by Minard, Tori
“I don’t think so. Maybe a few pieces, an armload or something, but not the whole woodpile.”
“I thought you said you wouldn’t laugh at me,” he said, his lips curling up at the corners.
“I’m not.”
A sideways glance. “You so are.”
“Nope. I thought it was really touching. But I don’t want you doing it again, because if you die on me I’ll have to kill you.”
He laughed a little. “I wouldn’t want that.”
“Nobody does, believe me.”
Chapter 24
Want
Nova:
I tried, sometimes subtly and sometimes not so subtly, to get Gage to confess to me over the next two days. But he wouldn’t. He never opened up to me about it again, just flat out refused to talk about it. I’d never known anyone so stubborn.
Damn it. The more I pondered what it could be, the more I wanted to know. But I couldn’t force him to tell me.
It had been two days since Gage kissed me. We hadn’t talked about it and we hadn’t done it a second time. We were both pretending it had never happened.
I took our dinner plates to the sink for washing. Crumbs of the omelets I’d made still clung to their shiny white surfaces. Gage followed me. I could feel his gaze on my back; it made me hot and nervous with self-conscious anticipation.
Did he still want me? Why had he stayed so distant since the kiss?
We’d talked, sure, but just as friends. We’d played music and I’d made a couple of pictures of him. Yet we hadn’t touched beyond our fingers accidentally brushing.
I turned on the water and soaped up a dish cloth.
“Let me help with that.” His voice came so close to my ear that he startled me.
I jumped, making him chuckle.
“You can dry.” I pointed to the drawer that held my towels.
He grabbed a towel. When he stood next to me, he chose a spot so close his hips almost touched mine. I could feel the heat from his body through the sweatshirt I wore and it made my heart trip a little.
I washed the first plate, rinsed it, handed it to him. Our hands touched. I swallowed hard and picked up the second plate. When I gave it to him, our hips bumped.
“Sorry,” I squeaked.
He grinned down at me and bumped me again. “I don’t mind.”
Oh. He didn’t? Confusion and a hot blush covered me as I rinsed my hands and the sink. Gage dried the second dish and put it in my dish rack, watching me the whole time out of the corner of his eye.
He reached out and stroked the upper plane of my cheekbone. “Nova.”
I looked up at him, heart pounding now. “Gage?”
He took me in his arms. My heart instantly began to pound and my core heated and throbbed. We hadn’t done anything more than kiss since that first time, but kissing was all it took for me to get excited when I was with him. Sometimes I didn’t even need the kissing.
I set my hands at his tight and narrow waist and nuzzled my face against his chest. He smelled like my soap, but he smelled like himself too, and that was something I’d never tire of.
It was a little scary, how powerfully I was attracted to him. What would happen when he went home? It was going to hurt. A lot.
He tipped up my chin with his forefinger and leaned down to brush his lips against mine. He’d gotten even better at kissing me, something I would never have thought possible. It was like he’d learned me, just from that, and could now push every one of my sexual buttons.
I sighed against his mouth as he licked my lower lip. Barry never affected me the way Gage does and I wasn’t quite sure how to handle it. I mean, my whole body almost hurt because I wanted him so much and that wasn’t something I’d ever experienced. What do you do with that?
So I looped my arms around his shoulders because he was too tall for me to reach his neck, but then he bent down nearer to me and I could finally reach his neck and I stroked the skin there and it was so smooth and warm and I wanted to kiss it. I wanted to kiss every part of him. That was something else I’d never experienced—wanting to kiss a man’s skin, touch him, do things to him. Before, I’m sorry to say, I’d always been a bit passive.
His hands, big and warm, covered my ass and kneaded my flesh and there was something weirdly erotic about that. It made me moan into his kiss. And my moan seemed to excite him. he squeezed me harder as his tongue plunged deeply into my mouth, giving me a powerful taste of him. I clutched him. I slid my tongue over his, pushed it along the smooth hard ridge of his teeth. I took his lower lip between my teeth and pulled.
