesh that spread at my bidding, the warmth that sang its welcome. And I leaned in, opened wide. Dragged the width of my tongue up the valley of her body, latching over her hood, sucking it into my mouth. A hiss of pleasure. A trembling of her thighs. The tang of her body, of her sex on my tongue. A moan rumbling up my throat, my lips locking me to her and tongue taking advantage.

  Her hips rolled against me, but I didn’t relent. I met her pace, held her to me, fucked her with my mouth, with my fingers in the heat of her as her legs locked around my ears and her body twisted, rising off the bed. Her hands sought the depths of my hair, clutching it like reins, and my grip tightened on her hip as I rose with her, keeping her on my shoulders. I wouldn’t let her go. Wouldn’t let her slow. Deeper I sank, harder I sucked, drawing the orgasm out of her with every flick of my tongue, with every shift of my lips, every flex of my fingers.

  My scalp burned as she twisted, gasping, a tightening of her body around my fingers, a swelling of the slick skin in my mouth. Only then did I release.

  “Please,” she begged, her breasts heaving, head turned, eyes hooded.

  I grabbed her thighs and flipped her, dropping my briefs, reaching for the condom with one hand, grabbing her ass and spreading it with the other, my cock throbbing at the sight of her swollen lips and the rippling skin resting between them.

  “You’re not going to come until I’m inside of you,” I growled, letting her go to rip open the condom and roll it on in a series of strokes that brought the blood rushing to my crown.

  I spread her legs with my knee, and she spread them further, scooting up the bed, raising her ass in offering. I thumbed the slick line with one hand, my cock in the other, brought the tip of me to the hollow of her and pressed until my crown disappeared.

  My body shook from restraint, my hands roaming her ass, her hips, gripping tight and holding fast.

  “God, fuck me,” she whimpered.

  My jaw clamped, a hot, panting breath in and out of my chest, and I did just fucking that, my body thrumming with anticipation of this moment, the fulfillment of my fantasy, the surrender to my desire. My eyes locked on the point where our bodies met as I flexed my hips, pulled hers, felt the heat of her swallow me as I disappeared.

  Yes.

  The word hissed in my mind, sizzled across my skin, echoed from her lips, the sound a million miles away and at my fingertips. My body hummed, my nerves firing at the sound, all reaching for the depths of her body.

  “Fuck,” I groaned, pulling out, slamming into her, her ass rippling from the force.

  Her shoulders pressed into the bed, and when I thrust again, I leaned into the motion, reaching down, clamping my hand on her neck to pin her down, hold her still.

  Mine.

  Again, I pulled out, hammering into her with enough power, the smack of our skin rang in the room, the deepest part of her touched.

  It was too soon for my shaft to throb and swell, too soon to come, too soon to lose control. Slower I pumped, achingly slow, shifting to place my knees outside hers and nudge them back together, the flesh around my cock tightening. And I rolled my hips, pulling out, sliding back in, a steady wave meant to buy me time.

  But control was an illusion. Her core flexed around me, and my cock pulsed in answer. Her hands untwisted from the sheets, slipped under her body, and my imagination exploded with visions of her fingers brushing her clit.

  And then I felt her satisfy my vision. Her hood shifted against my shaft, then her fingers, slicked with her own sex, spread in a V around my cock as it slid in and out of her.

  Bursts of details flashed in my mind with every sensation. Her head
buried in the sheets. Her hair, a backdrop of ink against the porcelain line of her profile. The draw of her brows. Her feathering lashes against her cheeks. Her pink lips parted, panting in an O.

  I lowered my chest to her back, my hips hammering as I pressed my lips to her jaw, bit the tender skin of her neck, licked the curve of her ear.

  “Come,” I whispered, needing her release so I could take my own.

  She gasped, her fingers circling faster.

  “Come,” I commanded, slamming into her with a deep throb of my cock, drawn from low, so low. “I want to feel you. I want you to come.”

