“I am,” I said, running my hands up his arms, looking into eyes so dark and sincere that I felt it in the goose bumps on my back. There was something else in that look. Something troubled. “Are you?”
He sighed heavily. “So much,” he said, leaning down to kiss me so softly and so thoroughly that my heart tightened in my chest. A burn started behind my eyes as he kissed me like that. It was—real. It was—“God, I want you so much,” he said against my mouth. “But there are things—that you don’t know—”
Something in me already knew that. Something was inherently present about that, and it was probably important and life altering and faith shattering, but I just couldn’t. I couldn’t let go of this moment and this man and go to the shattering place right now. It felt like it was now or never. And that right there should have sent me running.
For once, that wasn’t even a consideration.
“Would it change my mind about being naked with you right now?” I asked, kissing him, eyes wide open. I needed to see his reaction. I needed the answer to be no.
He looked at me straight on, his hands traveling slowly down my arms.
“It might,” he said.
The words barely had sound attached to them, but they were mighty.
The burn that had touched my eyes flickered again, and I took a deep breath, blinking back tears. This could hurt me.
Now or never.
“Then don’t tell me,” I said softly. “All I need to know right now is if you want this,” I said, pressing against him. Kissing his chin.
His fingers went up and fisted in my hair. “You have no idea,” he said.
“Then show me,” I said, unzipping his pants. He was commando. Sweet Jesus.
Everything that straining zipper had promised sprung free into my hands, and Leo swore as I stroked him against my stomach.
“Shit, Micah, get on the bed,” he said through his teeth. “Please.”
“Now who’s begging?” I asked, lowering to my knees and trailing my tongue in a path, skipping the star and beginning again underneath. I kissed up the base, all the way to the end, as Leo grabbed my head with a moan and nearly lost his knees. “Like that?” I whispered against the head, before I took him into my mouth.
“Oh, fuck,” he growled, grabbing on to a nearby dresser like a life support. “Mic—Jesus, that’s—” His words left him as I made love to his dick with my mouth, sucking, stroking, licking, pulling him in for a taste and then taking all of him to the back of my throat in a rush. “Please, baby,” he finally said, pulling me back to my feet. He was breathing heavily, and his eyes had gone wild. He kissed me, hard, picking me up and turning around to lay me on the bed.
“Tell me what you want,” he said, lying me back and coming with me, holding himself up on arms that made me want to blow just touching them. He kissed me and then pulled back, kissed me again and pulled back.
“You,” I said, pulling him down on top of me and rejoicing in the feel of his weight as I wrapped my legs around him.
Big arms wrapped around my body as we intertwined and he pulled my thighs tighter around him. It was sexy but also intimate. Primal. Familiar. Lovers wrapped up in each other like we’d been making love for years. Hands roaming, finding, pleasing. Mouths hungry and searching. Moving against each other in a mock fuck that had me shaking with need. Everything in my core was tuned to him. Nothing in my life had ever felt like this.
Because—
Falling.
No thought had ever rocked me more.
“Tell me what you want,” I breathed, echoing his words. I held his face and looked into his eyes. “Tell me what you need.”
“To bury myself in you,” he said.
I felt every possible meaning of those words in my bones. All the things I didn’t know were about to be buried inside me, too, and my heart wrapped around that. I wound my fingers into his hair, and in one tweak of an angle Leo moved the tiny string of my thong aside and sank into me.
“Oh!” I gasped, as every muscle in my body contracted around him, tensing and releasing as he filled every glorious space.
A breathy growl rumbled in his chest as he pushed inside, cursing into my hair, his fingers digging into my left thigh as he tugged it higher.
“God, you feel—fuck—” he grunted out through his teeth. He pulled out of me a little and thrust back in, both of us moaning in ecstasy as he bottomed out.
“Leo,” I breathed, raking his back with my nails and then grabbing his ass. Oh, my God, his ass was fabulous, muscled, and delicious as he pumped into me, stretching me out, filling me up.
