by Leddy Harper
“In a nutshell, you’re looking for someone like Carter.” She didn’t give me time to respond before rounding the corner to kiss Logan bye. Then she was on her way out the door for work, leaving me in puddle of confusion.
And I sat in that puddle all day until Carter stopped by on his way back from the airport.
As usual, when I answered the door, the first thing he did was lean in and kiss me. It was how he greeted me every time. Up until today, I hadn’t thought much of it other than how nice it was. Now, I couldn’t stop wondering if I’d somehow stepped over that invisible boundary without realizing it.
“If Danni doesn’t come home soon, there’s a good chance Logan will be put in front of the TV with a bowl of candy while I lock you in your room and have my way with you.” He kept his voice low to keep Logan from hearing, but it still wasn’t whispered. His desperation was palpable. It was enough to elicit my own desires and drown out any worry over what side of the line I stood on when it came to my feelings and Carter.
“Three and a half more hours.” I closed the door behind him and followed him into the living room.
He walked through the house with such confidence, as if he’d been coming here for years. He knew where the remote was kept in the living room, where the cups, bowls, and silverware was in the kitchen. He no longer made mention of when he had to use the bathroom or ask before grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge.
I sat on the couch and watched him with mild curiosity, wondering when he’d become so comfortable in my family’s house. It didn’t take long to figure it out, though. The entire week I’d been clam jammed by Aunt Flo, and here he was, making himself at home. We’d done nothing that week but get to know each other without the dying urge to rip each other’s clothes off. Well, we still had that urge, but we couldn’t do anything about it, so we settled for talking and just having fun.
Carter picked Logan up off the floor, where he sat with his coloring book, tucked him under his arm, and twirled in circles. Logan’s laughter echoed around the room, adding to the motor sounds Carter made as he spun him through the air like a plane. I hadn’t even noticed the smile on my face until Carter put down the dizzy little boy and glanced at me, his easy grin mirroring my own.
“You’re quiet today. What’s wrong?” He let Logan go back to his crayons and plopped onto the couch next to me. Even the way he sat with his hand on my thigh, leaning comfortably against the cushion toward me, left my head spinning.
“Nothing. I’m fine.”
His gaze narrowed, and I knew I’d been caught in a lie. Luckily, he didn’t press me for more and carried on like usual.
Danni came home at eight thirty like she normally did to relieve me—oftentimes, us—from Logan duties. We’d cooked, eaten dinner, and Carter had cleaned the kitchen while I bathed Logan and got him ready for bed. Carter didn’t want to wait a second longer to steal me away. He wanted our shoes on and keys in hand by the time the garage door opened.
And that’s exactly how it played out.
Logan ran screaming for his mom as soon as we heard the motor in the garage come on. Carter jumped up from the couch and tugged me toward the front door, not even giving me a chance to say goodbye to my sister before he whisked me away for the night.
I waved at Danni as Carter dragged me across the front yard, and he threw a quick, “Have a good night” over his shoulder at her. His fingertips dug into my thigh the entire drive to his house. My body sang an erotic tune of arousal while he strummed the beat with his fingers and set the pace with his breaths.
After pulling down the driveway, he got out, flipped me over his shoulder, and carried me inside. I let out a squeal and grabbed onto the back of his shirt for support. He held me with one arm wrapped around my thigh, his hand splayed out with the tips of his fingers grazing my covered—and aching—sex.
Being upside down, facing Carter’s back with my ass in the air, I couldn’t see where we were headed. All I had to go on were sounds. The familiar beeps of the alarm system as we walked through the door, the echo of his shoes clomping on the tile floor in the hallway. Once they turned to soft, muted steps, I knew we’d made it to his room, but before I could decipher anything else, I was no longer upside down.
He tossed me onto the bed, the mattress absorbing my weight with very little bounce. No words had been spoken since he picked me up outside—other than my relentless begging for him to put me down. Now, seeing his face, I knew why.
