by Mia Carter
This is like worship.
The subtle pinch and stretch of him eases. I shift my hips against him, meeting him thrust for thrust, rolling like water under the power of his body that surges over me like a storm. He’s watching me, and our eyes connect. Slow, still, and easy. No rush at all, despite the urgency of our bodies and our mutual need.
“You feel so good,” he groans. “So good.”
I bite my lip, wishing I had the ability to make anything resembling normal human speech so I could tell him the same.
And his eyes…
I’m not afraid of this. Him, or sex, or the connection. What I feel, so intense, so inexplicable. I like it, the way he praises me. I want to be good for him, his good girl.
The world tilts a little as his next slow, languid thrust meets a shift in the angle of my hips. Now, he’s hitting me even deeper, pressure right up against the front wall behind my clit, and it’s like both of my prior orgasms mean nothing, because I need to come again, with him inside of me. I need to feel him spill over, to fill me up and make me his, completely.
“More,” I say, and he obliges.
His body moves above me, his hands flat on the bed beside me, hair falling over his brow as he moves. His pace increases, steady and sure. It’s all I can do to hold on, feel the velvet at my back and the wall of muscle above me, press my lips to his skin and taste him, hear his praise and guttural noises as his own climax approaches.
“Come for me,” Logan growls. “I have to feel you, I need to feel you, come for me.”
I want nothing more than to obey him. Everything blurs together. Bodies, sweat-slicked and moving in unison. Moans and cries, enough to make the entire hotel complain. The rhythmic thumping of the headboard as he fucks into me the way I crave. Then, it’s almost too much. Then, he pulls at my hips, straightening up a little as he draws me up onto the solidity of his thighs. With his hands on my waist, he takes control, and I surrender, utterly and completely. It’s like being fucked by some primal force, like an unwary maiden, fallen into the clutches of an ancient god, a wild thing. Untamable.
On his next thrust, deep and sure, my hands claw at the blankets, grappling for purchase. It feels like the world is about to fly away, like only his body and mine are the last remaining things that are real. His hips snap again, and I let the latent, fierce pleasure take me.
Everything falls away.
All that’s left is us, this moment, this sensation. And in the depths of pleasure I feel good and safe.
I can hear myself cry out as my climax overwhelms me. My body clamps down on his cock and Logan drives in deep, leaning over me and burying his groans of pleasure in the tender skin of my neck and shoulder. He shakes and shudders, and I feel him cling to me. My hands fly to his back, dancing over the play of muscle there on his lean form, the way his spine and body flexes with each slow, rocking thrust.
Holy hell.
Spent, he slumps atop me. Considerate, even like this, he lets his weight fall to the side of me as his cock slips out. A trail of slick wetness smears against my inner thigh, and the cool air on my skin makes me shiver, along with the aftershocks of my pleasure.
Logan nuzzles into my side, his wide arm slung across my chest, just under my breasts. I slowly lift my left hand, although it feels like it weighs a thousand tons or more, just so I can card through his dark, thick, damp hair.
He smiles up at me, fuck-drunk, looking as dazed as I feel.
“Hello,” he says.
“Hi,” I whisper back.
We lie like that, the moment suspended like a single amber bead on a cord. Lazy and content.
Perfect.
Chapter Fourteen
Logan
She falls asleep in my arms.
Slowly, I watch in awe as her lashes flutter shut, her mouth open, her breathing deep and even. The darkness of the room surrounds us, guarding us from anything more substantial than the bed. Outside, traffic and the whooping of a passing group of what sounds like drunk college students is muffled by the windows and the half-drawn curtain. It’s late, I don’t even know how late, but I want this moment to last forever.
I’m so lucky.
Slowly, I move my arm from her torso, pausing to gently splay my hand over the soft curve of her waist. Just beneath her breasts, where the residual line from her bra is tender and faintly red. I trace my thumb over it, and Chloe stirs just a little.
