Fuck. He really wanted to.
After what felt like an eon, Natalie said, “I never would’ve asked if I thought for a second that it would change a thing. Our friendship means more to me than that.”
Jonah exhaled the breath that had been spackled to his lungs. It took mere seconds for his body to get the message, his blood quickly tearing a southerly path to his cock.
“Okay, then.” He looked at her from across the living room, the soft light filtering down from overhead making her eyes glint like whiskey in a cut-crystal tumbler. “Come here.”
Her bow-shaped lips opened on a soundless gasp. “You, uh. You want to just, like, go for it right now? Is that how it works?”
Good Christ, she was adorable. “Sometimes,” he said, although, really, for him, it was damn near always. He’d honed the whole thing down to a science—the flirting, the foreplay. The fucking and the farewell, all within a span of hours. But Natalie trusted him to take her virginity. Yeah, it was no strings attached, but he was still going to do it properly.
She wanted pleasure, and that’s exactly what she was going to get.
“That’s not how I want it to work with you, though. Not tonight.”
“Okay.” Her expression eased, just as Jonah had intended it to. “Then how do you want it to work?”
He tilted his head at the couch, waiting until she crossed the room and sat down on one side before he clicked off the basketball game and sat beside her. “I’d like to get to know you a little before we actually have sex.”
Natalie laughed, long and loud. “You already know me. Maybe better than anyone.” Kicking off her boots, she tucked her sock-feet beneath her and looked at him.
“Not like that. Like this.” Jonah moved closer, lifting a hand and trailing his fingers over her sweater-encased arm. The fabric was thin and soft, gliding under his fingertips with just enough friction to make them both shiver. “I want to know what you like. What you don’t like. What you need.”
“Oh.” The word collapsed past her lips on a sigh. “I suppose that sort of getting to know each other is probably smart.”
“You weren’t wrong about that kiss,” he told her. His fingers traveled higher now, to her shoulder, then the spot where the sweater surrendered to warm, smooth skin. “It was pretty hot.”
“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.” Natalie leaned in to his touch, subtly, but it was enough.
Score one for the things she likes category. Jonah let the contact with her collarbone linger, partly because she liked it, and partly because he liked that she liked it, and wasn’t that just one more thing he hadn’t expected.
Damn it, he needed to focus, and not on himself or any of his freaking feelings. He might want this to be good for her, but they were still just motions. Anyway, this wasn’t about him at all.
“So, if I kissed you again, maybe this time, like this”—he hooked his index finger beneath her chin, tipping it up and brushing his mouth over hers, just for a beat—“you’d think about that, too?”
“Mmm hmm,” Natalie murmured, all throat and breath.
His cock jerked to attention, but he took a steady inhale to counter the urgency with which it wanted to work. “And this?”
Another slide of his lips across hers, this one equally soft but lasting a little longer, allowing him to taste her just enough to draw a sigh out of her before he pulled back.
Natalie nodded, her whispered “yes” filling the barely there space between their mouths hotly.
Oh hell, it was going to take all the self-control Jonah had—along with some he didn’t—to make it through this without exploding.
Especially when she fanned her lashes up to look him right in the eye. “Yes, but…”
Every last one of Jonah’s muscles froze until she finished with, “I want more.”
And that was it. Three tiny words, a half a breath’s worth of syllables, and something inside of him snapped like a thread. Pressing forward, he covered her mouth with his, pushing past her lips to slide their tongues together. But Natalie angled up at the same time he moved, their bodies crashing into one another gracelessly before their arms ended up in a tangle and they both started to laugh.
“I’m sorry,” Jonah said, his lips still on hers even through the laughter. “That didn’t exactly go the way I envisioned it.”
“Me, either.” Natalie kissed him, soft and quick. “But it’s okay. I guess it’s all part of the learning curve.”
Readjusting, Jonah slid his hands beneath her arms, guiding her back over the couch cushions. “Let’s try this,” he said, lying on his side next to her. The new positioning gave his mouth fantastic access to hers and his hands the opportunity to roam, and oh hell yeah, he took both.
