by Zara Cox
I squirmed. “Caleb...”
“Shh. Give me a moment,” he rasped.
A moment to what? I squirmed harder.
He lifted his gaze and his eyes were on fire. “You’re fucking exquisite, Lily.” Hunger and worship throbbed in his voice.
In that moment I knew it was entirely possible to orgasm from dirty talk alone. Except it wasn’t just dirty talk. Because my heart was flip-flopping in my chest in a weird, terrifying way.
This was just sex. My heart shouldn’t...couldn’t get involved. No way—
Fear melted into pleasure as his tongue licked me in one long sweep.
Sweet. Heaven.
My eyes rolled as I collapsed onto the bed. He repeated the caress several times, then spread me wider and went to town.
Caleb was a connoisseur, using every part of his mouth on every part of my pussy until I was one delirious mess.
“Please, Caleb,” I begged when he drove me to the edge for the umpteenth time, only to withdraw. My fingers speared into his hair, tightening when he started to pull away. “Make me come. Please, please, please.”
“Fuck,” he groaned against me right before he sucked my clit into his mouth.
I shot off like a rocket, my legs fighting to close as fireworks exploded behind my closed lids. He kept me wide open, working me into a frenzied orgasm that felt like it would last forever.
Convulsions were still rippling through me when I felt him tug on my zipper and remove my dress.
“Caleb,” I sighed.
“I’m right here, baby. Hold on.” His voice was tight. Edgy.
The sound of ripped foil preceded a hiss from him as he rolled it on; then he crawled over my body. One arm circled my waist, and he tossed me higher up the bed.
“I’ve been craving this since the moment I saw you,” he said, his tongue sliding over one nipple.
My nails dug into his shoulders as fresh waves of pleasure washed over me. “Me, too.”
His mouth curved in a smug smile. “How hot were you for me?” The question was rasped against my throat as he grazed my skin with his teeth. He was marking me. I didn’t care one little bit.
“Umm...”
He paused and tracked the blush creeping up my neck. “You wanted my cock pounding your pretty little pussy even as you were snapping at me, didn’t you?”
I wriggled, half-shamed, half-impatient. “Yes!”
“Don’t fret, baby. You’re going to get it exactly as you wanted it.”
He matched words to action.
With one hand planted next to my head, he trailed the other over my breast, my quivering belly to my pussy. He slid two fingers inside me, his eyes absorbing my reaction. His face tautened at my gasp.
“Please, Caleb, I’m ready. Don’t wait.”
His teeth gritted, but he continued to fuck me with his fingers, stretching me for another minute before he drew my leg higher, and nudged my entrance with his cock.
Slowly, excruciatingly, he pushed inside me, filling me, stretching me to the point of pain. “God, you’re so tight.”
He withdrew. Pushed back in. I bit my lip to keep from crying out.
He tensed. “Lily?”
I shook my head. “I’m good.”
“You’re not good. You’re so fucking small,” he bit out tersely.
I dug my nails into his back. “Don’t stop! Please don’t stop.” I clamped my legs around him, raised my hips to meet his next thrust. Pain and pleasure collided and I screamed.
“Shit!”
“More,” I begged.
A wave of uncertainty flashed across his face. Then it morphed into something else. Something hot and dangerous and guaranteed to send me to another stratosphere. Incredibly, it made me wetter. He felt it on his next thrust when his cock seated deeper inside me.
A mini-roar erupted from his throat. “Jesus, you’re incredible.”
I hauled myself up on one elbow, fused my mouth to his for a hot moment before dropping back down. “More, please, Caleb.”
He didn’t need any more begging. He fucked me until my vision blurred and my heart pounded against my rib cage. Until sweat dripped from his body to mine, and my screams mingled with his thick groans.
Until one last series of pounding ripped me from reality and I blacked out from pleasure. I wasn’t sure how long I blissed out. But when I resurfaced, he was still a hard, unspent presence inside me.
Tension still gripped him and sweat dotted his upper lip. “Did I tell you how much I love watching you come?” he rasped.
I shook my head, stunned by his control.
“Well, I do. I could watch you all day.” He started to move inside me again.
“Oh, God... I can’t.”
He kissed me, hard and quick. “Wrap your legs around me and give me one more, baby. Just one more.”
He caught the heels of my last climax minutes later, unraveling me as he roared his own release. I was fairly sure I passed out again.
When I came to, I was stretched on top of him, his arms clamped around me with his chin resting on top of my head.
My hand trembled as I caressed his chest. “Caleb?”
“Hmm?”
“I... I don’t think I can move.”
A low, deep laugh rumbled from him. “That’s okay. I can’t move, either.”
A happy little note strummed in my heart, the first warning that I had let in a seemingly harmless virus that could potentially compromise my very existence.
Because as I drifted off to sleep it struck me that I would be totally okay if he didn’t move from my bed.
Not tonight.
Not tomorrow.
Not ever.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Caleb
IT WAS SEVEN o’clock and I’d been up for an hour. I should get up. Draw clear lines by returning to my room.
I didn’t engage in cozy heart-to-hearts. I never fell asleep in a woman’s bed. Or, worse, woke up and...lingered.
