She distantly heard Gage groan as he pulled her against his chest, tucking her face against his neck. He shoved his hand farther into her panties, and she felt his broad fingertip at her opening.
“Yes,” she panted against his neck. “Inside me.”
He thrust past her tight muscles, seating one finger to the hilt, and her body rejoiced, clamping down and milking that finger for all it was worth.
He fisted her hair and pulled her back, crashing his mouth against hers. Their teeth clacked together, and she bit down hard, earning a grunt as she sank her teeth into his lip. All the while, he thrust that finger in and out of her sex, drawing each wave of pleasure out as far as was possible.
He seemed to instinctually know when the pleasure began to abate, because he eased his finger from her, dragging it over her swollen and still-throbbing clit. She moaned into his mouth. When he pulled his hand from her panties, she clutched at it. “Don’t stop, please,” she whispered against his lips.
They couldn’t be done. She needed more.
He wrapped his arms around her waist, then tossed her to the bed. She landed with a couple of bounces, and before she’d settled, he was spreading out on top of her. He grinned down at her. “Just getting started.”
Before she could respond, Gage gripped the hem of her T-shirt and pulled it over her head. When she opened her eyes again, it was to the vision of the muscles of his torso rippling in the dim light as he took off his own shirt. Light glinted off his piercings. She reached for him, unable to keep her hands off such a tempting sight. Her fingers tripped over every ridge and furrow, and his rapt gaze watched as she touched him everywhere she could reach. When her fingertips headed toward his piercing once again, he caught both her wrists with one hand.
“You’ll get me carried away,” he said in a low rumble.
“That’s the point.”
“Well, then, we’re going to need our pants off first.”
Cassidy cocked an eyebrow. “Valid.” She reached for her already loosened jeans, but he placed his hand over hers.
“I want to do it,” he said gently.
This was new. She raised her eyebrows. Usually, the goal was just to get naked as soon as possible. Interfering hands slowed the process. “Okay,” she said.
Again, Gage looked nervous. He pressed his lips together and reached down for her jeans. When his fingers brushed against her hips, quite innocently, she arched. A small, plaintive noise sounded in her throat.
His gaze shot up to hers. Those brown eyes of his were the darkest she’d ever seen them. “Lift that gorgeous ass for me,” he murmured.
The rasp of his voice traveled all over her body, tightening her already pebbled nipples and causing her recently sated sex to feel achy all over again. Pressing her heels into the bed, she raised her bottom.
His gaze traveled down her torso, stopping for a moment at her up thrust breasts and then continuing down her stomach. He bit his bottom lip. “So pretty.”
There he went again. Saying things no one had said to her before in this situation. It threw her, just as it had moments ago.
As he pulled her pants down her hips, he began to stare at her breasts again. His gaze was so heavy, she felt it as a palpable touch. She lifted her legs one by one to help him get her pants the rest of the way off, and no sooner had she lowered back to the bed but he tossed her jeans to the floor and reached for her bra.
She sucked in a breath as the heat of his fingertips skimmed over the cups covering her breasts. When they trailed around the side, she automatically arched again.
He flicked a glance up at her face for just a moment. “Good girl.” Then he was focusing on her breasts once more, reaching around to her back and releasing the clasp between her shoulder blades with one flick of his fingers.
It took her much longer than that to put the damn thing on herself every day.
He pressed his hand flat between her breasts and, without a word, told her to lower herself back to the bed.
His breathing sped as he hooked his fingers in the straps looping her shoulders and began to pull them down her arms. Her gaze dipped to the front of his pants where his cock’s throbbing was evident even from this distance.
For the first time since he’d uttered beautiful, she began to believe he meant it. He’d seen her breasts—hell, her whole body—countless times. Yet, here he was, this incredibly experienced man, unveiling her breasts as though he were unwrapping the most coveted gift he’d ever received.
It humbled her.
It turned her way the fuck on.
