by Zoe Chant
—braced against the fridge, rubbing up against his leg. She froze in place, a blush flaming her cheeks. Of all the low-class, shameless—
“Whoa, no,” Cal said. “Don’t stop.”
His eyes were fixed on her face. She realized that he must have made that noise just because of...how she looked.
“That’s a sight,” he said softly, “that I could happily watch until the end of time.”
Lillian straightened, the embarrassment fading but leaving her a bit more collected. “I think there’d be some friction issues long before then.”
He laughed, looking startled. Lillian was struck by the joy she felt at the sight of it; she wanted to see that again.
But maybe not right this second. The laugh faded into that same sharp-edged warmth she’d seen before, although now it was more restrained. Leashed. Lillian had the sense, as she’d had when she first met him, that Cal always kept himself very well in hand.
She wondered what he was like when he let go.
Maybe she could find out.
Right now, though, he was contained and careful. “I want you to know,” he said, “that I only want to do what you’re comfortable with. We could stop right now if you’d rather—”
“No,” Lillian interrupted, embarrassment returning for a second at her own vehemence.
But Cal just smiled. “Okay, I admit I’m happier to hear that than I would’ve been if you’d wanted to stop. But if you do want to stop, ever, at any point. No matter what, no matter when. Just say so, and we will. I want you to be sure.”
Lillian nodded. “I’m sure,” she said, pulling him down into another kiss.
She didn’t want to talk about it for too long. She didn’t know why she was so sure, and she was afraid if she examined it for too long, the surety would fall apart into a pile of doubts and insecurities.
This felt so good. So right. She hadn’t felt this good about anything for so, so long, and she just wanted to enjoy it for as long as it lasted.
Cal kissed her back, hard, and then pulled away again. “Okay,” he said. “Then I want you somewhere more comfortable than the kitchen.”
Lillian’s instinct was to protest moving—to protest doing anything other than what they’d been doing. But, well, it made sense. “Upstairs?” she asked tentatively.
As an answer, Cal held out his hand. Lillian took it, feeling silly about it for all of two seconds until her hand was absolutely engulfed by his.
His fingers were warm and rough. A working man’s hand, calloused and strong. She wondered what it would feel like on her body. Or inside her—
She shook the thought off, her cheeks hot with more than embarrassment now, and followed him up the stairs.
The bedroom took up the entire second floor, the ceiling sloping up into a pointed roof. The bed was enormous, and covered in a huge, soft-looking duvet. Lillian thought of her own bed at home—her old child’s bed, a sad twin with an old flowered comforter that was losing its stuffing—and wanted to just fall on it and starfish herself out.
That idea sent almost as much of a thrill through her as the kiss had. God, she wasn’t like this. Hedonistic. She’d been sacrificing pleasure for practicality for so long, she was surprised she still remembered what pleasure was even like.
“I like that look on you,” Cal rumbled softly behind her.
She looked over at him. “What look?”
“Happy,” he said, and kissed her softly.
This kiss was more tender than the ones in the kitchen had been, but somehow no less intimate, or arousing. It was like Cal was reaching inside her, finding the parts of her she’d locked down long ago and holding them close to himself. Lillian could feel her whole body opening to him as her mouth did.
She was full of this...grasping ache, this need to have him as close as possible. Hungry. She was hungry.
He slipped his hands under the hem of her shirt to stroke his skin. The roughness of his callouses on the soft skin of her sides was just as arousing as she’d thought it would be. She gasped into his mouth as he moved his hands slowly upward, lifting her shirt as he went, until he broke the kiss and Lillian had to raise her arms to let the shirt come over her head.
Then her shirt was off, and she looked down at herself, her eyes catching on the heaviness of her breasts, the roundness of her belly.
Cold reality started to creep in. She fought the urge to cross her arms over her chest. Hadn’t she just been this hungry, uninhibited creature? But she couldn’t chase away the self-consciousness.
“Look at you,” Cal said.