We’d kissed before, but only the first time had been truly passionate like this. He’d been holding out on me.
One of his hands slid from my ass to my waist. He left it there for a moment. Then up it went, up my torso, along my rib cage, until his thumb rested just below the curve of my breast. I panted against his mouth, wanting him to touch me there. Even for an instant. I just wanted his hand on me. So much.
His thumb rubbed back and forth along the under-curve of my breast and my heart pounded even harder, faster. The hard bulge in his pants pressed against my lower belly, clear proof of his real desire for me. I liked that. I liked it a lot.
Then he rotated his hand so his fingers just framed the side of my breast. He wasn’t cupping me, but he was letting me know that he wanted to. I arched up, presenting myself.
Do it. Do it, please.
He must have heard my desperate thought, because he moved fractionally until the weight of my breast was in his palm. God, he felt so warm, almost hot, even through my bra and T-shirt. I whimpered.
“You feel so good,” he said brokenly against my lips.
“Mmm,” I said, arching my back again.
He squeezed me there, squeezed my breast so gently, molding the roundness of it in his hand. His thumb traced across my pulsing nipple. I jerked and gasped.
I thought he’d want to disappear into the bedroom at that point, but instead he continued to tease my nipple by brushing it over and over again until I was whimpering mindlessly with pleasure. His head bent down until he was breathing hard against the crook of my neck as he continued to torment my nipple. I buried my fingers in his curly, soft hair.
“Nova,” he whispered roughly. “I want more. Do you want more?”
“Yes.” My voice sounded so breathy I hardly recognized it.
“Bedroom.” He scooped me into his arms.
“Gage, no! You’re going to hurt yourself.” Neither of us was completely well from our bout of stomach flu.
Gage snorted. “I’m fine. You hardly weigh a thing.”
I knew that wasn’t true, but I decided not to argue. He carried me from the kitchen with a hot look of concentration on his face. I’d never seen him look quite like that before. It was incredibly exciting.
In his arms I was very close to his face. Close to his beautiful mouth. He had the most gorgeously shaped lips I’d ever seen. They were like a work of art in themselves. Halfway down the hall, I pulled his head down to mine and kissed him. I couldn’t resist it.
“Mmm. Baby, I can’t see where I’m going.” He bumped into a wall. The crash of a picture hitting the floor.
I didn’t care. We continued kissing. Our mouths were desperate now, sucking and biting and licking, and Gage bumped into the wall again. He reached the door of the bedroom and kicked it open and suddenly I was falling onto the mattress.
Chapter 24
So Good
Nova:
He pounced on me. Growling. I laughed and wriggled beneath him and he pinned my legs with his. He grabbed my arms and pulled them over my head.
“You’re lucky I’m not going to punish you for laughing,” he said, and once more took my mouth with his.
My core was on fire. I ached for him, and the way he was dominating me at the moment made me even hotter. My hips undulated against him, wordlessly begging him for more.
This was a mistake and I knew it. If we had sex, it wo
uld bind me to him, at least in my own mind. In my heart. And we wouldn’t stay together. We didn’t belong together, not really.
But I was here now, and he was laying over me, and all I wanted was to feel him inside me. No matter how crazy it was, I’d go through with it, just to be with him this one time.
He pulled up my shirt, exposing my bra. It was just an old beige thing, completely utilitarian. It didn’t even have a little bow in the center or anything. I flushed and tugged at my hem so I could cover it.
“Don’t do that,” he said. “I want to look.”
“It’s just an old piece of junk.”
“It’s covering you. That makes it beautiful.”
God, where did he come up with these lines? Did he steal them from his movies or what?
“Take the shirt off,” he said. “please.”
My tongue came out to moisten my lips and his nostrils flared. I stripped off the T-shirt. Gage undid the clasp of my bra with a flick of his fingers and it sprang apart, baring my breasts completely.
The blue of his eyes turned to smoky slate. His lips parted as he stared at my naked torso and my hands twitched with the desire to cover myself. He grabbed them.