He lifted my legs higher, almost over his shoulders, pushing deeper and shutting his eyes as he swelled even bigger inside me. I closed mine, too, savoring the sensations. He felt amazing. I wasn’t going to come like this. I couldn’t remember the last time I had during actual sex. But he was huge and hitting everything, and I could enjoy the ride.
“Talk to me,” he said, slowing his rhythm. My eyes popped open. “Tell me what feels good.”
“It all feels good,” I said, molesting the muscles rippling in his shoulders. He stopped moving. I frowned. “Wait. What are you doing?”
“Talk to me,” he repeated. “Where’s that woman who screamed up on the roof, riding my fingers?”
My inner muscles clenched at the memory, and he raised an eyebrow.
“There she is,” he said, giving me a pump.
“Mmm,” I said. “Quit stopping.”
“Quit giving up,” he said.
I gave him a look. “Anyone ever tell you that teaching during sex kills the mood?”
He dropped his head to nuzzle my neck, and started moving slowly again.
“Touch your breasts,” he said against my ear, sending tingles down my neck. “Close your eyes if you need to, but touch them like you want me to.” He moved his lips along my cheek and then backed up to sink deeply into me again, his pleasure stopping his words for a beat. “Teach me.”
Warmth spread over my skin as I paused and watched him. Watched him just enjoying me. Being inside me, being with me, participating, talking, wanting me there fully engaged with him. It was like—going to Greece and finding out you know the language because you’ve always been Greek and didn’t know it. And that was a horrible analogy, but I was just in awe.
I closed my eyes and let my hands move over my body, caressing my breasts, listening to his voice say naughty things to me as he moved steadily in and out of me. I pinched my nipples between my fingers and he growled as I tightened around him.
“Mmm, that’s good,” he said under his breath.
I let my eyes flutter open and meet his heated gaze as I rolled my nipples between my fingers and imagined him sucking them. Hard.
“Shit, you just got really wet, baby,” he said, his jaws tight.
Holy hell, I needed to move. Things were getting maddening in there, and I needed to move on his dick. The way I needed. Now. It had been a long time.
“Leo,” I breathed.
“Yes.”
“Will you fuck me from behind?”
CHAPTER TWENTY
There was a half-second more of patient touch-yourself-and-I’ll-wait Leo before his eyes went heavy with something much more feral.
“Grab the headboard,” he said, his voice cracking.
He pulled out and I rolled over, looking over my shoulder at him as I wrapped my fingers around two wooden spokes on the headboard. He peeled my thong off and ran his hands over my ass as I arched for him, and he cursed under his breath.
“You are so beautiful,” he whispered. “Hold on, baby.”
Leo pushed back inside me, deeper, deeper, making me cry out as he plunged without mercy at a whole different angle. It was the best kind of pain as he dug his fingertips into the soft flesh of my hips, slamming deeply into me, and I
found my rhythm, meeting him slam for slam.
It was liberating. It was freeing. I was cursing and begging him to keep going. To slap my ass, grab my hair. I didn’t know who the living hell I was, but whoever I was channeling was the damn bomb.
“Micah,” he roared. “I—”
It was happening. Something was happening. The pressure was building wayyyyyy off in Never Never Land, and I couldn’t stop now. I couldn’t feel my arms anymore. They were just a big giant burning sensation, pushing me back and forth, but I wanted it.
“Fuck me harder, Leo!” I cried as the build started in my toes, curling them under and almost cramping my calves. “Oh, God, please—don’t stop!”
He was almost splitting me in half and I didn’t care. I couldn’t care. I couldn’t breathe—that had gone by the wayside. I couldn’t—all there was, was this phenomenal wave of holy fucking fuck—
Noises that sounded almost inhuman came from my throat as it crashed into me. Wave after wave beat into me and over me and through my bones as Leo continued his punishing pounding, and as my screams hit the downhill range, I felt him bow up like a beast.