When I shift again, trying not to sprawl all of my weight on top of her, she makes a soft, half-awake noise, and a faint frown creases her brows. It’s only when I still and wait that she falls deeper into sleep. I’ve never felt needed like this after sex. Before, with other women, it’s been good. Sometimes great. I thought I had nothing really to complain about. Even though it had been who knows how long since I’d last been in a relationship. They say women are mysterious, and maybe that’s true, but the fact is all too often the women I meet or get set up with know me for what I am. Not who I am.
Not like Chloe.
I press a gentle kiss to her shoulder and she doesn’t move. She’s truly asleep, then. I’ve never felt this protective feeling, not for anyone, not like this. The thought of getting up and leaving makes me feel faintly dizzy.
What in the world did I do to deserve this moment?
Nature calls, however. I can’t stay here forever.
I wait as long as I can before gently getting up off the bed. Chloe settles into the sheets a little, but doesn’t wake. As I look back over my shoulder, walking from the bed to the bathroom door, I glance back to see her roll over, into the warmth left behind by my body. That’s the second time she’s done that. The first time, I thought that maybe she just wanted to be warm.
The thought that she might instead want me, is…
It’s more than I expected. Definitely more than I deserve.
I take care of my necessary business. One of the hotel towels gets warmed under the running water in the sink, and as I use it to clean myself off, I think back on the meandering pathway that led the two of us to this moment. I’m not an easy man to love, and I know it. “Married to your fucking job” had been the exact way my last girlfriend, Brianna, had put it, to be precise. And I don’t want to be thinking about all the girls that have come before (all four of them, plus an assorted hookup, back in college) but it’s just so striking, the contrast.
My relationship with Brianna had been over a year and a half ago and lasted eight tenuous months. Neither of us had been particularly happy, and we’d known it pretty much from the start. Our expectations had been so different, but the newness of it all had covered over it. For a time. She hadn’t been happy, because instead of whatever billionaire boyfriend she’d thought she’d landed, she’d gotten me, the workaholic with abandonment issues. And I’d wanted her to be someone else, too. I can see that now.
It hadn’t been anyone’s fault.
But Chloe makes me feel so different.
Am I repeating the same mistakes, I wonder? Carefully, I turn the tap back on and rinse out the washcloth. Just as I’m wringing it out, I hear the half-closed bathroom door behind me open.
I turn and smile at a sleepy-eyed Chloe, standing there, wearing her jersey dress like a robe. She smiles at me, blushing. Very clearly looking my body up and down.
“Everything okay?” I ask. “I didn’t wake you?”
She shakes her head. “No. I…I just wanted…”
I can see the tension in her body as her eyes dart away from mine.
“C’mere,” I say softly, and welcome her into my arms.
The edges of her dress part, and when we press, skin-to-skin, I have to stifle a gasp at how right it feels. How perfect. I’ve always been taller than most guys, shot up to six-foot when I was in middle school, and kept on going, disappointing every basketball coach who eyed me for the team and turning to electronics instead.
“This was unexpected,” Chloe says, and I know she’s not just talking about the hug. “Tonight. This.”
My arms tighten around her, a protective, needy instinct that I can’t quite contain, before giving voice to my anxious thoughts. “Do you regret it?”
“What?” She pulls back from me, looking up, wide-eyed. “No. Do you?”
I shake my head. The answer comes easily, truthfully. “No, I don’t.”
She smiles. I free one arm from its very contented place at the small of her back and tuck a finger gently under her chin, tilting her up a little more so I can kiss her sweetly on the lips. I can feel how her body melts into mine, how she wants to give herself over to it, but she slows the kiss and pulls back once more, a little farther away, catching my eyes.
“I, um, I have an IUD,” she all but whispers, her gaze tinted with mortification. “In case you were… We didn’t, um…”
“Oh,” I say. I hadn’t thought of that at all. Sloppy.
And I probably owe the hotel an apology and a cleaning fee for what we did to the blanket.
“It’s fine,” she says, false casualness in her voice as she takes a step back.