The cool air in the room hit her nipples, and he cast her bra aside. With a groan, he cupped her breast in one rough palm, stroking his thumb over the peak. The rasp of his tough skin over her sensitive tip made her arch again.
“I never get tired of these,” he muttered. He leaned down over her other breast, and his hot breath washed over her nipple seconds before his lips made contact.
Another helpless sound escaped her as he opened his lips, laving his hot tongue over the sensitive peak. With his hand covering her other breast, he pinched her nipple in a wicked tweak. She gasped, then writhed beneath him.
“That’s my girl,” he breathed, his breath raising goose bumps as it coasted along slick, wet skin.
Through a haze of lust, she heard his words, and her mind latched onto them.
My girl.
That ache in her belly, which was already nearing unbearable, surged. She . . . dear God, she wanted that. To be Gage’s girl.
Of all the stupid, asinine things to want.
Get these thoughts out of your head!
As he moved his lips to her other breast, covering the nipple he’d just been sucking with his free palm, she bowed up to him, wrapping her arms around his wide shoulders. She clutched him. “Inside me, Gage,” she begged softly. “Please.”
His groan reverberated against her nipple, and her knees tightened, pressing into his hips.
With one hand planted on the mattress, he braced himself over her, and her gaze quickly flew to the way his arms flexed beneath the burden of his weight.
She trailed her fingertips over each of his bulging muscles as his other hand disappeared between their bodies. The click of his belt filled the air, and relief filled her.
Yes. Fuck me. Make me forget everything.
The metallic clacking lasted longer than normal. The muscles of the arm she was stroking began to tremble.
“Fuck,” he breathed. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” He pressed a kiss to her sternum and looked up at her. His face was a mask of confusion. “I can’t get my belt open.”
For some reason, the simple admission made her chest hurt. “Let me?”
He pressed his lips together and gave a short nod.
She lightly raked her blunt nails down the ridges of his abdomen, and his breath left him in a shaky wave. She found his fingers against his buckle and brushed them aside, making quick and easy work of loosening his belt and giving his pants and boxer briefs a shove over his hips.
She looked up at him again, noticing his attention focused intently on her lips. “Better?”
He nodded absently, that heated gaze never wandering away from her mouth and making her even needier for his body inside hers.
She shoved the pants as far as she could, and when her arms could no longer reach them, she resorted to her feet.
He gave her a soft smile. “Impatient?”
She quirked a brow. “Aren’t I always?”
“Yes,” he breathed, as though that quality were her best. Before she could get caught in that, he slowly lowered his body to hers.
Their bellies met first, then their chests. Her small breasts flattened beneath his weight, and the pressure was exquisite. He kicked his jeans the rest of the way off, and they hit the floor somewhere with a jangle of pocket change.
The scalding tip of his erection pressed into her inner thigh. Was it possible to perish from horniness?
She wanted him to slide up her body and press himself inside her, skin to skin.
Skin to skin?
She’d never—never—had unprotected sex. And she wasn’t about to start now. What the fuck is happening to me?
“Gage,” she began, her voice uneasy. “Please.”
He leaned down and pressed his face to her neck, shaking it slowly back and forth. “Let me hold you for just a little bit first. Please, Cassidy?”
Something began happening in her throat. A tightness that did not bode well. She wanted to scream no with all her might, and she opened her lips to draw the boundary right away.
Instead of an emphatic no, however, a soft sigh escaped—a sigh he seemed to take as a yes.
He wrapped his arms around her, going so far as to tunnel them beneath her shoulder blades and the small of her back. The prodding of his cock against her inner thigh was still insistent, but he seemed in no hurry to move to the next stage. He exhaled slowly, and every muscle in his body relaxed against hers.
“God, the way your body cradles mine.” He groaned as he seemed to sink into her. “I love it so hard.”
Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit.
Her hands against his back gentled. This . . . meant something to him. She could hear it in his voice. In the way he touched her. The things he said to her.