“This is good,” she murmured as he kissed a path over her neck, and he couldn’t help it. He laughed again.
“Just good?” He nudged higher to taste the delicate hinge of her jaw. Trace her outer ear with his tongue. Follow with the slightest hint of his teeth, and there. There it was.
Natalie moaned. “So good.”
Her spine bowed up, and Jonah met her rising body with his free hand. The playfulness between them grew into something deeper, the same back-and-forth that had made their first kiss so sexy resurfacing as if it had just been waiting for the chance. He returned to her mouth, exploring with his lips and teeth and tongue, memorizing her replies. His fingers, which had settled in at her hip, slid up to the indent of her waist, her sweater soft but her skin softer as he lifted the material just enough to bare the bottom of her rib cage.
Jesus, she was killing him with those little sighs. But when she reached out with her free hand to push her fingers beneath his shirt, holding him close in return? Yeah, he didn’t even have a name for what that was doing to him.
But he did know a feeling that deep, strong enough to rattle his bones in less than a breath, was dangerous as fuck.
The realization made Jonah freeze. Natalie stilled in turn, her fingers tightening over his lower back.
“Are my hands cold?” she asked, and he shook his head.
“No. I like it when you touch me.” He pressed his hips against her thigh, just hard enough for her to feel the proof of his honesty, then reached back to grasp her fingers and return them to her side.
“Wait, I’m confused,” Natalie said. “If you like it, then why do you want me to stop?”
He dipped his head to kiss her for a long minute before replying. “So I can concentrate on you.”
“But what about you?”
“I’m right here,” Jonah told her.
She frowned, just a tiny downward tilt of her kiss-swollen lips. “No, I mean, I want to get to know you, too. I want to learn what you like.”
Jonah was tempted to let the irony in his chest emerge on a laugh. God, she wasn’t like anyone he’d ever been with, the scores of women who were more than happy to lie back and let him pleasure them sixty ways to Sunday. But Jonah had to make this about Natalie.
It couldn’t be about him, and it damn sure couldn’t be about that feeling that had shot through him when she’d held him close.
So he went with an approximation of the truth. “We’ll get to me soon enough. But for tonight, what I like, what I want”—he paused to kiss her—“what is turning me on more than you will ever know, is learning you.”
Natalie nodded, albeit tentatively. “Okay. As long as you promise I’ll get a turn to make you feel good, too.”
A dark smile twitched at the edges of his mouth. “I promise I’m going to enjoy every second of being with you.”
Now that, he fucking meant. After all, she was gorgeous, and if there was one thing Jonah was good at, it was pleasure.
Starting with hers.
Kissing her with renewed purpose, he moved his hand back to the sliver of skin he’d bared over the waistband of her leggings. He stroked higher, mapping her navel—a ridiculously hot cross between an innie and an outie—her rib cage, an
d her side with his touch. Natalie moved right along with him, arching into the contact and exhaling her approval when he reached the lacy fabric of her bra.
Make that the pink lacy fabric, and fucking hell. He should’ve known the damned thing would look a trillion times sexier on her than hanging over his dryer.
“Off,” Jonah demanded, his voice emerging from his throat as if it needed a good sanding. “I want to look at you.”
Wide-eyed, Natalie complied without pause. She reached down to hook her fingers over the hem of her sweater, and Jonah helped her remove it in one economical tug. The lace cradled her breasts, and the sweet suggestion of her darker pink nipples showing from behind it made his cock throb behind the fly of his jeans.
“Like this?” she asked, glancing down at herself dubiously.
Jonah kissed her, maybe harder than he would’ve otherwise. But he wanted her full attention. “You don’t know how beautiful you are, do you?”
“I…” She trailed off, and he shook his head.
“You are. And I want to show you, so keep your eyes wide open and watch.”
To his surprise, Natalie did. Propping her chin to her chest, her gaze followed his fingers over her body, widening as he cupped one breast, then fluttering closed as he slid his thumb over the peak of her nipple.
