Girl in Luv

by Rebecca Yarros

  Suddenly, she tilted her head back, and I swore it would be so effortless to drown in the ocean blue of her eyes. I was already weak where she was concerned and not at all a very good swimmer.

  “Right now, I think I deserve a drink. After that, I want to take these heels off and see how long it takes me to peel you out of that tux. In the morning, I’ll remember none of this is real and we need to talk, but tonight…let’s pretend.” Her voice had a sing-song quality to it that was deceptively cheerful. It was a good reminder she was quicker than people gave her credit for and a master at reading people’s emotions behind the façade they tended to wear. I was no exception. She always managed to see more than I intended to show her.

  I cupped her face in my hands and placed a slow, tender kiss on her lips. I might not get to kiss her goodbye once she knew everything, but there was no way I could leave her without stealing one.

  “A drink and a night of make-believe it is. Tell me all your dreams, and I’ll make them come true.” I flashed her a playful wink and followed her laugher off the crowded dance floor.

  That clock ticking down in the back of my head was getting louder and louder. And the ache in my chest was getting more and more painful by the second.

  I tried to ignore both. I was determined to give Langley a night she would never forget. I wanted to be a memory she eventually looked back on fondly, instead of one filled with longing and regret.

  And if I was being honest with myself, which would be a first this week, I wanted to make sure no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t forget me.

  Langley

  Iker touched me the whole way back to our suite. Light caresses on my waist in the elevator, holding hands as we walked down the hallway, and fingers trailing my spine as we approached our door had my nerves firing on every possible level.

  My skin felt aware, hyper-sensitive, and I was more than ready to get this dress off.

  “What’s that?” Iker asked as I dropped my clutch on the table at the entryway, his voice nearly drowned out by a loud boom.

  His head snapped toward the window, his eyes narrowed and alert. Then he opened the French doors that led to our balcony. “Damn. She actually has fireworks.”

  I followed him out, leaning next to him against the balcony as we stared up at the colorful explosions that cost enough to put Iker’s brother through another couple years of school. “I’m sorry; I should have warned you. They’re ridiculous, but beautiful.”

  “You’re beautiful.”

  Startled, I found him watching me. He brushed a strand of fallen hair back behind my ear.

  Was he saying that because he meant it? Or because he was trying to give me my perfect night?

  I mumbled my thank you and turned back to the display.

  “You know that, right?” Iker asked, turning me so I faced him. The fireworks reflected in his dark eyes. He cupped my cheeks, then ran his hands along my jaw so his fingers laced at the base of my skull.

  “Sure,” I answered. “I happen to think you’re way better-looking, but I’ll let it slide.”

  The fake smile didn’t fool him, and he leaned so his forehead rested against mine. “Not just the outside, though, that’s pretty fucking spectacular too. You’re beautiful here.” He placed one hand over my heart, where skin met the neckline of my dress.

  Could he feel my heart pounding?

  “The loyalty you have to your dad, the way you can stand beside your stepsister while she’s marrying your ex—”

  “You don’t think that makes me weak? Spineless?” I whispered my own fears, his lips only a breath away.

  “I think it takes a metric-shit-ton of class to do what you’ve pulled off this week.”

  “I couldn’t have done it without you.” I closed the inches between us, kissing him slowly, moving my lips on his the way I’d wanted to all night.

  His tongue licked along the seam of my lips, and I parted for him, sighing as his tongue rubbed against mine. He tasted like those peppermints he so obviously loved and something dark and spicy, something uniquely Iker.

  My arms wound around his neck, and I rose on my toes, our height difference even more noticeable without my shoes. I wanted to get closer, until there was nothing between us—not our clothes, our lifestyles, or our upbringings.

  His hands drifted to my ass, and his groan rumbled against my breasts, tightening my nipples as he lifted me. My legs wrapped around his waist, my ankles locking at the small of his back as I deepened our kiss.