“I don’t—I’m not—” Lillian stumbled over her words. How to say to this gorgeous man, who’d probably never been out of shape a day in his life, that her body had never been a source of pride to her? She wasn’t in her twenties anymore, and she’d always weighed too much anyway. There was a reason she dressed like—well, like a librarian. A reasonably stylish librarian, but still. She wore high-necked shirts and full skirts, her body tucked away from anyone who might catch a glimpse of it.
But Cal was looking at it now like he was the hungry one.
“You’re gorgeous,” he said quietly. “Those curves. They make a man want to put his hands all over you.”
Lillian stared down at herself again—her breasts, which were not perky little B-cups, required a hell of a lot of underwire to keep them contained. Her wide hips, her thighs.
“I don’t see it,” she admitted, and that moment of vulnerability was somehow much, much harder than just taking her shirt off had been.
“Then I have to show you, I guess,” Cal said. “See?” He reached out and traced the inner curve of her breast. Lillian shivered as his fingers glided down into her cleavage, settling there for just a second.
“This right here,” Cal said. His voice had gone even deeper, if possible. His hand kept going downward, slid out to her waist and cupped her hip.
“And this,” he said. “Can I unbutton these?” He tugged at the waistband of her jeans.
Lillian nodded, and Cal slowly undid the buttons, his hands brushing the skin of her stomach—an area she normally would’ve said wasn’t attractive to anyone.
But when he had the button undone, Cal leaned down and pressed a long, open-mouthed kiss to the place the button had rested. Lillian made an involuntary noise as muscles inside of her jerked in pleasure at the touch of his mouth.
He straightened, and looked her in the eye. “I badly want to see you without any clothes on at all. Okay?”
Lillian could only nod, overwhelmed.
Cal stripped her out of her jeans easily, by means of simply nudging her over to that enormous bed, tugging them down, and then kissing the incredibly tender skin on the inside of her hip. When his stubble rasped over it, her knees went weak, and she sat down on the softness of that duvet.
Cal got her jeans, socks, and shoes right off after that, quick as anything, and then came back up to unhook her bra.
He kissed her between her breasts when it came off, right where his fingers had rested a few moments ago. “You look perfect,” he said into her skin. “You feel perfect.”
Lillian wondered if she could believe it. Maybe not, but could she believe that he believed it?
Cal’s fingers came back, then, and this time they were tracing over the waistline of her panties. Lillian blushed to think of them—they were nothing sexy, no lace or bows, just plain high-waisted briefs. She didn’t shave anything down there, either, so it wasn’t a smooth perfect sight, like actress in a movie in her underwear.
“Can I take these off too?” Cal asked.
But he still wanted to look at her.
“Yes,” Lillian said, almost not recognizing her own voice. She lifted her hips for Cal to tug them off, feeling hot trails of sensation wherever his fingers brushed her.
And then she was naked, as she hadn’t been in front of anybody else in a long, long, long time.
Cal’s eyes were hot on her, though; Lillian almost though
t she could feel his gaze, traveling over all the parts of her body she’d always thought were unattractive. Her upper arms. Her knees. Her hips. The unruly bush of her pubic hair.
Then he stepped forward and bent down, wrapping her up in his arms...
...and lifted her up and deposited her in the very center of the bed.
Lillian let out a decidedly girlish noise. “Careful!”
He pulled back immediately. “Did I hurt you?”
“No, no—I just meant—I’m too heavy to do that.”
Cal shook his head. “You’re not too heavy for me,” he said. And looking at his body, Lillian had to admit that it was probably true. Even if he hadn’t been a shapeshifter—were they stronger than regular humans?—he looked like he could bench-press her no problem.
He bent down to kiss her, and then started moving down her body. His lips were hot and his stubble was just the right amount of rough, and, Lillian quickly discovered, he was determined to pay close attention to just about every inch of her.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmured against her skin, “here,” her collarbone, and then the hollow in the middle. “Here.” Her shoulder. “Here.” The inside of her elbow.