He stared at me intently, his eyes dark and hooded in the soft lighting of the room. His jaw flexed and his shoulders lifted with each controlled breath he took. He looked like a man on the cusp of losing it, tightly holding on to what little restraint he had left. He appeared to be at war with himself, battling with what to do, fighting for control and desperately wanting to give in. The anticipation left me panting in front of him, sprawled out on his bed, so close to begging.
I scooted my elbows to get closer to him, and that’s when he made his move.
He put one knee on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipped low, and then he crawled up my body with his hands on either side of me. His piercing gaze silenced my thoughts, words burning the tip of my tongue. I wanted to say his name, breathe it, and beg him to do something. But I couldn’t do anything other than watch him make his move like I was nothing more than a spectator. Like a tiger on the prowl—shoulder blades protruding, neck solid, focus unwavering, moving forward at a dangerously slow pace—he made his way to my face.
His mouth attacked mine. Hungry growls furled through his chest, vibrating against me. My entire body hummed with the way his tongue licked my bottom lip just before he sucked it into his mouth. With one hand on my hip, the other pressed into the bed next to my head, he rolled his pelvis into me, pressing his erection against me.
But I wanted more.
I wanted his voice, his words, his verbal need for me.
I needed to hear the sultry lyrics of his desire.
“Carter…” I moaned into his mouth, hoping if I broke the spell of silence he’d take the lead.
And he did.
He pulled away from my lips, but not my body. His tongue trailed over my jaw, down my neck to the dip above my clavicle, where he blew a cooling breath over the moisture he’d left behind. Chills ran down my spine and settled into my lower back, kindling the ball of nerves just above the curve of my ass. Taking advantage of the way I arched into him, he grabbed the hem of my shirt and yanked it over my head. It was all so fast I couldn’t gather my thoughts or understand what had happened until my arms were pinned to the bed above my head, the material of my top in his grip as he used it to restrain me. In this position, my breasts were pressed into him and my exhales came out in desperate rushes of needy air.
“So fucking gorgeous,” he muttered along my chest in a throaty tone. He took his time making it to my cleavage, but once he got there, he slid my bra down, freeing one breast. His lips instantly went around the pebbled nipple and I gasped.
Desire pooled in my panties, and I was on the edge of pleading with him to hurry. I didn’t want foreplay. I wanted to feel him inside me, pumping into me, filling me. I needed it more than air, but at the same time, I never wanted this to end. I had to force myself to be quiet and let him drag this out as long as he could.
He moved to the other side, yanking down that cup and attacking that nipple with as much force as he’d given the other. By this point, I was writhing beneath him. And I think he’d finally gotten the hint. His hand slinked behind me to unclasp my bra, and in the blink of an eye, he’d relieved me of the lingerie and top. My arms were no longer pinned to the mattress, free to move about…and touch.
Needing to torture him the way he had me, I pushed against his chest until he stood at the end of the bed. I crawled to him and wasted no time stripping him of his shirt. Of course, he wouldn’t let me do all the work. But the end result was him in front of me, half naked.
That’s all I cared about.
; I held onto his sides and pressed my mouth to his chest. The tip of my tongue traced the thick lines of black ink, and my lips covered the swirls of green and blue. The taste of his salty skin exploded in my mouth with flavors of intoxicating need and overwhelming desire. I flicked his nipple, and that must’ve been his breaking point.
He grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked my head back, forcing me to look up at him. His green eyes were no longer colored, just filled with black as his pupils took over. If it weren’t so hot, it would’ve been scary. But knowing I caused this carnal need made me feel powerful, and because of that, I had not one ounce of fear as I stared up at him.
“I’ve waited long enough to see exactly what’s tattooed beneath your waistband, Carter. I can’t wait anymore.” I was surprised when he didn’t resist. Blindly, I unfastened his belt and jeans and let them fall to his ankles. But I still couldn’t see him.
