by Lili Valente
Chapter Twenty
Justin
We don’t talk in the car, and when we get back to Libby’s place we don’t bother turning on the lights. We slam the door, drop our shit on the floor, and come together—swift and urgent—in the dark. Her lips crash into mine and her warm curves mold against my chest as I draw her up and guide her legs around my waist, my entire body catching fire.
“Bedroom,” she murmurs against my lips as her arms lock around my neck, making it clear she’s not letting go until we both get what we need. “Now.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I squeeze her ass tight with one hand as I drive the other into her hair, fisting the silky strands as I kiss her hard and deep. She’s so petite I have no trouble holding her with one arm, a fact that reminds me how tight she was on my finger last night, even after she had already come on my tongue.
I’m going to have to go slow, or I’m going to hurt her, and the last thing I want to do is hurt Libby. All I want to do is make her feel good, to show her that she is sexy and beautiful and, even more importantly, fun and silly and thoughtful and classy and a hundred other things that make her the kind of woman any man would be lucky to call his.
Including this man…
As I move swiftly through Libby’s darkened apartment, devouring her mouth as I carry her to the bedroom, I realize there’s no use trying to deny it anymore. I don’t want to be friends with benefits or to keep this a secret or to help Libby grow confident enough to start a relationship with someone else. I want her to be mine. I want her to think of me the way she thinks of Roger, as someone who might be good enough to go all the way with a woman like her.
And I don’t just mean sex. I mean her time and attention and maybe someday her heart.
That’s not our agreement, not anywhere close, but I can’t help myself. I don’t plan on fucking Libby tonight. I’m going to make love to her, to show her with every touch, every kiss, every stroke of my body inside hers that I can be good for her and that this thing growing between us is worth giving a real shot.
“No lessons tonight.” I lay her down on the bed and cover her with my body, loving the way she keeps her arms and legs wrapped around me, pulling me closer. “I just want to be with you. Just you and me and whatever feels right.”
“Sounds perfect.” She slips her hands beneath my shirt, her fingers cool on my stomach. “Can we get naked now? I think naked will feel very right.”
“Agreed.” My lips curve as I pull back, stripping off my sweater and undershirt and then moving to help Libby tug her dress and the tight white shirt beneath over her head. Our socks, shoes, and pants do a similar vanishing act and then I’m back in Libby’s arms, with nothing separating us except my boxer briefs and her panties.
Well, and her bra, but that isn’t long for this world.
I reach behind her, popping the clasp between her shoulder blades and easing the straps down her arms, slowly baring her full breasts. They are alabaster in the streetlight filtering through the curtains and so perfect they look like they could have been carved from marble. But she’s not made of stone, my Libby. She is soft and warm and when I draw her nipple into my mouth and swirl my tongue around her tightened tip, she tastes like paradise.
She’s the ocean on a day without any responsibilities. She’s fresh air and hope and happiness that is carnal and innocent at the same time. I want to do filthy things to this woman, but somehow I know no matter how down and dirty we get, on some level being with her will always be sweet.
Because she’s Libby, and I love her.
I do, I love her. And maybe not just as a friend. Not anymore.
“I want you so much.” She arches into my mouth as I transfer my attention to her left nipple, licking and sucking as I roll the other tight, damp tip between my fingers. “I want all of you. Inside me. Please.”
“I want that, too,” I say, wincing as my need spikes so hard and fast it’s almost painful. “But I need you wet, Libs.”
“I’m already wet.” She takes my hand, guiding it between her legs, making me groan as I feel how hot and slick she is. “All I could think about on the ride home was how much I need to be with you like this. I need you inside me so badly it feels like I’m going to die if it doesn’t happen, Jus.”
“It’s going to happen,” I assure her, the thought of pushing my pulsing cock inside her enough to make my head spin. “But you’re going to come for me first, baby. I need you even wetter. I don’t want to hurt you, not even a little bit.”