He kept repeating it, as he kissed her wrist, the palm of her hand, and the tip of her ring finger, and then the ticklish skin high on her side, almost under her arm—Lillian squirmed, and then shuddered as he pressed that kiss in harder, until the tickling turned into a thrill of pleasure.
“Here.” Her nipple, and she gasped. “Here,” and he kissed down her stomach, leaving sparks of sensation behind. Lillian tensed.
“Here.” The hollow of her hip. Then the inside of her thigh, and Lillian spread her legs almost involuntarily, wanting—wanting—
His fingers touched her first. Those calloused fingertips softly sliding over her clit, sending lightning bolts of sensation through her entire body. Lillian cried out.
“Sorry,” she said, when she caught her breath. “I was just—surprised.”
Surprised wasn’t the right word, but she didn’t know if she could say overwhelmed with pleasure out loud.
Call stroked her again. “Don’t apologize.” Lillian let out a breathy moan. “I want to hear every noise you make. I get the feeling you don’t—” He stopped himself before saying whatever was going to finish that sentence. “I don’t want you to think you’ve got to hold back. I don’t want you to be embarrassed about feeling good. I want you to feel good. I want you to make noise, and move, and I want to make you come.”
“Oh.” Cal had punctuated that last word with another stroke down her clit. “I think—I think you’re going to get your wish,” she managed.
He grinned, and it was surprisingly boyish. Wicked, almost. Lillian liked it. “Let’s see.” And he bent his head.
Someone who by his own admission was perpetually single had no right to be as good at this as he was, Lillian thought hazily. Cal started out just lightly, his tongue soft against her clit, chasing each twitch of sensation. Every time she made a noise, or jerked against him, he spent a bit more time doing just that, and he seemed to remember every reaction, because he’d come back and do it again.
He sucked lightly just at the top of her clit, licked down to just above her entrance and spent some time there with his tongue and his fingers both, then worked back up in long, wide licks that had her quivering against his mouth.
Lillian sighed under the attention. He sucked again, and the sigh turned into a long moan, which grew louder as he started focusing his licks down near the base of her clit. And then she felt it: the touch of one of those big, calloused fingers against her wet entrance, circling slowly around it.
It was too much. As Cal pressed his tongue in, then opened his mouth and sucked right where the pleasure was coalescing into ecstasy, Lillian heard herself cry out. She came hard, her entrance fluttering against Cal’s finger as her internal muscles clenched around nothing, her clit twitching against his mouth.
When she caught her breath, Cal had pulled back and was watching her face with the same expression she’d seen downstairs against the fridge. “That,” he said quietly, “is a sight.”
Lillian thought she should be blushing at how uninhibited she’d been, but all she felt was a foreign kind of sexiness. The awareness that that look on Cal’s face was for her. And—her eyes flickered downward—so was the bulge in his jeans.
“I could do with more of a sight myself,” she said, letting her eyes travel up and down his body.
He laughed, looking surprised. Lillian found herself hungry for more than just his body—she wanted to hear that laugh again and again. It seemed to nourish something inside her, warm her and fill her with happiness to hear.
Cal was unbuttoning his shirt. Lillian immediately forgot about anything but the sight of his muscled chest emerging from the fabric, one delicious inch of skin at a time. She couldn’t believe this was hers.
At least for today.
The shirt came off, revealing his whole torso. Golden-tan, lightly furred with salt-and-pepper hair, and all made up of real, hard muscle. Not the kind a guy got from going to the gym. The kind a man got from working outside.
Cal’s hands went to his pants, and he quirked an eyebrow at her, like, do you want this too? Lillian again noticed how playful it seemed. God, he was charming as hell, even though she was sure he wasn’t meaning to be.
Lew had always tried hard to be charming. It had felt like he was making an effort for her, right up until it started to feel like he was lying all the time.
“Yes, please,” Lillian said to the unspoken question, keeping her voice steady with an effort.