  He switched the angle, and our kiss changed from slow to urgent, from soft to primal. My thighs clenched as that sweet hum of need in my belly caught fire. Maybe I’d curse myself in the morning because taking this transaction to the next level meant almost certain heartbreak, but I’d deal with that tomorrow.

  Tonight was for losing myself in Iker.

  As if the universe heard my thoughts, the fireworks came to a climax, then ceased.

  “They’re over,” I said against his lips, my breath ragged.

  “Only out there,” he answered, and then carried me into the suite like I weighed next to nothing. The man was stacked with muscles I couldn’t wait to trace with my tongue. Last night had been good—so good—but I hadn’t explored him nearly enough.

  His tongue was in my mouth, my fingers gripping his hair as we entered the bedroom.

  Then he pulled away, and set me on my feet when I tried to bring his lips back to mine.

  “Langley,” he said, his tone even, voice steady.

  “Hmmm?” I asked, my fingers deftly untying his bowtie and pulling it free.

  “Langley,” he repeated, more urgent, his hands holding my shoulders as he stepped back, putting all that cold space between us.

  “Yes?” My lips tingled, my breasts felt heavy, and my pulse raced. How the hell was he so calm? So collected?

  “I need you to think about this,” he said slowly, enunciating each word carefully.

  “Okay.” I tilted my head. “Thought about it.” Had been, thinking about it since that first impulsive kiss.

  His elbows stayed locked, keeping me right where I was.

  “I’m serious. I need to know that you’ll be okay with this in the morning.” His eyes glittered with an intensity I hadn’t seen from him before, and since I’d watched him take down those two punks in the parking lot that night and Richard down yesterday, that was saying something.

  “I’ll be more than okay with it,” I assured him. “Want me to sign something? Swear on a Bible? I’ll even put my selfie on your Instagram with a caption that says I’m about to have sex with this girl.” That would be pretty fitting, considering how he’d gotten me to go have coffee with him that first night.

  “God, no,” he blurted.

  My eyes dropped from his...landing on my open and messy suitcase where the envelope waited with the other five thousand I owed him. Because I paid him to be here. Had asked him to stand by me this week, and he had. Asked him to give me the perfect night...and he was.

  “Oh shit, you don’t want me.” My mouth ran away from my brain, spewing thoughts I normally would have kept censored because that was what was expected of me. “I pressured you into this. I’m so sorry.”

  “What? Langley, no.” Those hands that had been holding me back now gripped, keeping me from fleeing. “Look at me.”

  I brought my eyes to his slowly, taking in the strong line of his jaw, the full lips I couldn’t seem to stop kissing, and finally reaching those dark depths that saw way too much. “I’m looking.”

  He took my hand and cupped it around his dick. His very hard, very ready dick.

  “Does that feel like I don’t want you?” He closed his eyes and mumbled, “I swear, this can only happen to me when I try to do the honorable thing…”

  I squeezed gently and his breath left in a hiss. That reaction, the power I had in that moment, was heady.

  “I’ve wanted you since the moment I saw you in that bar, all wide eyes and curves. I taste y
ou in my sleep, and wake up desperate to see you, to touch you. Fuck, even the sound of your voice turns me on. And you think I don’t want you?” His eyes narrowed. “All I want is you in that bed, naked, under me, screaming out my name while I find out all the different ways I can make you come.”

  His words sent a shot of heat to my core so strong that I nearly swayed.

  “Yes, please.”

  “There’s no taking this back.”

  “I won’t ever want to,” I promised him. I abandoned his erection to unbutton his shirt, slipping the little disks free, one by one, as he stared at me.

  I kissed each inch of bared skin, until I tugged the shirt free from his pants. His skin was golden, smooth and soft, completely opposite to the hard lines of his abs. His breathing picked up as my fingers reached to trace the lines of the tattoo on his side.

  Then he muttered a curse, ripping out his cufflinks, which fell to the floor with any second thoughts I might have.