“It’s okay. I know it might—” Her breath rushes out as I begin to circle her clit with my thumb. “I know, I… I…”
“Yes?” I draw her legs farther apart as I kiss my way down her belly, replacing my thumb with my mouth and swirling my tongue around the small, tight nub at the top of her stunning pussy.
“There’s something I should tell you.” Her fingers fist in the quilt beneath her as she presses closer to my mouth. “God, how do you do that?”
“Do what?” I suckle her clit lightly, loving the way she cries out in response.
“Make me crazy so fast?” Her breasts rise and fall as her breath begins to come in swift, shallow gasps. “It’s so good, Jus. So amazing I almost can’t believe it’s real.”
My next swirl ends with a deep plunge of my tongue into her pussy. And fuck, she’s as delicious as she was last night, so delicious I can’t stop myself from driving into her pussy again and again, deeper and deeper, until I’m fucking her with my tongue while I rub her clit with my fingers and she writhes against me, demanding her pleasure in a way that makes me even hotter.
Fuck, yes. This is how I want Libby to feel—free, wild, shameless, and determined to take what she needs from me. I live to serve her pleasure, to get her off, to know I’m the one making her lose control.
She calls my name, pressing closer to my mouth, and I reach up, palming her breasts, trapping her nipples tight between my fingers.
A beat later, she detonates.
I can feel the moment she goes—the way her muscles pull tight and her hips lift powerfully into my mouth—and then her wetness flows over my tongue, making me groan. She tastes so good, so primal and sexy, that I want to lap up every drop, but instead I force my mouth from between her legs, tugging off my boxers as I reach for my discarded jeans at the foot of the bed. I jerk out my wallet, rip open the condom wrapper inside, and guide the rubber over my cock, gritting my teeth as it rolls over my hypersensitive tip.
I’m so turned on, so desperate to be with Libby, that it feels like every nerve ending in my body has been buffed with sandpaper. I’m raw and aching and the only cure is to get inside her, to push into her heat and let her bring me in out of the cold.
I move over her, kissing her with the taste of her body still salty and sweet on my tongue. She wraps her arms around me and spreads her legs, pressing her wetness to the thick ridge of my cock, silently asking for what we both need.
“Yes, beautiful,” I mumble against her lips as I fit my erection to her entrance. “I can’t wait to be inside you, Libby. I need you so much.”
“Me, too,” she whispers. “So much.”
I glide slowly forward, waiting for her body to adjust. After a moment, the slickness between her legs eases my way and the head of my cock pushes past the hint of resistance. I start to thrust deeper, but I don’t get far before Libby tenses beneath me. I pause, sensing that something’s not right, but before I can ask if she’s okay, Libby lifts her hips, taking more of me with a cry that clearly isn’t a happy, getting-off sort of sound.
I curse, but I can’t resist the instinctive urge to rock my hips forward, driving to the end of her. Libby whimpers in response, and her thighs stiffen against mine, making me feel like absolute shit even as my cock celebrates finally being buried balls-deep in this woman.
I fist my hands in the sheets near her face and clench my jaw, fighting to hold still. All my body wants to do is move, to drive in and out of Libby’s tight heat—God, sh
e’s tight, so fucking tight—until we both lose our minds with pleasure, but clearly Libby isn’t enjoying this. Her eyes are closed, and she’s biting her bottom lip, and the warm, pliant woman who welcomed me into her arms is now stiff and guarded, her body language making it clear this isn’t nearly as much fun as she thought it would be.
All the signs are there, the signals so clear even an idiot could read them. It normally doesn’t take me long to put context clues together and come to logical conclusions, but I’m so positive that Libby would never lie to me that it takes nearly a minute for the truth to penetrate.
“Why didn’t you tell me it was your first time, Libs?” I shake my head as her eyes slowly blink open.
“I was going to. But I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.” She swallows. “And I guess I was sort of hoping you wouldn’t notice?”
“Not notice that you’re a virgin?”