“And I’ve been waiting forever to taste your cunt.” He started to use his hold on my hair to push me away, but I quickly dipped my hand into his boxers and wrapped my fingers around his thick erection. His grip tightened, his eyes closed, and he sucked in sharply through his teeth. “Kara…” he growled out, like a warning swathed in a plea.
I didn’t listen to him, though. I lowered his boxer briefs to his thighs and started to pump him in my hand until the first bead of stickiness seeped out from the tip. I wanted to taste it, but I couldn’t with the way he held me.
“Keep this up and I’ll fuck you right now.”
That had been what I wanted moments earlier, but now that I had him in my hand, his arousal on my palm, I wanted to take my time. “You’re the one who started it, Carter.”
“And I’ll be the one to finish it.” He pushed me off him with enough force to land me back on the mattress again. His feet moved beneath him, and I assumed he was taking off his shoes and kicking off his jeans.
I watched in awe as he finished removing his underwear. The black and green ran down his hip, from his abs to his thighs, narrowly missing his cock. It wrapped around his leg and down his shin. I’d wanted to see the entire thing for so long, and now that I had, I never wanted to stop admiring it.
But he made me stop when he relieved me of my shorts and panties.
Once we were both bare, eager for the other, he crawled on top of me and reached for the nightstand. He multitasked, putting on the condom while sucking and kissing my neck just below my ear, eliciting moan after desperate moan from me.
“I’m not done yet.” Carter lowered himself down my body and settled between my legs. “I’m gonna make you beg for it. Make you scream so loud your voice gets hoarse and your throat hurts. Make you ache for it so much you soak my bed. And then I’m gonna give it to you.” He licked me softly, his tongue tracing heated paths along the edges of my outer lips. “And I’m gonna make sure you feel me for days. Every time you sit”—swipe—“you feel me. Every time you walk”—lick—“you feel me. Every time you touch yourself”—he pinched my clit between his teeth—“you think of me.”
I laced my fingers through his hair and bucked against his face. I needed more. More tongue. More lips. More fingers and hands and words and…just infinitely more. Garbled pleas poured out of me while I rode his face and chased my release.
The moment the telltale tingles began to spread, leaving my body with the sensation of being enveloped in velvet, he stopped. My eyelids flew open and I gasped. But before I could turn my frustration on him, he’d crawled back up my body and settled himself between my trembling legs.
He didn’t make me beg. In one fluid motion, he thrust inside me and stilled, pressing into me as hard as he could. The lead-up to my orgasm he’d brought on with his tongue hadn’t waned, and as soon as his pelvis slammed into mine, I was gone. I screamed and clawed and gripped him as I rode the wave to the very end. He circled his hips until I began to come back down from my high. That’s when I was finally able to think again, finally able to open my eyes and assess him.
My fingernails cut into his shoulder blades, but that didn’t seem to bother him. He held himself above me and waited while keeping eye contact. It was as if he needed me to calm down before continuing.
“I can’t be gentle with you, Kara.” The way he sounded pained, as if he regretted being rough but knew he couldn’t stop it, kept me from speaking. It kept me glued to him—my hands, my core, my eyes, my attention. “One taste of you and you’ve become my drug. Two weeks without you made my withdrawals unstable. I’m unstable.”
“I don’t want gentle. I want unstable. I want—no, need—you to fuck me.”
He lowered his mouth to mine, but didn’t fully close the gap.
“Make me feel you everywhere,” I whispered across his lips.
He slowly pulled out, keeping his face close to mine, and slammed back in. Again and again, he drew himself almost completely out of me, only the crown of his dick inside my entrance, and then forcefully crashed into me until his heavy balls slapped against my backside.
It brought me to the verge of bliss again, and once I was there, teetering on the edge of the cliff, he palmed my breasts and picked up the pace. His hips circled while he pummeled into me, adding an entirely new sensation to the impatient strokes against my inner walls. And within a few seconds, I had my nails digging into his flesh again. He rolled my nipple between his fingers, and as soon as he pinched it, my core clenched around his girth and I screamed, chasing my orgasm as if it were the last one I’d ever have.
