by Violet Duke
Gentle rough fingers caught her chin and tilted her face up to his again. With a throaty groan so deep she felt it rumble alive across his chest, he dipped down to steal another white-hot kiss.
He was tempting her beyond belief, scorching her senses, decimating her doubts. Rational caution eluded her.
In this moment, all she knew was that she wanted his kiss like her now oxygen-deprived brain wanted her next breath.
Desperately.
And yet it was Isaac who went down on his knees in naked reverence. His hands shaped the curves of her belly before slipping down to her hips and dragging her closer to his mouth.
He dipped his head down and pushed the edge of her shirt up with his teeth, his lips burning a path of fire over her naked skin. Slowly. Until her shirt was a memory of cotton on the floor and his teeth were gently tugging on her belly ring.
It was a silent promise of more pleasure, and absolutely zero control.
She went willingly.
Tendrils of heat sizzled down her spine, pebbling her nipples, making her arch into him as he finally stopped torturing her, and slid his mouth up to draw first one hard nipple into the heat of his mouth. And then the other.
A moan seeped out past her lips, barely louder than a whisper, but the sound seemed to galvanize him. He bolted back up to his feet and slammed her body flush against his as he pulled her into another drugging kiss and swiftly undid the button of her jeans.
The denim slipped down her legs seemingly by the force of sheer desire alone.
He traced his lips across her cheek, and up to her ear, “I’ve missed this, sweetheart. I’ve missed how insanely responsive you are to me. How you tremble, and cry out, and downright burn for me.”
As the erotic whisper melted her insides, his erection, hot and hard against her, nudged against the lace of her panties. His hands latched onto her hips, and he held her in place—the picture of rough, masculine, barely-tempered control—as he rocked his hard length against her core.
Even through the thick fabric of his jeans, she knew the instant he realized how wet she was.
“Son of a bitch.”
* * * * *
HE WAS LOSING CONTROL, and fast. Losing himself in those otherworldly eyes of hers, peering up at him under long russet lashes.
God, she was beautiful.
A forest nymph with startlingly unique, multiethnic features and a smooth waterfall of rich, dark hair he loved burying his hands in.
Not to mention a sexy diamond-studded navel piercing that drove him crazy, and sleek, feminine curves he couldn’t get enough of.
He put his lips to her ear and whispered roughly, “I'm not taking my chances waiting for you anymore, baby.” His fingers skimmed down her hips, and sent her panties falling to a puddle at her feet.
When she moved to step out of them, he felt his restraint slip another dangerous notch. Catching her hips to hold her steady, he fell to his knees and pressed one gentle kiss on her mound, dipping his tongue to trace over the spot he’d discovered once that made her tremble.
It still did.
“Isaac.”
He snapped.
Picking her up in his arms, he carried her to the bedroom and laid her on the mattress, ripping off his shirt and shedding his jeans at the same time.
The naked appreciation in her eyes was his final undoing.
Condom in place in record time, he dropped a knee onto the bed and slowly pushed her thighs apart. “So beautiful.”
Her eyes fluttered closed and she arched up toward his mouth as he pressed kisses up the sexy midline of her body.
“Open your eyes, baby. Let me see you.”
Seeing those gorgeous eyes of her, dazed with lust was like throwing kerosene on a fire.
He sank into her slowly, his hands gripping her hips, his eyes watching his length disappear inside her. Jaw clenched, he used every mental tactic he could summon to keep from simply plunging into her without any semblance of control.
Dammit, she was mind-wreckingly tight.
Pulling back, he thrust again, deeper this time, but still not deep enough. Barely, just barely, he kept a ruthless grip on his restraint, even though every cell in his body demanded he bury himself in her so deeply, she would never be able to let him go again
Breathing harsh, muscles thick and tense, he slid a thumb between her thighs, and instantly felt her drench him in liquid heat.
Finally.
Drawing back, he drove into her again, straight to the hilt.
At her gasp of pleasure bordering on pain, he jerked to a standstill. “Sweetheart? Did I hurt you?”
“No,” she exhaled, a long, jagged breath. “It’s just been a while.”
He continued to stare at her, now unable to move until he knew the answer to one vital question. “How long?”
She gazed up at him and answered softly, “Over a year.”
The meaning behind her words made a fireball of possessive, possessed lust burn through his veins, overtake his heart. “I was the last?”
“Yes.”
A primitive haze filtered over his vision. He wanted to be her ‘last’ for life. The thought of any man ever touching her again splintering his normally calm control past saving.
He hooked his forearms under her knees and with one long, slow stroke, finally slid home.
Jesus, she was a perfect fit.
“Damn, baby, I forgot how flexible you are.” He spread her wider and plunged even deeper.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
He took another brain-scorching plunge and paused again to calm the hell down.
“Bad for my sanity? Yes. Bad for my lasting longer than a frickin’ minute? Even more so.”
She arched and rippled around him in response to his confession.
And he was lost.
He wrapped her legs around his waist and dragged her wrists up to hold them hostage above her head with one hand.