“Watch,” he demanded. It was bossier than his usual sexy talk, but his cock jumped as she opened her eyes and did as he’d said.
“So pretty.” Another pass of his thumb had her moaning, her spine arching up to work in rhythm with his touch. “Do you see how pretty you are?”
“Yes,” Natalie murmured. Her eyes were fixed on his fingers, as if she was powerless to look away, and Jonah took full advantage of her attention. Pulling the lace aside, he freed her nipple, his heart pulsing in anticipation of taking a taste.
He trailed a line of kisses from her neck over the flat of her chest, even though the slowness damn near slayed him. Natalie seemed to catalogue every move, her exhales growing in intensity until he finally, blessedly, closed his lips around her tightly peaked nipple.
She cried out at the same time that he groaned, and truly, he had no idea which one of them was more turned on. Her fingers found the back of his head, knotting in his hair in encouragement. Not that Jonah needed an ounce of the stuff. Nope.
From the second he’d put his mouth on her, he’d known he wasn’t going to stop until she came.
“Ohhhh.” Natalie’s sigh was more vibration than actual word, and Jonah let it move all the way through him before tightening his lips and letting his tongue in on the action.
Her sigh became something else entirely, some sound he’d never heard her make. It seemed to surprise her for a second, lifting upward into a gasp before she punctuated it with a bite of her lip.
Well, they couldn’t have that. “I can’t learn you if you don’t let me,” Jonah said, the words rumbling over her skin. Her nipple was flushed and glistening from his ministrations, the contrast of pink on pink with the surrounding lace so sexy, he knew he’d be thinking of it later, when he lay in bed with his fingers wrapped hard around his cock.
Not yet. “So, if you like something. Like this,” he said, tracing the edge of her nipple with the very tip of his tongue, and bingo. Another sigh. “You don’t have to let me know with words. But I do want to know.”
“I like that,” Natalie said, her sudden boldness taking him by surprise.
But oh, it turned him on. “Let’s see what else you like.”
Returning his mouth to her nipple, Jonah tested out everything, from soft glides of his tongue to far more purposeful tugs with his lips. His fingers joined in, freeing her other breast from its triangle of lace to give it the same treatment, steady and hot, and Natalie arched into every move. Jonah committed each murmur and moan to memory, until finally, she lifted her hips in a wordless search for contact that he couldn’t help but give.
He slid his hand from her breast to her belly, then to her hip. Her leggings surrendered to her modest curves—she wasn’t built like a pinup girl, but there was far too much strength in her sweetness for Jonah to worry he’d break her.
“Yes. Please, yes,” she whispered, her head thrown back, her golden hair a wild frame for her angelic face. Her knees widened in clear invitation. “Please touch me, Jonah.”
His name in her mouth was like sweetness and sin, and no force in the universe could keep him from complying. Curling his fingers over her waistband, he moved past the stretchy fabric, then past a swath of lace that—ah, fuck him—matched her bra.
But then he reached the soft, wet skin beneath the fabric, and he forgot the panties, his name, and how to goddamn breathe.
“Jesus.” Jonah’s cock jerked in pure envy of his fingers, his heart beating insistently as Natalie moaned and canted her hips in search of more contact.
He gave it. Sliding his index finger over the seam of her body, he pressed upward, until her heated intake of breath told him he’d found exactly what he’d been looking for.
“There,” she gasped. But he was already ahead of her, reading her body and stroking slow circles over the firm knot of her clit.
“Keep showing me,” he told her, his forearm firm over the flat of her belly. His hand was covered by cotton and lace, his fingers shielded from view even as he moved them more wickedly through her slickness, and a forbidden thrill shot through him at the suggestion of what he couldn’t see. A shard of worry cut through Jonah’s chest as Natalie reached down to grab his wrist, but the feeling became something else entirely when he realized she hadn’t done it to stop him.
She’d done it in encouragement.