  A second later, his shirt and jacket were gone and I was pressed up against all that warm skin as he kissed me senseless.

  He didn’t stop kissing me while we undressed, simply moved his mouth to my neck, my collarbone, the extra sensitive back of my neck as he unzipped my dress. Once it was puddled around my ankles, I stepped free, leaving me in nothing but my blush-colored strapless bra and matching thong.

  His eyes swept over me hungrily as he stripped down to his boxer-briefs, which were stretched with the strain of containing him.

  He took a condom from his wallet and tossed it onto the nightstand, raising his eyebrows in question.

  Did I know where this was leading? Hell yes, I did.

  I stepped forward the same moment he did, and we met in a clash of tongue and teeth. His fingers pulled the pins from my hair until it fell against my back in a heavy wave.

  Then, silky softness was at my back and Iker was above me, kissing me with an expertise I knew had already ruined the chances of any guy who might come after him.

  He was hard between my thighs, rocking against me, sending off a set of my own fireworks through my abdomen each time he brushed against me.

  “Beautiful,” he said after he sent my bra to meet my dress, and my back bowed as he sucked my nipple between his lips.

  This man turned me into liquid fire.

  His hands stroked my waist as he worshiped his way down my body. He took his time, lingering on the spots that made me gasp, sucking a small raspberry into the hollow right above my hip bone… like he’d wanted to mark me in only a place that only the two of us would ever know each time I touched that spot.

  His eyes locked with mine as he slid my underwear down my thighs, my calves, my feet, until I was bare before him. It was quite possibly the most erotic moment I’d ever experienced.

  “Damn, Langley,” he said with equal parts reverence and lust as he looked at my naked body.

  Confidence had never been my strong suit, but his gaze didn’t just make me feel sexy, it made me feel like I was his equal. That we were on a level playing field when it came to how badly we wanted each other.

  Then my thoughts stopped as he parted my thighs, then my cleft, and set his mouth on me.

  “Iker!” My hips bucked against his face, and he slipped my thighs over his arms and settled in like he had no other plans for the evening.

  My hands clenched the covers as he ripped away every thought with his nimble tongue. I couldn’t think, couldn’t speak, could only feel. His teeth were sharp as they grazed my clit, his tongue soft as it stroked, then firm as it darted inside me.

  He didn’t back down, didn’t tease, and didn’t grow bored or impatient. He built my pleasure like an architect, and when all that tension coiled in my belly, my muscles locking, he pushed me right over the edge and then held me there as my orgasm hit wave after wave.

  I fell limp against the bed as it receded, my mind and body equally blissed out.

  Iker rose above me, pausing to lose his boxer-briefs.

  “That was... You’re. Wow.” One look at his hard, lean body, and the desire I thought was satisfied flared back to life when he grinned, that damn, irresistible dimple making an appearance.

  “We’re just getting started,” he promised as he sheathed himself. Something shifted in his eyes, a longing I couldn’t quite identify before he bent his head to kiss his way up my neck. “I never want to leave this bed.”

  I’d only ever been with Richard, and he never made me feel this desirable, this necessary.

  Everything with Iker felt new, and so erotic, and I wanted this feeling to last forever.

  “I’m okay with that.”

  His mouth met mine as he lowered his hips between my thighs. The kiss was as messy as my feelings for him, and I threw myself into it, savoring every second I could get with him.

  He rocked against me, the head of his erection nudging my entrance, and I moaned.

  “Tell me you want this,” he said, his voice strained, his eyes locked on mine.

  “I want you.”

  “God help me, you’re all I want,” he swore, then pushed inside me in one smooth, long thrust that kept going and going.

  I rippled around him, my back arching as sensation took over. He filled me completely, then stretched my body, claiming every inch and demanding more until he was seated to the hilt, his forehead on mine and our breathing equally ragged as he slowed his pace.

  “You’re huge,” I managed in between breaths as I adjusted and eased around him.