“Keep squeezing me like that and I won’t last much longer.”
“Don’t stop, Carter. Fuck. Don’t stop,” I pleaded in barely audible rasps of air. I grabbed his ass, digging my fingers into the soft flesh of his cheeks, and held him closer. The pleasure rippling through me had lessened, but it hadn’t gone away. I needed it to come back.
Carter pushed off me and knelt between my legs. He hooked his arms beneath my knees and settled my ass on the tops of his thighs as he continued to thrust into me. At this angle, I’d lost the friction on my clit, but the way he hit my G-spot more than compensated for it.
“That’s it, Kara. Just like that. Squeeze my dick.” His exertion was obvious in his harsh exhales. His ragged words were heavy with desperation, and they covered me with weighted desire until I reached between my legs and stroked myself. “Come, baby. Come on my dick. Fuck! I can’t hold on.”
He fell forward, my knees pressing against my chest, my thighs against my stomach. The position curved my spine, but it opened me up so he could reach deeper with each frenzied thrust. An orgasm unlike any other ripped through me. I couldn’t even manage to scream. The only sound that came out was strangled air as I arched into him as much as I could.
Fire so hot it could’ve only come from the pits of hell erupted within me, but instead of my core grabbing him, holding on to his dick for the pleasure it gave me, it was as though my body tried to push him out.
Every muscle coiled tight.
Every breath ceased and turned stale.
Carter’s movements grew rigid, as well. His thrusts became jerky and short as he emptied himself inside me, but he didn’t stop until each push and pull turned slow and elongated. That’s when he released my legs and collapsed on top of me.
“Holy shit,” he panted out against my neck, adding another layer of perspiration to my already clammy skin. “What the hell was that?”
I tried to drag air into my lungs, my smile widening and burning my cheeks. “That was…fucking amazing.”
He rolled to the side and waited until I turned my head and looked at him. “No…yeah, it was fucking amazing…but what you just did? When you came? What was that?”
“I have no idea. I was wondering the same thing.”
A grin tugged at one corner of his mouth and his eyes brightened like a shooting star. “Catch your breath, babe, ‘cause I’m about to make you do that again.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Carter kissed me once more before climbing out of bed a
nd heading for the shower. I rolled to my side and watched as he walked away. I’d seen his entire body, touched it, tasted it, but I couldn’t get enough of it. It truly was a work of art. Sculpted and painted as if Donatello and Michelangelo came together for this one masterpiece.
The ink patterns on his chest extended to cover one side of his back. Where the tattoo tapered off around the front side of his hip, it didn’t on his back. The harsh, bold, black design extended around his side and stopped at his spine, as if it were the edge of a piece of paper. The entire one half of his back was marked with heavy blocks of black, shaded in with teals, with colorless Chinese symbols interspersed. And it didn’t end. It covered one side of his ass, curled around his inner thigh, and joined the ink from the front of his body down to his ankle.
I salivated at the sight of it before he disappeared into the bathroom.
Carter Hastings was like a god.
We hadn’t put clothes back on after he ripped them off last night. They were still scattered about his room where they’d landed in our desperate need for intimacy. I’d lost count of how many times he’d gotten me off throughout the night. And even though I didn’t get much sleep, when he pulled me on top of him twenty minutes before his alarm was set to go off, I’d found myself wide awake and aching for him.
I rolled onto my back and stretched my arms above my head. My body sang with the delicious soreness Carter’s efforts had given me. It was as if his goal was to make up for all the sex we didn’t have before. Even early this morning, when he knew I was tender, he still wasn’t satiated. I’d never known a man who could get it up that many times. But I wasn’t complaining.
The last few times, he’d tried to be gentle…and in his defense, he was a lot slower than when we first started our evening. But I’d come to learn Carter didn’t do gentle. When his movements were relaxed, his hands and mouth were ravenous.
I couldn’t seem to get enough of him.