“More.” Her fingers moved from his wrist to the clothes that, while sexy, were hindering what she clearly wanted. Jonah didn’t break contact with her body—he wasn’t fucking crazy—but he did shift to let her lower her leggings and panties far enough to give him better access and her the freedom to move.
God, she was unbelievably sexy, laid bare like this. She flushed and looked away as if he’d spoken out loud, but oh no. Hell no. He wasn’t about to let her believe anything other than the truth.
“You are beautiful,” he told her. He circled her clit, his fingers sliding with ease, and she sighed in proof. “See?”
Her whiskey-colored stare caught his and held. “You make me feel beautiful.”
Jonah gave in to the dark part of himself that had wanted to make her come since the minute she’d moved into his apartment. This, he was good at. This, he knew how to do.
This might be all he could give her, but he would give it.
“By the time I’m done with you, you’re going to feel like a fucking goddess,” he said. Stroking firmly, he adjusted the pace of his fingers to the cadence of her sighs, slow at first, then increasing in speed. Natalie moved with him, lifting her hips and seeking his touch, her thighs falling wide. Jonah slipped his index finger lower, letting his thumb take its place over her clit as he pushed slowly deeper, into her pussy. Her inner muscles clasped his finger with wet heat, and Jesus, she was so tight, the feel of her was going to end him.
“Oh, God.” Her voice was like gravel and silk, both sultry and sweet. For a split second, instinct dared him to yank off his jeans, to bury his cock inside of her and fuck her until they were both good and sweaty and spent. But this wasn’t about him—it couldn’t be about him—so instead, he focused on Natalie. He circled her clit with steadfast pressure, pulling back with his finger only to push back inside a fraction deeper, then repeating the movement again, and again. She thrust up to meet every forward push, quickly creating a rhythm between them. When he added a second finger, she let go of a pleasured cry. When he turned his wrist in search of the hidden spot deep in her pussy that would take her over the edge—right…there—her breath caught on a keening sigh. Her inner muscles went even tighter, making Jonah’s cock throb in demand, but he didn’t stop.
“That’s it, Natalie.” He thrust again, reading her and daring her a
nd pleasuring her all at once. “Let me make you feel good. Let go for me.”
Her hips jerked up, locking his fingers deep inside of her as she came undone around him. Her pussy clenched and released, squeezing him in waves that made his cock so hard, it nearly hurt. Need flew through Jonah, dangerous and dark, and it took all of his power to deny it.
He had to stick to what he was good at. What he knew.
What would keep him safe.
So he took Natalie through every wave of her pleasure, making sure to maximize each sensation and tremor. He scaled back on his touches second by second, until finally, her sighs had turned to slow, soft exhales.
And then he gently righted her clothes, kissed the top of her head as he wished her goodnight, and pictured her face in the shadows of his bedroom as he made himself come harder than he ever had with only three swift strokes.
13
Natalie was dreaming. She knew, because she was floating, her body warm and weightless. Jonah was there, his face hard to see, but his voice right there in her ear, velvety and thick, like honey, calling her a goddess. She wanted to laugh. Her brain knew she should—the thought was crazy, the stuff of fantasies. But this was a fantasy, a dream where she was as beautiful as Jonah had said, her name in his mouth like a prayer. Only, when his face came into view, his blue eyes were dark with some emotion Natalie couldn’t name, and he tumbled out of her reach, falling further and further away as her body grew heavier, weariness creeping in and taking over as she reached for Jonah, then reached again…
And woke with a start, face-down on his futon.
“Ugggggh.” She released her groan into her pillow, not wanting her voice to filter through the wall she shared with Jonah, in case he was still sleeping. Her eyes were heavy with the remnants of deep sleep, her body still pressed so firmly against the sheets that she’d be shocked if she hadn’t left a weary outline imprinted in the cotton. A tiny thread of soreness squeezed between her legs, heating her face and sending a very big, very involuntary smile across her mouth.
Better Than Me (A Remington Medical Contemporary Romance) Page 13