Yet I couldn’t move.
Because I had no clue where the line was anymore. I’d given Lily the green light to blur it, and I’d completely obliterated it by sleeping with her.
And hell, I’d barely scratched the surface of my need for her. I couldn’t get enough of Lily. Her silky softness. Her smell. The way her eyelids fluttered as she dreamed.
I breathed out slowly, reluctant to wake her even though my eager dick was raring to go again.
One taste and I was addicted. Enough to remain in her bed, enjoying her slight weight draped over me as I waited for her to wake up so I could indulge all over again.
Despite being more than a little rattled that I’d also experienced the soundest, nightmare-free sleep in years. The jagged, heart-pounding images that usually taunted me with how I failed to save my mother were so inherent I’d accepted their presence.
Last night they didn’t materialize. It was disturbing to even consider that Lily had anything to do with it. That something as simple as sharing bits of our past with each other had achieved this result.
It was absurd, right?
Unbidden, other moments filtered through—her pain during our first lunch in the restaurant. Her tears when she told me about her stepfather. Exposing her vulnerability at the possibility of one of her team sabotaging her work.
After the sort of childhood Lily had experienced, many people would’ve cut their families out of their lives and closed themselves off.
I was surprised she hadn’t.
Stephen Gracen parked himself on his favorite bar stool in his favorite Irish pub most days before noon and stayed till closing, his tab settled courtesy of the money he’d made off his stepdaughter’s talent. The guy I sent to Boston to check him out had reported that while Gracen hadn’t exactly talked trash about Lily, he h
adn’t been complimentary, either.
Gracen was either too bitter or too stupid to realize the gem he had in his stepdaughter.
I’d met several Silicon Valley types who thought they were hot shit because they could string code together that baffled the common man.
In the past few days I’d discovered that Lily, despite being a highly intelligent woman who was mostly likely being paid millions for her professional skills, wasn’t in any way a pampered princess.
She was caring and considerate.
And she’d shared her deepest pain with me.
Scattered across several events, they’d seemed minor but put together they were huge. Put-your-trust-in-another-person huge.
When was I remotely okay with being that guy?
I eyed the bedroom door, wondering again why I wasn’t hightailing out of it.
Because you want the same from her.
The sharp ache in my chest answered the inner voice.
I shifted again, uncomfortable at the fresh turmoil churning inside me.
This was why I didn’t do feelings. So far, every encounter between us had come packed with them, even the moments she’d accepted my help to ease her stress sexually. They were all emotional land mines that usually had pushed my eject button.
I gritted my teeth. I liked her. A hell of a lot. But feelings and fucking didn’t mix well. Period.
She stirred against me. I looked down and saw her watching me with contemplative eyes. It was that same look she’d given me before prying secrets from me yesterday in the car.
“You look seriously...serious.” Wary questions lurked in her eyes, traces of unease and all those pitfalls I suspected came with the morning after a night of earth-shattering sex.
“For a genius, I expected more eloquence than seriously serious.” I kept my voice light.
Her hand drifted up my waist to my chest even though her eyes remained dark, searching. “Okay, how about this.” Her thigh brushed my hard-on. “Is that one of my sex toys in your lap or are you just extremely happy to see me?”
Sex. This I could handle.
Talking about my mother and how I would have her back in a heartbeat, if only for a chance to do things differently, push harder, shout louder until my voice was heard, until she got the help she needed, I most definitely couldn’t.
I smiled past my disquiet, willing my emotions to detach again as I rolled her over and slid two fingers beneath the choker we never got round to taking off last night. “In case I need to spell it out, your battery-operated boyfriends have had their privileges revoked for the foreseeable future. I’m taking care of your every need from now on.”
The words echoed with an unnerving sense of permanence, sending another spike of unease up my spine.
Something flitted through her eyes before her lids swept down, cutting me off from her expression. When she looked back up, her eyes contained nothing but hot sexual promise. “If it’s going to be anywhere near as good as last night...”
I brushed my lips over hers, teasing even though I wanted to plunge in and devour. “That better not be a challenge, baby. Or I’ll be forced to give you a demonstration.”
Her breathing picked up, her pulse racing against my fingers. “Yes, please.”
Before the words were out of her mouth, I was sliding my tongue between her lips, giving her a vivid taste of what was coming.
A moan rolled from her throat as her fingers dug into my back. My dick jerked, homing in on that place between her open thighs. When her eager wetness greeted it, my vision blurred.
For the first time in my life, I wondered what it would be like to take a woman bare, to glide skin on skin. To come at the gateway to where a new life could be created—
Christ, what the hell is wrong with you?
I dragged my mouth from hers, scrambling for sanity before I did something unthinkable, like ask if she was on the pill. If another man had ever been with her the way I suddenly craved to be.
Irrational jealousy bubbled up, joining the deranged carnival going on inside me. The hand fondling one gorgeous breast tightened.
She inhaled sharply. “Caleb?” Bewilderment laced her lust-soaked voice.
Get yourself together!
I dropped a contrite kiss on her mouth. “Shower or pool?” In the hour before she woke, before perplexing thoughts ruined my mood, I listed all the places I wanted to fuck her.
