All his anger fell away. He knew he shouldn’t go to her, that giving in to this urge to comfort her was a giant mistake, because caring about anything always led to hurt. But it was too late. He cared. Somehow, in the space of the last two days, she’d begun to matter to him.
Zane moved, closing the distance between them, sliding one arm around Iris’s waist while he tipped her chin back with the other. She was blushing furiously, but her midnight eyes met his without flinching, half defiant, half full of hope.
“I meant what I said,” he murmured. “I’ve never told anyone what I just told you about Dad. About Charlie. Not even my brothers.”
The pale, fragile skin of her throat moved as she swallowed. “I-it’s okay. You don’t have to say—”
“I trust you, Iris. And I was wrong. It does matter.”
But the look in her eyes was still wary. “I don’t know why you would, not after the way I pushed. God, we don’t know each other well enough to even like each other.”
That was true. But like wasn’t a word he’d use in conjunction with her anyway. It seemed too mild, too colorless for the intense feelings of lust and protectiveness and anger she seemed to generate in him. Yet he couldn’t think of another way to describe it.
“How about this then?” He slid a hand over the curve of her ass, bringing her more firmly against him, the heat between her thighs pressing against his rapidly hardening groin. “I like your determination, your guts. The way you’re so damn stubborn you drive me crazy. I like the way you care for your sister too. I like that she’s important to you.” He ran his thumb across her bottom lip, stroking the softness, watching her eyes widen and her pupils dilate. “I like your prickliness, but I like how you’re not prickly with me even more. Even when I don’t deserve it. I like the taste of your mouth. I like the taste of your pussy too. I like the sounds you make when I touch you.” Gently, he pressed down on her bottom lip, sliding his thumb into the slick heat of her mouth. “And most especially I like that you want me as much as I want you.”
She didn’t take her gaze from his, the darkness swallowing both pupil and iris, making her eyes look even larger, even more velvety than they already did. Her lips closed around his thumb and he felt the pressure as she began to suck, a startling jolt of electricity that went straight to his cock.
“Do you want me to go on?” he asked, his voice getting rougher.
She stared back at him, her tongue swirling around his thumb like a cat lapping at a bowl of milk, making him painfully aware of just where he’d prefer that mouth to be. And maybe that showed on his face, because she pulled away all of a sudden, her cheeks pink, her eyes glowing.
Then she dropped to her knees in front of him.
Holy shit. She really had read his mind.
“What are you doing?” he demanded, even though it was perfectly obvious.
“I want to show you something.” Her hands lifted to the button of his pants, flicking it open, then reaching for the tab of his zipper.
“Show me what?”
She looked up at him. “How much I like you.”
“You don’t have to do—”
“I know. But I want to.”
He wanted to stop her, control her somehow, before this went any further.
Why? You already care about her. How can a simple blow job make it any worse?
There were plenty of ways a simple blow job could make it worse. But then, if he couldn’t even handle that, then something was seriously wrong with him.
Gritting his teeth, he slid his fingers into her hair. “Go on then.”
She didn’t need to be told twice, unzipping his pants and reaching into his boxers, drawing out his cock. Her touch was cool against his hot skin and he realized, with a shock, that he was shaking like a teenage boy. Jesus. Maybe something was seriously wrong with him.
Her hair felt like liquid silk against his fingers and he couldn’t help tightening his grip in it, holding on as if he were slipping slowly off the side of some vast cliff.
She bent over him, her breath ghosting over the head of his dick, and it was so exquisitely sensitive that it felt like she’d already taken him into her mouth. Every muscle in his body tightened as he instinctively braced himself for the moment when her lips closed around him. But it was her tongue that touched him first, a wet, hot lick over the head of his cock, like the brush of flame, and he groaned, unable to stop himself. Then she did it again and again, licking him, exploring him, running her tongue down the length of his shaft and back up again, the tip of her tongue lingering in the slit at the tip of his cock before swirling around him again. Drawing sounds from him he never thought he’d make.
Then she opened her mouth, taking him in, engulfing him in all the slick, wet heat, and he was gripping tight to her hair, holding on to the side of that cliff for dear life.
Pleasure arced through him, white-hot. Electric. Intense. Far more intense than it had any right to be and he had no idea why. The slowly increasing suction, the wicked play of her tongue were unraveling his control like a badly knitted sweater and he couldn’t seem to stop it.
Panting, he looked down. Which turned out to be a giant mistake, since the sight of his dick sliding between those soft red lips of hers was the most erotic thing he’d ever seen in his life.
He was screwed. Totally and utterly screwed.
She took him deeper into her throat, sucking harder, one hand gripping the base of his cock while the other held on to the back of his thigh for balance. And he felt himself slowly falling off that damn cliff, sliding inevitably toward oblivion, unable to stop himself.
He should have pushed her away then. Should have jerked her to her feet, showed her who was in control here and it wasn’t her and that delectable mouth of hers. But he didn’t, because there was something about the way she tasted him. Something about the way she held him in her hand and licked him, sucked him.
Something careful. As if this was important. As if he was important.