Worse, it meant something to her, too. And knowing that they had both crossed a line from fucking without care to something else—both mysterious and inherently dangerous—made her crazed for him in a way she never had been before.
She was ready to beg him to be inside her again. She needed him. Yet he nuzzled her collarbone with his cheek, the soft rasp of his day’s-growth beard gentling her.
They released a long, drawn-out breath in unison, and just like that, there was no place else on earth Cassidy would rather be than beneath this man in bed. And there was nothing else she’d rather do than hold him and be held in return.
Was this what normal people felt with someone they shared their bodies with? It was heady. Life changing.
She raised her knees on either side of his hips, settling in for the long haul. He hummed contentedly as his lower body sank between her spread thighs, fitting them together like puzzle pieces. She began languidly stroking his back with long, smoothing motions.
After a couple of minutes, he seemed to determine she wasn’t going to make him move. The arms tightly wound around her back loosened. One hand made its way up and over her shoulder, and his fingers curled in her hair. He nuzzled her with his cheek again and then began watching his hands as he wound one red curl around a finger, tugging gently. His other hand found the curve of her ass, where he squeezed, but not in the harried, passionate way he usually squeezed her ass. This was more of a you’re-here-with-me-and-I-like-that squeeze.
They lay intertwined for countless minutes, and time became abstract. When after what could have been five minutes or fifty he turned his face and pressed a soft kiss to the edge of her jaw, the desire that had faded to pure affection came roaring back.
With the shift in his muscled back beneath her hands, she could feel that it had for him, too. He sifted her hair through his fingers one last time, gave her bottom one more squeeze, then pressed his hands into the mattress and raised himself enough to look down at her but not enough to separate their bodies.
“Condom handy?” he asked, his voice rough. “I have one in my wallet, but . . . ” He seemed to turn sheepish. “I don’t really want to move that far.”
She didn’t want him to move either, and as it happened, he didn’t need to. She nodded toward her nightstand. “Top drawer.”
He had no trouble reaching them with his long arms and height, but the small bit of stretching he did pressed his body into hers in new, delicious ways. She scraped her nails along the dips at the sides of his ass, savoring every flex of muscle.
He tore one foil packet with his teeth, and, with a groan that sounded like regret, pulled away from her enough to roll their protection down his length.
He met her gaze as he began stroking up the inside of her thigh. When his fingers arrived at her sex, her eyes widened at the same time his did.
“So fucking wet,” he rasped.
She could feel him slipping through her arousal. She was wetter than she’d ever been with him, which, by default, meant she was wetter than she’d ever been. “Gage,” she whimpered.
“I know.” He swallowed hard. “Me, too.” He spread her wetness up and over her clitoris, and when he delved farther and eased one fingertip inside her sex, they both groaned. “Swollen and hot. So ready for me.”
All at once he couldn’t wait any more; he withdrew his finger and gripped his cock instead. But even now, with sexual tension running through them both in palpable currents, he took the time to draw the head of his cock up and down her slit.
On the second pass, Cassidy felt she would come apart at the seams. Planting her heels into the mattress, she canted her hips, and the next time he tried to caress her with his erection, she pressed up, taking the tip inside her.
A harsh groan broke from his lips, and his eyelids eased shut as he pressed his hips forward. The slow glide in wrecked her. In moments, he was seated to the hilt, but it had felt so much longer than moments. So much more poignant than a mere passage of time.
He lowered himself until they were chest to chest once more. “Am I too, heavy?”
She shook her head, her arms moving around his back to keep him there if he decided to take this delicious weight from her.
Bracing himself on his elbows, he cupped her cheeks with both hands. His eyes softened, and his lips curled the slightest bit at the corners. He stroked her cheeks with his thumbs, his fingertips playing with the tiny curls along her hairline.
“Hi,” he murmured.
“Hi,” she replied.