Her lips curve in a weak smile. “Well, not anymore…”
My breath rushes out. “What about Brett? You made it sound like you two—”
“I know, but we never did,” she says, guilt creeping into her eyes. “We got close. Sort of. But we didn’t.”
I scowl down at her as I drop my hand to her hip, squeezing her curvy flesh tight as I fight to hold still. Unfortunately, the fact that she misled me is doing nothing to cool my need to pump in and out of the pussy gripping me like a fist. Sweat is breaking out between my shoulders, and my balls are pulsing, demanding I move, but I hold still, refusing to hurt Libby more than I have already.
That’s what makes me angry. Not the lie, but that I ended up hurting her because I was in the dark.
“You should have told me,” I say. “I could have gone slower. I could have made sure it didn’t hurt. Or at least not so much.”
“I’m okay,” she whispers. “I promise, Jus. It’s not that bad.”
“I wanted our first time to be a hell of a lot better than not that bad.”
“It is.” Her fingertips trail down my back to my hips and up again, making my cock twitch inside her. “It’s incredible. Even though it stings, it feels so good to have you inside me. I promise.”
“And I promise that I’m going to make it feel even better. But I need you to do something for me.”
“Anything,” she says, with a sincerity that makes my heart do more of that aching, overflowing thing it’s been doing since I kissed her in Edna’s kitchen. I don’t know what I did to deserve to be the first man to make love to her, but I’m going to make this good for her or die trying.
I lean down, pressing my lips to her forehead. “Close your eyes.” When she obeys, I whisper against her skin, “Now concentrate on your breath the way we did the other day. Long easy inhalations, and as you exhale imagine the tension leaving your body in little puffs of smoke.”
Her eyebrows lift, but her eyes remain closed. “You’re serious?”
“Dead serious,” I say.
“Is meditation during sex a thing?”
“No, it’s not a thing,” I say, frustration edging into my tone. “But if you don’t relax, I’m going to keep hurting you, Libby, and I hate hurting you. Seriously hate it. So can you just humor me for a minute?”
“Yes, I can.” Her fingers skim up my back to my shoulders. “But please don’t feel bad. I know you would never hurt me on purpose. You’re one of the sweetest, kindest people I know.”
“Are you breathing? I don’t hear any breathing.”
Her lips curve. “I can still tell what you’re thinking, you know. Even with my eyes closed. Being sweet and kind isn’t something to be embarrassed about.”
“I’m not embarrassed, I’m hard.” I cup her breast in my hand, brushing my thumb across her nipple. “I’m rock-hard, and I’m buried inside a beautiful woman who won’t stop talking and breathe so I can get her relaxed and ready for me to make her come again. It’s very frustrating, Libby.”
“I thought you liked it when I talked.” Her voice hitches as I roll her nipple between my fingers and thumb.
“There’s talk and then there’s talk.” I transfer my attention to her other breast, loving the way her lashes flutter against her cheeks in response.
“So if I were talking about how much I love your hands on me, that would be okay?” she asks in a husky voice that makes me think we might not need a meditation session after all.
“That would be acceptable.” I kiss her neck, inhaling the heady fragrance of flowers and Libby.
“Or how good it feels when you bite my nipples?”
I rake my teeth over the place where her neck meets her shoulder, and she shivers. “Next time, you can be on top and I’ll bite them while you ride me.”
“But you should ride me first.” She rocks her hips, making me groan as she takes me deeper.
“No pain?” I ask, as I slowly pull back.
“No pain.” Her lashes sweep up, giving me a window into her heart again, a window that breaks my heart a little as she whispers, “Can you forgive me?”
“Already forgiven, baby.” I glide back into her, breath catching as her body welcomes me in. And for a moment, I want to tell her that I love her.