“Don’t you dare,” he said. “I want to see you. Every part of you.”
“But —”
“You’re so fucking beautiful, Nova.” His head descended and he took my aching nipple into his mouth.
Wet heat and a powerful tugging sensation brought me part way off the bed with a loud cry. He chuckled against my flesh and continued sucking on me. His hand cupped me, gently molding and squeezing as he suckled. Every pull on my nipple sent an exquisite charge between my breast and my sex, making me ache almost unbearably between my legs.
I was moaning continuously now. And gasping. My fingers clutched his hair; my legs moved restlessly beneath him. If I’d been standing, I probably would have fallen to the floor.
He switched to the other breast, beginning all over again with the brushing. The man had amazing patience. And he was going to drive me crazy, really crazy, before we were done.
I was okay with that.
Leaving my breasts, he kissed his way down my belly, pausing at the waistband of my yoga pants. His fingers curled around the elastic and he looked at me, a question in his eyes.
“Yes,” I said.
“Lift your hips.”
I complied and he pulled down my pants, tossed them to the floor. We did the same with my panties. God, I was easy. And I didn’t care. All I wanted was this time with him, before I had to give him up.
“Beautiful legs, too,” he murmured, running his hands up the sinuous lines of my calves.
This time I didn’t even try to argue, although I thought he was wrong. My legs weren’t beautiful. They were too short, too muscular, too ... too Nova.
He bent his head and pressed his lips to the inside surface of my left calf. I sighed. Smiling against my skin, he continued kissing me, moving upward toward my knee. Over my knee. Up my inner thigh.
Was he going to ...? Yes, he was.
His tongue emerged and gave me a delicate lick along the center of my folds. I yelped. He laughed softly, and I felt the puffs of his breath on my sex. I never would have thought that would be erotic, but it was.
With his thumbs, he parted me. His tongue slid more firmly across my center and I moaned.
“Damn, you taste good,” he growled against me.
That was possibly the hottest thing any guy had ever said to me. I moaned again and he pierced me with his tongue. I arched my back.
“Gage!” Now my voice sounded completely unrecognizable. “Gage! Please.”
“Please what, baby?” He sounded amused, the jerk.
“Keep—oh, God, please keep doing that.” Where Gage was concerned, I had no shame at all.
“That’s what I want to hear.” He teased me for a moment, exploring each fold and crevice of me before plunging back into my sheath with that talented tongue of his.
A fleeting thought occurred to me—that it was a good thing we were so far apart from any neighbors. Because I was making enough noise to rouse a whole city neighborhood. Out here on the mountain, no-one would hear me yelling my head off as Gage made me come.
A long masculine finger slipped inside me while he continued to lick me. He bent the finger. That was all it took to send a vicious spike of ecstasy through me, to make me shatter in the biggest orgasm I’d ever had.
When I came down, I noticed he was smiling up at me. He looked unbearably smug, and I was so besotted with him I thought it was cute. He looked happy, happier than I’d ever seen him.
“Wow,” I said breathlessly. “That was ... I don’t even have words.”
“Amazing,” he said. He moved up until he was lying beside me. “Incredible. Unforgettable.”
“All those things.”
“For me too.” He bent down to kiss me.
He tasted musky, tangy, a strange and foreign flavor that could only be me. I’d never tasted myself before. On him, it was sexy as hell.
“You’re overdressed,” I whispered as he paused. I grabbed the hem of his shirt. “May I?”
“Anytime, Nova.”
I smiled as I sat and pulled the shirt up, over his head. Now that incredible, amazing body of his was bared to me and I wanted to savor the moment. I dropped the shirt over the side of the bed and lifted my hands to his chest.
Beneath his lightly furred skin, he was all hard muscle and bone. I remembered how I’d found him, how I’d stripped him and laid down with him. How cold he’d been. Cold like death.