She blinked, then murmured, “Shower.”
Thank fuck. I didn’t think I’d make it to the pool.
I scooped her out of bed, grabbed a condom before walking us into the bathroom. Like mine, there was a huge copper roll-top bathtub and a separate shower stall.
I held her against me as I turned on the shower and adjusted the temperature. When my hands slid from her ass to her waist to set her down, the arms around my neck clung, forcing me to look into her face.
“Caleb, are you okay?” she asked, still a little hesitant.
Hell, no, I wasn’t. But I wasn’t going to attempt to explain something that puzzled the shit out of me. “You took your time to wake up. I’ve been rock-hard for you for over an hour,” I deflected, cupping her breasts and mercilessly teasing her nipples.
The tactic worked. Her head dropped back and she whimpered. I continued to fondle her as I nudged her against the wall, watched the spray hit her chest and cascade down her body. I’d never seen anything more beautiful.
She made another innocent, dirty sound and I couldn’t help but press my mouth against her, gliding my tongue against hers to devour the sound.
My hand slid down her belly, through the trimmed thatch of hair to her sweet, soaked pussy, before inserting two fingers inside her.
Her hand fisted my hair as she gasped.
“Good?” I demanded against her mouth.
“So, so good,” she moaned.
I finger-fucked her slow and steady, until her eyes rolled and her thighs shook. Until her cries echoed through the steam.
Only then did I slide on the condom and flip her around. “Brace your hands on the wall and arch your back for me, my dirty little angel.”
A smile laced her arousal. “I see you’ve started with the pet names again.”
“I never promised I would stop. Besides, you could lead a man straight to his doom.”
She sent me a sultry glance over one shoulder. “Just a man?”
Something bit hard inside me. “Fine. You could lead me straight to the gates of hell. Is that what you want to hear?”
Her eyes searched mine. “Maybe.”
I hooked one finger into the choker, using the leverage to bring her head back to align her face with mine. “That back still isn’t arched. Do I need to spank obedience out of you?” I growled against her throat.
Her whole body shook. Then, with a slow sensual stretch that wouldn’t have been amiss on a mermaid, she curved her spine, until her gorgeous twin globes perfectly framed my cock.
I looked down and nearly lost my mind. “God...Lily. You know exactly how to drive me insane, don’t you?”
Her answer was to rise on her tiptoes. “Fuck me, Caleb.”
With a less than gentle touch, I grabbed her hip and yanked her back onto my waiting cock.
She screamed. My insanity tripled. I forgot to breathe, forgot to think. Forgot everything but the need to bury my cock inside her over and over again.
“Yes. Yes! More,” she panted, delirious in her pleasure.
“You’re a greedy little thing, aren’t you? Always demanding more.”
Her fingers clawed the tiles. “Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”
She continued to beg. I gave her everything until we were seconds from imploding. Then she reached up, covered the hand I had on her choker, locked her eyes on mine and croaked, “Tighter.”
A little s
hocked and a hell of a lot more turned on than I’d ever been in my life, I hooked another finger beneath the tight lace.
She started to come. Endlessly. Gripping me with muscles that demanded my complete surrender. I clung to sanity just so I could watch her for one more soul-shaking second. And holy hell, Lily Gracen, lost in ecstasy, was beyond magnificent.
In that moment before the bottom fell out of my world, I wished I could freeze time. Wished this transcendental moment would never end.
Transcendental. Soul-shaking. Feelings.
The next shudder that gripped me had nothing to do with my phenomenal orgasm and everything to do with emotions attempting to shift the center of my gravity.
Enough.
The stern warning didn’t stop me from kissing her crown and sliding my hand down her back before I pulled out. We both groaned and subsided into silence, words seeming superfluous in this aftermath. I disposed of the condom, turned her around, then directed the flow of water over both of us.
Her eyes were still glazed, but as I reached for the simple lock that secured her choker, her gaze darted to mine.
I froze, waiting for her to speak.
Her nostrils quivered as she sucked in a breath. “I...want you to know...I’ve never done that before,” she muttered. “I was just...”
I brushed my fingers over her lips, absorbing the electric delight that lit through me. “You don’t need to explain, sweetheart. If it helps, the effect on you was fantastic for me, too.”
A deep blush swept over her cheeks as she caught my hand in hers and kissed my knuckles.
The move was unexpectedly sweet. For a split second, I wanted to succumb.
I returned to my task and undid the choker. Red marks ringed her neck, a perfect imprint of the lace pattern. I trailed my lips over the mark, still caught in the cycle I couldn’t break free from, feeling a little perverse that the sight of it aroused me.
The gel I picked up smelled like Lily. I washed her from head to toe, lingering in places that made her gasp.
Then she held out her hand for the bottle. I handed it over and braced my palms over the wall above her head. I was hard again before she was halfway down my chest.
I didn’t reach for her. I needed a moment to regroup, to make sure I could emerge from whatever was happening between us with my faculties intact. When she sank onto her knees, I squeezed my eyes shut and locked my jaw as her small, wicked fingers washed my cock, my balls, then finally moved lower.