  “You sure know how to make a guy feel good about himself,” he replied, his smile tight. “You okay?”

  My heart slipped. Even in this moment, when he was buried inside me, sweat beading his skin from the effort it took to maintain control, he put me first.

  Stupid, foolish heart.

  “More than okay.” I drew my knees up and he slid impossibly deeper.

  “Langley,” he groaned. “God, you feel…” He tapered off as he withdrew almost to the tip, then thrust in again.

  “Feel what?” I asked as pleasure washed over me.

  “Good. Too good. Like something I’m not supposed to have.”

  I brushed my fingers along his jaw, which was already prickly. Then I slid my hands down his back to grip his ass.

  “You already have me.” The emotional impact of the words hit me as his body began to move within mine. He did have me, and with each stroke, he took a little more.

  I had no idea who I’d be in the morning, but I couldn’t wait to meet her.

  The rhythm was slow, his thrusts deep and powerful. I met him at every turn, our bodies joining like we’d been making love for years, not minutes. When I started to whimper, losing myself to the incredible fire he built within me, he increased the pace.

  Tension drew me taut as he thrust harder, faster.

  “Iker,” I pled, held on the precipice, dancing on the razor’s edge of a pleasure so sharp I was almost scared to let go.

  He brought my knee higher, switched his angle so he hit my clit every time he bottomed out within me, and kissed me deep.

  The wire holding me to the Earth snapped, and I came, pleasure radiating through me deeper, harder than ever before, as I cried out into his mouth. There were no stars behind my eyes, just Iker above me, his thrusts uncontrolled, his breath ragged, his throat working as he broke our kiss.

  Then it was my name on his lips as he shuddered deep within me, stilling above me in a moment of beautiful abandon before collapsing, his face buried in my neck.

  He rolled to his side, bringing me with him so we faced each other.

  My hand skimmed down his back, reveling in the ability to touch him, to feel him against me—inside me—like this.

  I didn’t want this to end. Any of it. I wanted to see him again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.

  I wanted us to be real.

  I didn’t want an envelope of cash being what kept him here longer.

  Oh yeah, my heart was trying to jump ship.
>
  “You okay?” I asked, turning his words back on him.

  “More than okay,” he answered with a soft kiss.

  He excused himself to clean up, then tucked us both under the covers. His smile was sleepy, unguarded. I doubted many people got to see him like this, completely and utterly relaxed.

  I had to tell him. Had to try. If I didn’t, then I’d never know if we could be more, when it felt like we already were.

  I could handle a no. At least, I was pretty sure I could. But I knew for certain I couldn’t handle the what-if of us.

  “Iker?”

  “Langley?” His eyes lost the sleepy haze.

  My fingers traced the roses on his side. “Um. So, no pressure, and this is probably the completely wrong time to ask, but I was wondering if maybe you wanted to go out next weekend?”

  Asking a guy out while he was lying naked next to me was definitely a first.

  The skin between his eyebrows puckered, and he gave me a look I couldn’t translate. Longing? Regret? Need? Want? Somehow, they seemed to come in flashes and I couldn’t grasp onto any one of them to fixate on.

  “No pressure,” I whispered, but even I heard the little break in my voice.

  He tangled his hand in my hair, and then brought his lips to mine in a sipping kiss.

  “Next weekend?” His lips moved to my jaw.

  “Or the one after. I know you have a life that doesn’t include society weddings every weekend.” My breath caught as he started on my neck. How the hell could he turn me on when I’d already had two orgasms?

  He gripped my waist, and rolled to his back, lifting me to straddle him.

  “Why wait that long?” he asked as his thumbs found my nipples.

  “Oh. You want sooner?” My thoughts scattered with each touch, and blew completely away when I felt him harden beneath me.

  “Yeah, I was thinking right now.”

  He pulled me into his kiss and I agreed that next weekend was far too far away.

  Now was definitely good.