My name never sounded so good as it did roaring from his mouth as he finally let his climax go. Again and again, he pounded his orgasm into me, finally ending with a shudder as he lay heaving against my back.
Slowly, we melted together into the bed, sweaty and limp, struggling to catch our breath. Leo rolled onto his back and held up a finger.
“Give me a sec,” he managed.
I rolled over, too, drawing oxygen into my lungs. My body burned from every direction, inside and out. I felt like I’d been beaten, drawn, and quartered—or just truly and thoroughly sexed beyond imagination.
Never, ever had I experienced anything like that. I turned my head to peer at his profile, eyes closed, mouth open, pulling in air and probably listening to his heart still racing in his head. No one had ever been willing to work that hard for me—least of all, me.
“I’m sorry you had to run a marathon there,” I breathed. “While climbing Mount Everest. And swimming the Atlantic.”
He turned his head to me, eyebrows furrowed. “Are you kidding me?” he asked around breaths. “What are you sorry for?”
“That was a lot of—”
“If you say work, I’m going to pull your hair,” he said. “Again.” A chuckle wound its way out of my chest. “Micah, that was unbelievably hot.”
“Even though you made yourself wait?”
He lifted a hand and ran a finger along my cheek.
“Because I did,” he said. “Getting you there was erotic as hell,” Leo said. “Watching you come undone.” A lazy grin pulled at his mouth. “Watching you enjoy it a little rough.”
Heat rushed to my face that had nothing to do with body temperature.
“Yeah, that was new,” I said, smiling and looking away.
Leo pulled my chin back so that I faced him again. “Own it, Roman-off.”
I chuckled. “I’ll work on that.” His expression was so soft, so relaxed and happy, that it took my breath away. “Tell me something,” I whispered. “Something very few people know about you. Something you love.”
“Lying in the grass, looking up at a clear sky,” he said.
I smiled. “Really?”
“It’s endless,” he said. “Pure. Like an open road.” His finger traced my bottom lip. “Your turn. What do you love?”
I closed my eyes. “Dirt.”
He laughed, and I opened them. “Seriously! And rain. I love a soft rain.”
“Have you ever made love in the rain?” he asked.
“I’ve never even been kissed in a sprinkle,” I said. “It wasn’t practical.”
Leo’s brows furrowed. “That’s sad.”
“You have no idea.”
We lay like that for a while, not talking anymore, my fingers loosely laced with his. Each lost in our own basking, our own recovery, our own thoughts.
Thoughts that were creeping in like vines, now that the horniness was sated. I turned his hand over to see his knuckles, which were starting to bruise.
“Do I need to go find you some ice and a towel?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” he said.
“Oh, no,” I said, kissing his knuckles softly. “You insisted when it was me.”
His eyes went unreadable as he watched me do that, as if he was mesmerized. “And I will probably do that again the next time you punch someone,” he said finally. “But I’m fine.”
Of course my inner ridiculous girl heard “next time” like it was said through a megaphone and I had a squealy moment, but those things from before were swimming around us like sharks. It was time to dive in.
“Leo—”
“I told Nick I was working as a bodyguard, that I delivered papers, worked the late shift stacking lumber, that I had to haul potatoes—I really did have to haul potatoes for a while, but mostly I made up excuses for why I was always gone at night.”
It was a giant info dump done all on one breath, and I didn’t want to break his rhythm, but part of me was terrified. He wasn’t just sharing; he was going to eventually get somewhere. And that somewhere was going to be relevant. I held on to his hand, feeling that keeping that connection was important.
“Nick was smart, though,” Leo said. “Once he got old enough, he knew what I was doing.”
“Which was?” I asked.