I never thought I’d be the guy who’d want marriage and kids. Given my utter lack of paternal guidance, the thought of becoming a father is faintly terrifying. But with Chloe, I can almost imagine it. That crazy thought hits me out of nowhere. Not now, maybe not for a long time. But some day. Maybe only if I’m very, very lucky.
“I need to…” Chloe blushes even more deeply as she gestures to the toilet.
“Oh, sure,” I say, hastily stepping into the shower and sliding the glass shut, like a moron. I’d been on autopilot, thinking of the shower I’d been longing to take. But fully committed to my fumble, I turn the water on, stepping back just in time from the icy-cold spray.
When she’s finished, though, Chloe doesn’t leave. I can see the shape of her through the frosted-glass door. Be brave, I think. Don’t be shy.
She slides open the door and smiles up at me.
“I think this shower is bigger than my entire apartment.”
I laugh. The water is warm now, and the stall is steamy and perfect, made even more perfect when she drops her dress entirely and steps right in.
Slowly, she slides the door shut. Then she lifts her hands to touch me, and I feel a subtle spark of anticipation just before her skin meets mine.
“Your body is…” Chloe’s voice trails off, rising with the steam, lust falling with the water. “I like it. It’s nice.”
This makes me laugh, a low rumble rolling up from my throat, all nerves and anxiety falling away. Apart from this trip, which has been an outlier, I do try to take care of myself. Working out, running, climbing, even hitting the punching bag I have hung up in one of the empty bedrooms back home at my condo.
Chloe takes the little bar of soap and unwraps it, rubbing it between her palms. Shyly, she lathers my body, my arms and my shoulders, chest and waist. Then lower down, cupping me around my hardening erection, the suds falling away as the warm spray of water hits me. I groan and let her explore.
She sets the soap down on the little tiled shelf alcove and uses both hands on me, slow and languid. I take the remaining sliver of soap and repeat the process on her skin. Chloe’s breath stutters as I soap around her breasts, running a thumb over a love-bite left behind on the tender skin there. I smooth over her hips and her thighs, and by the time I reach her back to pull her close again, my cock is very ready to do more.
She makes a noise when I shift positions a little, trying not to prod her in the belly, but moaning softly at how good it feels when I do. I don’t want to demand anything of her, and when her hand comes back down to my cock I try so hard not to buck into her grip. She’d offered before, and the feeling is still there but not now. Not tonight.
As she pumps her little hand over my dick, our bodies still pressed together, I murmur endearments into her skin, chasing them with kisses.
You’re so good to me, so good…your hand feels so good, your body…
Yes, move like that. A little firmer, tighter near the…near the head…
Chloe, please…
When I finally spill, my climax roars through me like the sting of hot water at my back. It feels like we’re caught up in a storm, held in the grip of something bigger than ourselves.
After, when I towel her off and let her draw a towel over my skin…
After, when I tug off the blanket and draw her close to me between the sheets…
After, when I ignore my phone completely, breathe in her scent, soap and flowers…
“Thank you,” Chloe says, drowsily, her body tucked up close into mine.
Something of the knot that’s been tight in my throat since this morning loosens at this, her soft, unselfconscious gratitude. It makes me happy to take care of you. That’s what I’d told her, and I hadn’t even known how true it would become.
I want to do it again. Not just the sex, but everything. All of the things that make her eyes light up. Anything to make her feel cherished.
I don’t want to stop to consider what this means, or why I feel so intensely.
I just smile. And we sleep.
Chapter Fifteen
Chloe
Last night feels like a dream.
Except, as I wake and roll over slowly, the subtle ache in my body tells me that it wasn’t. I smile to myself, sunlight streaming in through the drapes.
The room is a mess.
His clothing, mine, it’s everywhere, strewn atop and beneath the velvet bedspread and the sheets. In my defense… Okay, no, I have absolutely no defense whatsoever. That was easily the best sex I’ve ever had in my life. Hands down, hands up, hands everywhere. The Best.