Then he drove into her so hard she gasped. Instantly, he felt her inner muscles start to pulse around him, drenching him even more in her liquid heat. He bit her shoulder, scraping his teeth along the soft skin of her neck, reveling in the uncontrolled squeeze he felt tighten around his shaft.
Tucking his free arm around her waist, he spread her even wider and buried himself even deeper. Over and over he pumped into her, straining to hold back.
When he felt the telltale signs of her orgasm overtaking her, he fused his mouth to hers and lifted her hips from the bed to take one final deep plunge.
She screamed his name and tightened on him like a silken vise.
He couldn’t move. Buried so deep in her, feeling every trembling pulse of her orgasm like jolts of electricity slamming him over and over again into a crashing wave of pleasure so vast, so all-consuming, he roared over the edge with her until he blacked out.
They didn’t get to their perfect date until nearly midnight.
And it was even more perfect then.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE NEXT MORNING, Xoey was still down for the count.
Even the ruckus of Isaac rolling over to turn off the alarm didn’t cause her face-down-in-the-pillow form to stir. With a yawning smile, he propped himself up on his side to bask in the pleasure of waking up next to Xoey after a long night of loving on her.
He missed this.
If it were up to him, he’d never miss it again.
One step at a time, McKnight.
As if feeling his eyes on her, she turned and lifted her head.
Damn. He’d forgotten how beautiful she was in the morning.
And it wasn’t just his north brain that was responding to the sight
Xoey noticed.
“I’m going to…go brush my teeth,” she said quietly as she slipped out of bed.
Isaac sighed, and prepared himself for the battle ahead.
As soon as Xoey finished her marathon fifteen-minute long tooth-brushing session, he tossed her another bag of her clothes. �
�C’mon, we have to get going before the Asian fusion truck runs out of pastries and dumplings.”
She paused in the middle of dressing.
And he appreciated that immensely.
Blushing, she quickly resumed covering up that gorgeous body, and he watched that busy little brain of hers start grinding away.
Hell no. “Don’t get all up in your head now, sweetheart. I’m hungry, and we have a standing breakfast date at the dog park this morning. So let’s go.”
Surprisingly, she didn’t say a word as she followed him to his truck.
He had no doubt she was just loading up on the ammo, however. He wasn’t worried.
As he pulled into an open stall by the Asian fusion food truck they both preferred, she fired her first shot.
“I feel like bacon doughnuts today.”
A well-aimed missile. Clearly, she was under the impression that this would be a quick scuffle.
He gave her a look. “No you don’t.”
“Are you seriously trying to tell me what I do and don’t want to eat?” Now she looked genuinely annoyed. At this rate, she really would be wanting a bacon doughnut. Then he’d be up a creek without a paddle.
“Fine. We’ll go get you some bacon doughnuts. But first, I’m going to get some Asian pastries and dumplings for myself. Along with some jasmine chai tea.”
“You don’t drink jasmine chai tea.”
He lifted an amused brow. “Are you seriously trying to tell me what I do and don’t drink?” he asked, mirroring her earlier comment almost exactly.
Her jaw snapped shut.
Fifteen minutes later and Xoey was still quiet as a mouse. He pulled into his usual stall at the dog park and hopped out with his food and drink. Xoey did the same.
As they settled down on their bench to eat, he fought back a grin when she gave her bacon doughnut a dirty look before grudgingly eating it.
“So tell me about your date last night, babe.” Two could fire missiles.
And from the looks of it, he’d shocked her to the point of nearly turning the doughnut in her mouth into a projectile bullet.
Xoey turned to him incredulously. “You want me to tell you about my date last night?”
“That is our thing. So how was he? I mean it.”
She narrowed her eyes and he awaited the verbal tongue-lashing he could already see forming. He loved pushing her buttons. Didn’t do it often, but when he did, it was a thoroughly enjoyable form of entertainment.
But it didn’t come.
Instead, she made a showing of eying the clouds. “Hey look. It looks like rain.”
The weather? She wanted to discuss the weather?
His exasperated look finally made her crack a smile. “What’s with you the last few days? Normally, you’re unshakeable. Mr. Cool & Collected.”
He cast her a heavy sidelong glance before passing her the dumplings and tea. “Yeah, well, lately you’ve been managing to unhinge me with shockingly little effort, so you can blame yourself for my behavior the past few days.”
She hesitated for exactly half a second before snagging the dumplings and taking a big bite, sighing happily, the tea clutched to her chest like a Hobbit ring.
He grinned. And just barely resisted the urge to tell her, ‘I-told-you-so.’”
“So are we going to have that talk now?” he asked when the food and tea began doing its magic on her mood.
“Is that a part of the perfect date and perfect sex plan?”
He couldn’t have named those better himself. “I didn’t plan last night—the date yes, but not anything else.”
She nodded her head. “I believe that. Even with this new flirty, dommy dwarf thing you have going on, you’re still nice and serious dwarf.”
Chuckling, he settled back against the bench. “Now we’re getting somewhere. So tell me your date’s flaws. C’mon, lay it on me.”