  And she did with a gasp, her lips stretched, her body flexing, squeezing from the sheath around me to her thighs, her lungs, her shoulders, the fevered pulse between her legs pulling me deeper. And I took the invitation, thrusting in the rhythm my own body wanted, a deep, determined rocking, once—a hot surge—twice—a thick throb—three times, and I came buried to the hilt, my hips frozen for one long moment of uncontrollable pleasure before they rolled, pumping in and out of her, my body holding her down, taking what it wanted, giving her all of me.

  I slowed, collapsing on her, my lips grazing her shoulder, her neck, her jaw, and she turned, her lips seeking mine. And I gave those to her too.

  The kiss was too sweet, too deep, too good for the angle she was forced in, so I pulled out of her, rolled to her side, held her to me. Her body fit perfectly in the curve of mine, one of her legs shifting to rest between my thighs, her breasts against my chest, her lovely mouth, her delicate jaw. Her. It was her, every part of her that made me feel like a king.

  She tucked into my chest, kissed my throat, sighed her contentment, and my arms wound around her, tangled in her hair.

  Mine.

  And holding Rin, looking into her eyes that spoke only devotion, I felt a flickering flame ignite in my heart, sparked by the fire in hers.

  20

  Truth Is

  Rin

  My body rose from a deep, languid sleep to the smell of bacon.

  I dragged in a sigh and let it out, stretching my legs, which bumped into an ass sitting at the end of the bed. Court’s ass.

  I smiled lazily, my eyes blinking open, and he turned, smiling back, his face soft and boyish and devastatingly handsome. He climbed over me, pressing me into the bed, and I hated the interference of the comforter, wishing I could feel his bare chest against mine.

  His arms bracketed my head, his hands in my hair. “Hi.”

  Without waiting for a response, he kissed me, his lips sweet and slow and supple. He didn’t deepen it, didn’t press for more, just spent a long moment kissing me strictly for the sake of it.

  He broke away, and I cupped his jaw, covered in dark stubble that made it look sharper, harder.

  “Well, good morning,” I said.

  Court smiled and kissed my cheek. “I ordered room service.”

  “I can see that.” I nodded to the table at the foot of the bed.

  “I didn’t know what you liked, so I ordered a little bit of everything.”

  He climbed off me, moving to the table as I sat, reaching for his discarded shirt from yesterday. I pulled it on and buttoned it enough to keep the thing together, hooking the edge in my hand to bring it to my nose while his back was turned. God, it smelled incredible, like soap and musk and Court. I crawled down the bed, sitting next to him on my knees.

  “So, I got pancakes and waffles, eggs and bacon, an omelet, a breakfast burrito, and potatoes. Oh, and one of these.” He held up an oatmeal cream pie, smiling.

  “You are so, so crazy.”

  He shrugged like it was no big deal that he was carrying around my favorite snack, which he did not eat. “You like them. I like you. So I got them for you.”

  I laughed, shaking my head. “What happened to your morals?”

  He chuckled and kissed my hair. “They went out the door when I met you along with my willpower.”

  Court rolled the table closer to me, and I rose on my knees, precariously leaning on the edge to reach for the dish of potatoes, not even flinching when his hand swept up the back of my thigh and over the curve of my ass.

  After the last—I checked the clock on the wall—twenty hours, his touch couldn’t possibly surprise me. We’d stayed in bed all afternoon and all night, hours and hours spent with his body and mine, marked by stretches of easy conversation and not speaking at all, a few naps, until we were so tired and spent, we fell asleep for good. My body ached, my abs, my shoulders, my thighs, the place where they met.

  I’d had sex before but never like that.

  The sum of my lackluster experiences with sex had been in those early years of college, awkward, bumbling affairs where neither of us knew what to do with the other. The only orgasms I’d ever had were self-imposed.

  Although it was really no surprise Court knew exactly what to do with me with the rest of his body after proving what his hands were capable of. And his certainty gave me the sense that I knew exactly what to do with him, too. It was easy—I didn’t have to lead. Court knew what he wanted, even when it was my own pleasure, and he knew better than I did exactly how to give it to me.

  And boy, had he. Six times.