Beside me, Logan is still asleep. He’s sprawled out beside me, the white sheets thrown back to reveal the long, tan, excruciatingly attractive line of his body. And now, because of what we’ve done, I have no moral qualms about checking him out as he sleeps.
He’s tall, but he seems even taller, bigger, and broader now that he’s sleeping. But his face is softer, younger somehow. The faint frown lines and tracery of veins in his skin, the dusting of dark hair along his sharp jawline… Is it creepy to look at him like this?
Nope. It’s gotta be a cosmic law somewhere that when a man has had his head between your thighs, you’re entitled by the gods to ogle him in sunlight. What am I going to do, be a moron and not check him out? Come on.
Down the curve of his arm, muscles lying under smooth, sweet skin. No farmer’s tan, I think, with a soft laugh. A little crescent-shaped scar on his bicep from something I resolve to ask him about later. He’s lying on his side, and my hands itch to touch his solid torso. Then down to his hip, then thigh, then his…
The barest corner of the sheet drapes across his cock. I apologize for nothing as I delicately pick the bedsheet up and move it to the side.
Hello, friend.
Up above, I hear a very soft exhalation, almost like a breath. I narrow my eyes and look at Logan’s sleepy face, sensing the telltale quirk at the corner of his mouth.
“Hmm,” I say. “What a pity.”
He exhales again, and the hint of a smile disappears.
“I’m awake and this is awake, but it looks like I need to wait patiently for its owner to—”
“Oh come here,” Logan says, jackknifing up on the bed, shifting to kiss me hungrily as I laugh and laugh at his reaction.
“Mornin-mmff!” I say, the word dissolving into muffled laughter as he captures my mouth with his.
“Not awake?” he teases, between kisses. “Mmm, we’ll see about that.”
What follows is a mess of kissing, shameless groping, and laughter—right up until I find myself straddling him, and he leans back, looking up at me in wonder, his wide hands settled on my hips. They span so wide, they can practically brush my belly button, and I love it, how small he makes me feel. Even though I know I’m far from model-thin and hate it. Always have hated that about myself, no matter what I do—
“Hey,” he says softly. “What’s
wrong?”
I shake my head, a smile plastered back on my face. “Nothing. It’s just… I’ve always hated doing this in daylight.”
It feels like an absurd confession to make, one of my most vulnerable ones, and Logan looks at me, confusion on his face. But not judgment.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s nothing,” I say hastily. Between us, Logan’s cock is definitely awake now, hard and insistent, straining up practically to his belly button. A distraction, and a welcome one. I grasp it gently in my hands, working up and down the shaft, and watch with pride as his eyes close in pleasure. And for a few moments, that’s enough—but his hands are still on my waist, thumbs tracing over my belly. Too distracted from the almost overwhelming urge to suck it in a little farther, my smile falters.
“Hey,” he says again. “It’s not nothing. Talk to me.”
What am I supposed to say to this? Am I really going to interrupt our regularly scheduled dick broadcast with a message from our sponsors: insecurity and bad memories? Am I really going to detail how the first man I thought I’d loved had told his friends, “She’s a pretty good lay, but those hips. I mean, I keep telling her, she can come work out with me anytime, but you know how she is.” Right when I’d been in the room?
No. Today is not the day for this. Now is not the moment for this. I just shrug, and continue the slow, easy glide of my hand on his dick.
“I just want to make you feel good,” I say, smiling, using his own words against him. “Can I do that? I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“All right,” Logan says mildly. He groans, and gives himself back over to the pleasure. God, I love the way his flat torso shifts and moves, little ripples of pleasure coursing through him.
“I like the way your hands move on me, Chloe,” Logan says. “I like the way your body feels in my hands. God, you drive me fucking crazy in that dress, did you know that? When you wore it out to dinner I—”
He gasps, and his waist flexes. In my hands, his cock twitches, a bead of precum leaking from the tip, working into my grip slick and sticky.