She popped a crispy little Asian pastry in her mouth and studied him while she ate. Then with a candid smile, she shrugged and began ticking off a list between bites. “He hums a lot—the most atrociously bad songs, at that—during the oddest of times. Drives me crazy.” She began counting off with her fingers. “He plays fantasy football like he’s the commissioner of the NFL, he can’t sit still in a movie to save his life, and he always wants to hold my hand.”
At the reminder, he reached over to do just that, ending a year-long drought of the intimacy by pulling said hand up to brush his lips over her knuckles. It thrilled him to no end to see her mouth curve up unconsciously in pleasure.
But her frown came back soon after. “Isaac, as much as I want to, we can’t go back.”
He looked at her in utter seriousness. “Who says I want to go back? I love our friendship now. Wouldn’t change it for the world.”
“So we agree.”
“Not at all. I don’t see why we can’t be together and be friends. Just give us a chance, Xo.”
“But what happens if it doesn’t work out again? I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have you as a best friend anymore.”
Leaning over to cup her cheek, he held her gaze to make sure she was hearing him when he promised, “If we did break up again, I’d fight even harder than I did the first time for us to stay friends. I don’t ever want to lose you either.”
Her voice sounded torn down the middle. “I admit what we had last night was incredible, but I’m being deadly serious when I say I would take your friendship for the rest of my life over a thousand of those nights. I’m not willing to risk the possibility of losing you forever.”
He fell silent and processed that. “But—ˮ
“Please, don’t try to persuade me to change my mind because if last night is any indication, you might end up succeeding.”
He brushed his lips against her hand again, her palm this time. “What I was going to say is, what if you didn’t have to choose? If you could keep the friendship and have the perfect dates and perfect sex?”
She frowned. “You mean as in friends with benefits?”
“Sort of. More like friends with ‘unalienable rights.’” He grinned, knowing she would appreciate his use of her own words in his argument.
She did. And it gave him some leeway. “What kind of rights?”
“The right to kiss each other whenever we want. The right not to try to impress each other when we’re together with hair products, or fancy clothes, or clothes in general.”
A half-smile twitched at her lips.
“The right,” he continued, “to be a…let’s go with ‘grouch’ when an MMA ring girl shoves her boobs in my face.”
She was back to frowning—rather ferociously at that—when she countered with, “And the right to sabotage my dates?”
“No,” he growled.
That made her shoot her gaze up to meet his in surprise.
“No other dates. We’d exercise the right to be happy just with each other.”
She sighed. “Isaac, what you’re describing is a relationship.”
“No, not a new one at least. I’m just expanding the scope of our existing one. It won’t affect our friendship. The very second it does, we’ll stop.” He looked into her eyes, refusing to back down. “Do you really see it being all that different, Xo? We see each other most mornings, talk before bed most nights. Now we get to have sex on top of that. I don’t see a downside here.”
He was wearing her down, he could see it.
“Honestly, I’ve never been able to have that sort of relationship with someone. The sex…it complicates things.”
“Okay then, no sex,” he compromised easily. “No full benefits, just...partial ones.” He grinned.
“What does that even mean?”
His eyebrows shot up and he was just about to outline all the ‘benefits’ at their disposal that ‘everything but sex’ covered.
…When the clouds suddenly dumped a river of rain on them.
* * * * *
DRENCHED THROUGH THEIR clothes, Isaac drove them
back to his house while Xoey mulled over the amendment to his proposal.
Once in the house, he went to grab them some towels, and she couldn’t help but stare the entire time. Good lord, he was ripped. It was pure unadulterated fantasy fodder to watch his shirt cling to him like a second skin, molding to and highlighting every last fighter-trained muscle in his body.
Now why exactly was she taking sex off the table?
He was back in a flash with two towels, one of which, he wrapped around her to bundle her up, the other he used to gently dry her hair. Holding her close, he rubbed her arms to warm her up, completely heedless to the fact that he dripping wet himself.
This right here was classic Isaac.
She tried really hard not to turn to mush on the spot.
But there was one thing that had to be said.
“I do love you, Isaac. You know that right?”
He froze. And then tightened both arms around her in a vice-like embrace. “I love you too, Xo.” The rough whisper rumbled out of his chest, gravelly with emotion. “Never stopped. Never will.”
Her heart spun in her chest. “I’m scared,” she confessed, sinking into his embrace when he pulled her tighter into his arms. “The idea of possibly damaging what we have and losing you…terrifies me.”
“I would never jeopardize our friendship for anything and I know you know that.”
She did. Of course he wouldn’t.
“So please Xo, just give us a chance. You talk about the risks at stake but isn’t it riskier to not even try? I think we could have something great between us. And it you want to take things slow, hell, I’ll be happy just kissing you for months on end. It can’t be any worse than my not being able to touch you at all for the last year. So to answer your question earlier, partial benefits can mean anything you want, sweetheart. Even if it means us just holding hands. I’d still consider that a benefit. Whatever you want, Xo. However slow you want to take this. Let’s just try this.”
“Dammit.” She wrapped her arms around him and laid her head against his chest. “You’re such a nice guy.”