  I giggled as I popped a potato wedge into my mouth and sat.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked, reaching for the bacon with that goddamn smirk still on his face.

  “Oh, nothing.”

  One of his dark brows rose. “It’s never nothing.”

  I shrugged one shoulder, loading my plate with food. “You’re just…unexpected and perfectly predictable, all at the same time.”

  He frowned. “I’m not predictable.”

  I laughed and leaned over to kiss the corner of his pouting lips. “I mean that in a good way.”

  “How is being predictable a good thing?”

  “Well, in the way that smashes this,” I gestured to my hips, “into oblivion.”

  The lines of his face smoothed to amusement. “I hope not. I’m not done with it.”

  I chuckled. “Well, we don’t have any meetings today—we’d reserved it for pestering Bartolino. So, what do you want to do?”

  “Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to, Rin.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m serious.”

  “So am I.” He picked up his burrito and took a bite. “I wanted to show you around, take you to some of my favorite spots. You know, I studied at Accademia di Belle Arti when I lived here. Best year of my life.” He angled for another bite, and I watched his mouth like a creep as he chewed, the shadow of his jaw, the muscles at the corners, the shape of his lips.

  My eyes widened. “Medici’s college. Did you really?” I asked, gaping.

  He nodded. “It was while I was working on my dissertation, not as part of my degree. I wanted to take classes in the halls, in the city, where the Renaissance was born.” He turned to his burrito. “So, let’s go be tourists. Plus, we need to go back to the Accademia and really admire David.” He flicked his eyebrows with a smile and took a bite.

  I shook my head at him as warmth bloomed in my chest. Everything about him had changed, and nothing had changed at all. It was as if he’d been animated, the somber, brooding man I’d come to lust and loathe filled with carefree smiles and radiant eyes, as if he’d breathed for the first time and it had filled his lungs with sunshine.

  “What?” he asked with his mouth full.

  “You.”

  He swallowed. “What about me?”

  “You’re just…”

  He caught my expression, his smile broadening, brightening, crinkling the corners of his eyes gently. “Happy?”

  I laughed. “Yes.”

  He put down his breakfast and slid closer to me, taking my face in his hands, studying it with adoration in his fingertips, at the edges of his lips, behind his dark eyes, bluer than I’d ever seen them.

  “It’s because of you.”

  My flush burned hotter. “But I didn’t do anything.”
<
br />   “Oh, but you did,” he said, his voice softening, velvety.

  My hands rested on his chest, my eyes searching his. Before I could ask what he meant, he kissed me.

  And all I could do was let him.

  An hour later, I stepped out of the shower and into the room, my aching body soothed by the hot water. Court sat in a wingback next to the window with his bare feet propped on the small table, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, his book split open in his lap and face absorbed, with that familiar contemplative line between his brows as he read.

  I sighed at the sight of him, one towel around my body, another in my hands as I dried my hair.

  He glanced up and smiled, the line gone at the sight of me. It changed his face, made him look younger.

  Happy looked good on him.

  He went back to his book, and I knelt next to my suitcase, which we’d brought over the day before, to dig around for clothes, picking out jeans and a loose V-neck tank with a mirroring V in back. I’d bought it to wear under other things—that V was low and the straps thin, exposing far more skin than I typically showed—but today, it was summer in Florence. Today, Court was happy and smiling. Today, he was mine, and I was his. I wanted to feel pretty. I wanted him to think I was pretty, so that later, after he wanted me all day, the anticipation would make the payoff that much sweeter.

  I stepped into my panties and slid them up my thighs under my towel, out of habit, putting my back to Court when I turned to the bed for my camisole bra. The towel dropped. I pulled on my bra with my hair dripping, sending a cold rivulet down my spine, and before I registered his movement, I felt his hot lips close over the skin between my shoulder blades.

  I leaned into him as his arms wound around my waist, clasping in front of me.

  He nodded to the bed. “You’re wearing jeans?”

  “It’s either that or slacks.”

  “No dresses?” I could almost hear him pouting.