That I love how her body fits so perfectly against mine and the way her eyes glitter in the semi-darkness, letting me see the exact moment when an absence of pain starts to become an abundance of pleasure. I want to tell her I love the wonder in her expression as I circle her clit with my thumb, coaxing her back to the brink, and the way she reminds me what it was like to make love for the first time—like a miracle, a revelation, a wish coming true with fireworks exploding in the background. I want to tell her that it feels new again for me, too, because I have never made love to someone who is as precious to me as she is, but I force my lips to stay busy kissing her instead.
This isn’t the time to talk about feelings and changes of heart and wanting more than sex. But it’s hard, so hard that as Libby comes on my cock for the first time, I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep all the things I shouldn’t say from spilling out of my mouth.
“Oh, Justin,” she cries out, arms trembling as she pulls me closer. “Oh my God, it’s so good. So good, so beautiful.”
“Fuck, Libby. Yes, baby.” My words end in a groan as I lose myself inside her, my orgasm ripping through me, making my blood run hot and my chest ache. The pleasure is painfully sweet, so close and raw and intimate that when it’s over, all I can do is pull Libby close and hug her a little too tight.
I don’t want to let her go, but eventually we shift until we’re lying side by side on her mattress, and she lifts a tired hand to my face. “Thank you.”
“Thank you,” I say softly, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Now get some sleep. But tomorrow we’re going to talk. A serious talk. No more lies.”
And no more pretending that casual sex is ever going to be enough. I don’t want casual. I want it all, every piece of the beautiful person falling to sleep in my arms.
Chapter Twenty-One
Libby
I wake up before the sun and the alarm clock, and do something I haven’t done in three years of teaching. I turn off the alarm, swipe my cell from the bedside table, and call in sick.
I’m finishing my message, explaining that I’m running a fever and don’t want to come into work in case I’m contagious, when Justin rolls over and his eyes blink open, sending a fluttering, swooping feeling through my stomach, making my voice breathy as I add, “So sorry about this. Please have the sub call me if she needs any help, and tell the kids I’ll miss them.”
I end the call and set the phone back on the table without breaking eye contact with the scruffy sex god in my bed. He really is a sex god. And last night we really had sex—incredible, intense, multi-orgasmic, life-changing sex—and I am no longer a virgin.
It’s all so unexpectedly overwhelming that I’m not sure what to do with myself except stare at Justin and whisper, “Hi.”
“Hey.” He blinks, squinting against the sun b
eginning to stream in through my curtains, the slight puffiness around his eyes making him even more handsome.
God, he’s beautiful. How on earth did it take me so long to realize that he is the sexiest, best, most wonderful man to ever walk the face of the earth?
Slow your roll there, Collins.
Justin has plenty of flaws, and so do you. Have you forgotten the bumps in the road last night? And how clearly unhappy he was that you fudged the truth?
“You called in sick?” he asks, voice rough with sleep.
“I did. I thought it would be nice not to have to rush that talk.”
“Good.” His eyes flick down to my shirt before returning to my face. “You got dressed.”
“I can’t sleep naked.”
“Why not?” He pushes up on one arm, sending the sheet slipping down around his waist, low enough for me to see the top of the furry trail that leads to one of my new favorite things in the entire world.
Memories of how it felt to have him inside me, making love to me with a focus and intensity that turned my body to molten lava, shimmy through my thoughts, making my face heat. “Um, I don’t know. I just never have. It felt…strange.”
“Lots of things are strange at first.” He loops his arm around my waist, tugging me toward him so fast I barely have time to yip in surprise before he’s on top of me, nudging my legs apart with his thighs. “How are you feeling this morning?”
He pulls up the hem of my oversize sleep shirt and slips his hand down the front of my panties, giving my clitoris a good-morning rub that makes my breath catch before his fingers press gently against where I’m already wet, simply from being this close to him. “Sore?” he asks.
“A little,” I confess, “but not as bad as I thought I would be. Actually, I…”
“Yes?” He slides a single finger inside me, a decision my body welcomes with a shiver and a rush of heat between my legs.