He couldn’t resist that. He couldn’t resist her. Like her soft apology for pushing him and her confession that she wanted him to like her, she made his chest ache, made his heart push against his ribs. She made him want to let her do whatever she wanted with him.
“Iris,” he said thickly. “Baby…”
Her eyes met his and all he could do was hold tight to her hair and watch as she swallowed him down, as the pleasure pulled him right off that cliff and tossed him out into the abyss.
And he fell into the bright depths, her name on his lips as the orgasm came rushing up to meet him, turning him inside out and scattering him like a trail of sparks in the wake of a comet.
Chapter 11
She’d never given a man a blow job purely for pleasure before. Most of the time she gave them because they were easier and quicker than sex, and men seemed just as happy. And afterward they gave her whatever she asked for, which was usually the reason for the blow job in the first place. A break in paying rent. Some food. A job. Things essential for survival.
She never did it because she wanted to give pleasure. It was always for herself. Because she needed something.
That wasn’t the case with Zane. He was the first man she’d actually wanted to give pleasure to, the first man she’d actually wanted to taste for herself. And not in exchange for anything—or at least nothing concrete. Maybe it was for the things he’d confessed to her, about his father and his family, and all those things he said he’d liked about her. And maybe she wanted to repay him for that, show him that she liked him too and in the only way she knew how.
But mainly it was because she was desperate to touch him. Desperate to taste him the way he’d tasted her.
It was a bad idea to want a man like this, she knew that. It was a bad idea to tell him that she wanted him to like her. That she hoped he was doing this for her and not because she was his second chance at saving a woman he hadn’t saved years ago. Because not only did it reveal too much about her own feelings,
it was also selfish of her to demand it. Selfish to want that reassurance, especially considering what he’d lost.
He’d stood by the windows, his tall, powerful form outlined by the sunlight coming through the glass, his features hard, his intense blue eyes as cold as ice. The memories she’d forced from him had hurt, even an idiot could see that, and she’d hated herself a little bit for making him tell her. Because she knew how secrets hurt, how the mistakes you’d made could haunt you, and that fixing them could take years. If you could ever fix them.
Yet she hadn’t been able to stop herself from pushing. Some hungry, desperate part of her had wanted an acknowledgment from him, that he thought she was important. Though why she wanted that wasn’t something she cared to think about.
It was enough that he had.
Zane’s fingers were wound tight in her hair, making her scalp prickle, and she could feel the shudders that rocked his powerful body. The taste of him lingered in her mouth, all salt and musk, and she turned her face into the heavy muscle of his thigh, savoring not only that, but all the sensations of him. Heat. Gentle, inexorable strength. Smooth, satiny skin. The clean, fresh smell of a pine forest.
There was an ache in her chest. An ache right down between her thighs.
All those things he’d said about her, they made her feel good in a way that was unfamiliar to her. No one had ever told her what they’d liked about her, hell, no one had ever even liked her. Or if they had, they’d never said. The only person in all the world she’d known for certain who’d loved her was her sister.
Zane didn’t love her—they didn’t know each other well enough for that, and anyway, she’d probably run a mile if he did since love wasn’t on her list of priorities—but she couldn’t deny that it was good to know he liked her.
His hands left her hair, sliding beneath her arms to pull her to her feet. Then he took her face between his hands and kissed her deeply, hungrily. She leaned into him, putting her palms on his chest, kissing him back, losing herself in the heat and the taste of him.
Part of her wanted to ask him more about his father, about his family and why he felt it had fallen apart after his mother had died, but she didn’t want to push him, not again and not now. So she let him gather her close, and before she knew quite what he was doing, he’d lifted her up into his arms and was carrying her to the bed, laying her down on it and straddling her waist, leaning over her like a lion with a kill.
“What do you like about me?” he ordered, his voice thick and rough. “Tell me this time.”
“You mean the blow job wasn’t enough?” She was only partly teasing, the breath catching in her throat as he took the hem of her T-shirt and pulled it up and over her head.
“No.” He threw the bit of fabric over the side of the bed. “I want to hear the words.” His fingers slid beneath her, reaching for the catch on her bra and deftly undoing it, baring her.
“O-okay.” She shivered as he bent to press his mouth against the pulse at the base of her throat, where it glowed and burned, searing her skin like a hot coal. “I…l-like how you t-take care of me.” His palm moved to cup her breast, his thumb brushing over her taut, pointed nipple, making her gasp. “And how you’re so…p-protective.”
“More,” he growled against her skin, his mouth marking a trail of kisses over her chest to the hard tip of her breast. “Tell me more.”
She groaned as he took her nipple between his lips, the wet heat of his mouth engulfing her. “I…like…how you stood up for m-me to your brothers. And…how you want to do the r-right thing.”
He nipped her, sending a streak of hot pleasure straight to her pussy, making her twist beneath him and arch her back. It was becoming increasingly difficult to think, let alone speak.
“What else?” He transferred his mouth to her other breast, teasing her nipple with his tongue before suckling hard on her.
Iris struggled for breath, her fingers twisting in the sheet beneath her. “Your mouth.” Her voice was all ragged and fractured. “God…I love your mouth.”