“Whatever I had to,” he said. “Like I told you the other night. But—” He stopped. Very much in the same place he had that night. I let the pause be a pause. Let him find his way through it. Suddenly, I was in no hurry. “Nick got really distant and stayed pissed off at me most of the time, so I’d take off for a few days here and there. Maybe a week. Stay with a girl I was seeing at the time to teach Nick a lesson. But I got stupid,” he added, his voice little more than a whisper. “I got greedy. Blind. I stopped listening to myself. The girl had an abusive ex who I didn’t know I was working with, and I should have. He spouted about her all the time. I should have clued in, but he was certifiable so I ignored him.”
Leo sat up, letting go of me, and slid to lean back against the headboard. I followed suit, trying not to look nervous. Lying about jobs meant he had money he had to explain. Being gone at night meant it was secret and most likely illegal. Will it make me not want to get naked with you? It might.
“Nick also met a girl and got all wrapped up in that, got her pregnant, and came to me in a panic.” He breathed in slowly. “And all I saw was an opportunity. I had a plan. I always had a fucking plan.” Leo rubbed at his eyes and then down his face. “My brother—needed me. Put his pride and all his reservations about me aside, and came to me a scared seventeen-year-old kid needing a brother, needing advice, needing help from family, and all I could see was a girl from a wealthy family and the access we had that would make my psycho friends happy.” Leo shrugged as if pushing away the memory. “Long story short, Nick threatened to turn me in if I went through with my plan, and we never talked again.”
“Never?” I said. “Till now?”
“I left,” he said, staring ahead as if he was watching the action in his head. “Addison was born, life went on. I wasn’t there.”
“What was the plan?” I asked, feeling brazen to ask that. He closed his eyes and I knew we were to the “getting there” part. “Or—why’d you leave?” I added quickly, suddenly not wanting to be there.
“It’s the same answer.”
It wasn’t Leo’s voice. I gasped loudly as he and I both jerked to the right toward the voice. The voice belonging to the man leaning casually against the open bedroom door.
“Jeremy!” I yelped, the word cracking like I was a prepubescent boy.
I grabbed a pillow to cover myself, while Leo vaulted over the bed in all his naked glory.
“What the fu
ck are you doing in my apartment?” he seethed, grabbing a notepad off the nightstand and rolling it. Use what you have. “Get the hell out of here.”
“Your door was open,” he said. “Shit’s scattered all over the floor, looks like you were packing or something. Leaving again already? Oh—” he said, holding up a hand as Leo advanced on him. “I don’t blame you for stopping to bang my fiancée first. She’s a good fuck, isn’t sh—”
Leo dropped the pad and his hands were on Jeremy’s throat, pinning him to the door frame before the last word was out of his mouth.
“You miserable son-of-a-bitch,” Leo growled. “How dare you.”
Jeremy coughed and laughed in Leo’s face, which made my skin cold. It was creepy and disturbing and—I was going to marry that? It was horrifying that he should see me naked with another man, just maybe an hour after accusing me of doing that very thing, but more horrific was the look in his eyes. Like he had checked out.
“Aw, did I insult your girlfriend, McKane?” he said, his voice strained. “Again? That’s so cute.”
The fact that he knew Leo’s name triggered confusion. Should he know that? Had anyone ever said it?
“I should have—”
“Should have what?” Jeremy asked innocently. “Killed me? Turned me in?”
Killed? What movie was I watching?
“What?” I asked.
“Oh, that’s right,” Jeremy said, glancing at me before locking eyes with Leo. “You didn’t get to finish telling her.” In a surprisingly fast move of unexpected strength, he broke Leo’s hold on his neck and shoved at him, his expression going dark. “Get off me,” he seethed. “The smell of her on you is making me sick.”
“Get out,” Leo barked.
“Oh, I’m going,” he said, turning my way to toss my shirt at me. His eyes went angry. “Your clothes evidently fell off in the living room. Believe me, I don’t need to see more.”
“Why are you even here?” I asked, yanking the tank top on. “What purpose could it possibly serve?”
He threw something else in my direction and I ducked as it landed on the bed with a jingle. My keys.
Charmed at First Sight Page 21