Cal’s hands slowly undid the button of his pants, then the zipper...and then he pushed them down along with his underwear in one smooth motion, and stepped out of them to stand naked in front of the bed.
“Wow,” Lillian’s mouth said, without any input from her brain whatsoever.
Unbelievably, he seemed a bit self-conscious all of a sudden. “Just what nature gave me,” he said.
“Nature was in a giving mood that day, then,” Lillian said fervently. Not only in his height and muscles, but also in his—ahem—endowment. He was big everywhere. And hard, hard enough that she was amazed he was holding back as well as he had been.
Lew had always seemed a slave to his hard-on, no control over himself at all. It was eye-opening to notice that the shifter, supposedly a man of wild and vicious instincts, was waiting for her to look her fill without any trouble.
Well, she didn’t want either of them to wait any longer. “Will you—will you come here?”
That chased away any hesitation in his eyes; she could only see eagerness as he came forward, crawling up the bed to hover over her. Lillian reached up, put her arms around his neck, and pulled him down.
A flash of heat jolted through her body at the sudden feeling of him, warm and muscular, pressed all along her bare skin. He’d settled perfectly and naturally between her legs, and she could feel his erection against her thigh, hot and with a hint of wetness.
She was practically panting with desire, she realized. The orgasm he’d given her had left her muscles still shivering with the need for more. She felt open and aching, wanting nothing more than to be filled.
“I want you inside me,” she said into his ear.
Her voice sounded low, full of desire. Sexy. She’d never heard herself sound quite like that before.
Cal made a low noise. “Anything you want,” he said, and kissed her neck. Lillian’s hips twisted involuntarily at the shock of want his stubble sent through her. The rasp against her soft skin was startlingly hot.
One of his big hands cupped her breast, his thumb rubbing over her nipple, and then drifted down—stopping, as though he couldn’t help himself, at her hip, and then sliding down her thigh. Lillian lifted her leg when he tugged at it, and then his hand slipped slowly—reluctantly?—away, and he pulled back enough to get a hand between them.
One of his
fingers slid inside her easily. A second joined it, and Lillian moaned at the sensation of them in her. It wasn’t quite enough, though. “Come on,” she insisted. “I’m ready.”
Cal smiled at that, and leaned in to kiss her. His fingers slipped out, and the next thing she knew, the blunt head of his cock was pressing against her entrance.
“Oh,” Lillian said involuntarily. Maybe she’d been wrong about being ready. He was huge, larger than anything she’d ever had inside her.
But it never crossed over into real discomfort. Cal went slowly, so slowly, pushing a little more, and a little more, until the head was in. Lillian grabbed at his shoulders, clutching hard. Her nails must be digging in, she thought dizzily, and hoped it didn’t hurt, because she couldn’t let go. He was huge, he was so huge—
“Are you okay?” How was Cal’s voice so tender at this moment, when he had to be going crazy at how tightly she was clenching around him?
“Yes,” Lillian gasped. “I’m okay, I’m okay, keep going.”
He was huge, and the stretch was intense, but it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t bad at all. In fact, as her muscles slowly got used to the size of him, the pleasure was starting to build into something impossibly, unreachably good.
Cal took her at her word and kept going, as slow as slow could be. Lillian’s head fell back and she gasped for air. He was so enormous, and it felt so, so good—she’d never realized she could feel like this. Like pleasure was holding her whole body captive, so she couldn’t feel anything else, couldn’t do anything else but shudder around him.
It seemed to take an eon for him to bottom out, but finally, achingly, he was seated fully inside her. Slowly, Lillian found herself able to think again, as she adjusted to his size and caught her breath. He still felt enormous.
“Okay?” he asked her again. His voice sounded tight, like he was finally starting to have a hard time holding back, but he stayed absolutely still.
She nodded. “More than okay.” She sounded breathy and overwhelmed. “I never would’ve thought—but you feel so good. Are you all right?”
That made him chuckle, and she gasped at the burst of sensation that came with the movement. “I don’t know what you think would be a problem here.”