Zane’s clever fingers moved lower, undoing her jeans and sliding beneath the cotton of her panties, through the damp curls between her thighs to the hard bud of her clit, toying with her. “What else?”
She shivered, gasping. “Really? M-more?”
“Of course more.” He circled her clit, tantalizing her. “I want to know everything.”
“That was…the first blow job I’ve ever given that I actually wanted.”
His blue eyes went incandescent beneath his inky lashes. Oh, he liked that. He really liked that. “Why?”
“Because I wanted to see how you would taste.”
“And?” A hot demand.
She couldn’t look away. “I liked it. I like the way you touch me too.”
“Like this?” His gaze held hers as his fingers spread the tender flesh of her sex, his middle finger sliding down, finding the entrance to her body.
“Yes.” She shook as he circled her slick flesh in another deliberate tease before sliding deep inside. “Oh…God, Z-Zane. Just like that.”
The look on his face was hungry, intense. “How about this?” Another finger slid beside the first and he spread them apart, stretching her.
She panted, the pleasure liquid, curling through her, and she lifted her hips, wanting more of that delicious pressure, more friction. “Yes…p-please…”
But he didn’t give her any more, removing his hand instead.
Bastard. This had better be another tease.
Iris pushed herself up on her elbows, staring at him. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t answer, jerking her jeans down her legs instead, taking her panties with them and pulling both off her completely. Then he crouched over her, staring at her, the glow in his eyes electric, color staining his sharp cheekbones. “You’re mine, aren’t you, baby?” He said it like he already knew the answer. “You’re all mine.”
She’d never been anyone’s. The only other person in her life who’d claimed her had been her sister and that wasn’t at all the same. Not like this, like Zane straddling her naked body, looking down at her as if she were his property no matter what she wanted.
It should have made her angry. She wasn’t anyone’s property, certainly not some arrogant man’s. Besides, she made her own choices, she didn’t let anyone make them for her.
But there was something about his arrogance, about the intensity that burned in his eyes. As if she were a prize he was claiming for himself and to hell with the rest of the world. And she realized, with a sudden and deep shock, that she’d been waiting for this moment for a long time. Waiting for someone to claim her instead of having to watch them walk away. Waiting to belong to someone and not be rejected by them.
She stared up at him, meeting the intensity of his gaze. “Yes,” she said hoarsely, even though she knew he wasn’t expecting her to answer. “I’m all yours.”
Something flared in his gaze, something white-hot. Then he tore off his jacket and his shirt, baring all the beautiful tanned skin and hard-cut muscle of his shoulders and chest before reaching around into the back pocket of his pants and bringing out his wallet. Pulling a foil packet from it, he threw the wallet carelessly over his shoulder before tearing open the foil and getting out the condom. She reached for it, wanting any excuse to touch him, but he knocked her hands away, shaking his head sharply. His pants were already open so he simply pulled his cock from his boxers and rolled down the latex, his breath hissing in his throat as he did so. Then he spread her thighs wide, settling himself between them, leaning over her as he did so. His palms were on either side of her head, his blue eyes hot as gas flames, staring down at her, scorching her. His hips shifted, the head of his cock pushing against her pussy, sliding across her wet flesh and pressing inside.
“Zane…” His name was a fractured gasp as she lifted her hands to the heavy, powerful muscles of his shoulders, trembling as she touched him. “Please…”
“I think there
’s something else about me you like,” he murmured, the words full of a rough, dark heat. “You like my cock, don’t you?”
“Oh…yes.” Iris lifted her hips, trying to encourage him to enter her properly, but he didn’t, teasing her instead by sliding his hard length through the wet folds of her sex, nudging her clit gently. She groaned, digging her fingernails into his shoulders. “Yes, you bastard, how many more times do you want me to say it?”
His mouth curved in a hungry, savage smile as he flexed his hips, rocking against her. “And you like the way I fuck you, don’t you, baby? Say it. Tell me how much you like it.”
“No, I don’t like the way you f-fuck me,” she whispered, staring up at him. “I love the way you fuck me.”
The flames in his eyes leapt again. “Then beg me for it. I want to hear how badly you need me.”
Through the haze of pleasure and hunger, she suddenly realized something. He really did need to hear it. He might be the one giving orders, telling her what to do and what to say, telling her to beg, but he was the one who was desperate. For this. For her.
He was the one who needed her to be his.
An odd feeling of tenderness uncurled amid the desperation and fever of desire inside her. She didn’t know why he needed that, though it had to be something to do with his dad and Charlie’s death, but what she did know was that she would give it to him. Because she wanted to. Because he was starting to matter to her.
So she eased her grip on his shoulders, sliding her hands up the strong column of his neck until she was cupping the hard angles of his face between her palms. “I need you,” she said quietly, looking up into his eyes, giving him this. “I need you, Zane.”
Their gazes locked and for a long, timeless minute they only stared at each other, and she read shock in the depths of his eyes and something else she couldn’t interpret. His muscles tensed and she knew he was going to pull away, so she held on tight, keeping him with her. “Don’t let me go,” she whispered. “Don’t leave me.”
Take Me Deeper Page 19