Now he was warm. I stroked the broad, hard planes of his chest and brushed my palms over his nipples. His breath caught. I leaned in and kissed him just beneath his collarbones.
His eyes were even smokier than they’d been before, his lips parted, slightly glossy from all our kissing. He watched me as I covered him with kisses, as I stroked him over his shoulders, his arms, his ribs, his narrow waist. I tugged at the waistband of his sweats until I got them down a couple of inches and then I kissed him beneath his navel. Right on the line of hair that pointed the way to his cock.
His erection made a tent in his sweatpants.
“Lift up,” I said.
“You don’t have to, Nova. I don’t mind if we stop now.”
“That’s very sweet and gentlemanly, but I want this,” I said. “So unless you don’t, you’d better lift up.”
He smiled and lifted his hips for me. I pulled down his pants and his fully erect cock sprang out.
He was huge. When I’d seen him before, he’d been icy cold and on the brink of death. Now he was very much alive and highly aroused. It made an enormous difference ... no pun intended.
He was so big I probably could have grasped him in two hands, one over the other, and still had a bit of him to spare. He was thick, too. The slightly spongy head was already pearled with a drop of pre-come.
I bit my lip. Glanced at him. His gaze was still fixed on me, even more intently now. I bent my head and licked him, right across the very tip, taking that drop of pre-come onto my tongue.
Gage groaned. “Nova.”
He tasted good. I opened my mouth and took him inside. He stretched me, pushed my jaws apart until they almost hurt. I felt him hit the back of my throat and fought back the gag reflex.
“Jesus, babe, you don’t have to do that.”
Yeah, whatever. I was so doing this.
I released him from my mouth and gave him a thorough licking, from base to tip and all around the head. Then I took him in my mouth again, tasting him at the back of my throat. He smelled and tasted like sex.
This—he—could be inside me. Maybe he would be, soon. The thought of his giant cock moving inside my pussy instead of only in my mouth made my whole body ache with longing and I moaned. I wanted that, wanted it now.
“You need to stop,” he gasped. “Or I’ll —”
I released him. I would have let him come in my mouth, bu
t I wasn’t sure I’d get another chance to have him inside my pussy. I couldn’t pass that up.
“Do you have any condoms?” he said.
Shit. I could have smacked myself in the forehead. Birth control! No, wait ...
“I have a patch.” I’d almost forgotten about it since I’d broken up with Barry and sex had become a non-issue. I pointed to the tiny thing stuck to my arm.
“You don’t mind if we do without? I’m clean,” he said. “I swear. I get checked once a month.”
Whoa. That said something about his sex life that I didn’t want to examine just now.
“I don’t mind,” I said. I’d think about that other thing later.
“Come here.” He dragged me up to him.
Our mouths clung and devoured as he rolled me under him. I spread my thighs so he could settle between them. Right where I wanted him. Well, almost where I wanted him.
“I want you to be sure,” he murmured.
“I’m sure.”
He stared down at me, his dark blue gaze suddenly serious. “Really? I won’t be mad —”
“Gage, I already told you I want to do this with you. Please? I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anyone.” I reached down between us to take him in my hand.
He trembled. I took his cock and guided it to my entrance.
“I want you to take me,” I said.
“Then I will.”
With a thrust of his hips, he entered me. I was wet and ready, but his size shocked me. He stretched me to my utmost, and he was so long that his tip almost seemed to bump painfully against my cervix. For an instant, I tensed, afraid.
Then he withdrew, slowly. So slowly. A long, aching glide out and out and out. A pause at my entrance. Then another long slide into my depths.
This time, all I felt was an explosion of delight. I yelled as my head tipped back. He was a perfect fit. I needed all that length and breadth to hit my pleasure points.
“Are you okay?” he rasped.
“Yeah. Oh, yeah! Keep going.”
With a crooked grin, he did as I commanded. His hips thrust in a perfect, slow rhythm. His hard cock stroked every nerve ending in my sheath, sending me into spasms of ecstasy so sharp I could do nothing but cry out. Over and over.