Slowly, he leaned down and covered her lips with his. As he deepened his kiss with light flicks of his tongue, he pulled back his hips, withdrawing to the tip. Then, in another slow, languid thrust, he returned home.
Her eyes nearly rolled back in her head. He was so gentle. Touched her so softly. She’d never experienced anything like it before. Never knew soft and gentle could be so good.
The next time he withdrew, she moved her hips as well so that when he thrust into her once more, they met each other halfway.
He moaned into their kiss, thrusting his tongue deeper into her mouth. She sucked on it as she wished she could suck on his cock, and, for the first time since getting in bed together, his touch grew a fraction rough. His fingers tightened in her hair, and the pressure of his lips increased. But he kept that same, slow pace, even as his breathing accelerated exponentially.
On his next thrust, his back arched, and his lips pulled from hers. “Cassidy,” he groaned before returning to kiss her cheek, her jaw, her neck. “Feel so good,” he breathed at her ear.
As he buried his face in her hair, she blinked up at the ceiling. God, she felt . . . cherished. And, fuck, was it working for her. Though his movements were unhurried, her pleasure was reaching its end quicker than ever.
“Gage,” she managed to bite out just before a moan tore from her throat. She threw her head back as her orgasm seized her from seemingly out of nowhere.
He lifted his head, and she could feel the weight of his gaze on her face. “Oh, God. Cassidy.” He hitched in a breath. “Squeezing me so tight—I can’t . . . ” She opened her eyes just in time to see him grimace. “Fuck.”
His face relaxed into a look of utter joy. “Fuck,” he groaned. Deep within her spasming sex, his cock kicked and warmth flooded her. The sight and sensation of him losing control sent her own pleasure rocketing to new heights, and she bit down on his chest as a cry that would bring the neighbors to her door tried to tear out of her mouth.
He cupped the back of her head, pressing her face to his chest and helping her muffle her uncontrollable reaction. As the pleasure poured through her, she clutched at him wherever she could
reach: his shoulders, his back, his arms.
He shuddered atop her as his own orgasm began to abate, and with one last groan, he collapsed.
His weight pressed her down into the mattress and she could barely gulp the gasping breaths her lungs demanded, and yet, when he attempted to slide off of her, she dug her nails into his shoulders.
“Cassidy, I’m going to smother you,” he murmured in only partially intelligible speech.
“Don’t care,” she whispered, pressing another kiss to his shoulder and spying a red mark she must have left there at some point with her teeth.
Her strength was no match for his, however, and when he pushed up on straightened arms, her own hold fell away. He rolled to the spot beside her, but before she could examine the overwhelming sense of loss she felt, he reached for her. Gathering her close, he tucked her into his chest, then palmed the back of her thigh and drew her leg between his only to run his fingers back up to the curve of her ass, where he stroked her softly.
They lay tangled together, catching their breath.
But she knew she had no hope of catching her heart. She’d been losing it for weeks now, and had lost it fully as they’d made love tonight.
It was gone; she was a goner.
And she still, despite all efforts to displace it from thought, felt the thrum of her game emanating from her laptop.
“So amazing,” Gage muttered, sounding half asleep. His hand stilled in the midst of stroking her bottom, and seconds later, a deep, heavy breath resounded from his chest.
She pulled back slightly and stared up at him. His eyes were closed, his lush eyelashes resting against his rugged cheeks. He breathed heavily again, and his lips parted.
As she watched him for several moments, she felt herself falling even deeper.
I can’t do this to him. I won’t do this to him. To us.
For the first time in her life, she understood why people made sacrifices for others. Her goals seemed petty when weighed against the price her game would exact on her relationship with Gage.
It was clear: the game had to go.
Easing back from him, she kept a wary watch on his face for the slightest indication that he was waking. But he was heavily asleep and didn’t stir once, not even when his hand fell from her bottom to land with a thud against the mattress.
Stiff Competition Page 15