Connected.
And also insanely turned on.
I lift my hips, seek him out, ask for more.
He grits his teeth, a bead of sweat forming on his forehead. He pulls out, inch by inch, until he’s almost all the way out, then he swivels his hips and sinks back into me.
“Oh!” I gasp, arching into him.
“Yes,” he grunts, then eases out, pauses, and slides back in, his shaft grazing my clit as he goes.
And that right there is better than a bunny.
Hotter than a dolphin.
And way more intense than any battery-operated little darling.
I wrap my arms around his neck, my fingers playing with his hair as my legs slide up his body, my thighs gripping his ass.
He lowers himself onto his rippling forearms, his muscles taut. His expression is torture and bliss all at once, but then soon it’s sensual determination as we find a rhythm, hit a pace, and move together.
I moan, writhing under him, gripping him, loving this.
Savoring this connection.
What I love most of all is when he dips his face, brushes his lips against mine, and then sighs a needy, dreamy sigh, like he can’t get enough of me either.
My whole body is coated in bliss.
Dusted in desire.
I don’t want this to end, but I desperately crave the explosion of an epic orgasm.
And I think I’m going to need a little help to get there.
I lean my head back, part my lips, and ask for what I want. “Will you touch me? Play with me till I come?”
“Fuck yes,” he rasps out, then pushes up on one strong arm and slides the other down my body, between my legs.
Strokes me.
Oh God.
Yes.
That.
His fingers slide across my clit, and he rubs me where I want him most, faster, then faster still, pushing me, pressing, and taking me closer to the edge.
As he rolls his hips, as he fucks deeper, he strokes me, and I grip him. In a flash, the pleasure crackles in my veins, bursts like bright neon lights, and then flares all at once.
A bright, hot, powerful surge inside me.
I cry out as my whole body succumbs to beautiful, newfound bliss.
Coming with the man I’m falling in love with.
Part of me feels like an utter cliché—the virgin falling for the first guy she sleeps with.
Another part feels like the luckiest woman in the world.
And still another part is completely frustrated. Not over the sex, but over the absolute inconvenience of these feelings.
The terrible timing of my emotions.
Why now?
He’s leaving for spring training in a few more days.
He’s off the market.
I’m up to my earlobes in responsibility.
But those worries fade away as these luxurious sensations steal my senses, and I gladly let them go.
26
Nadia
I have a million questions.
But only one answer.
There is only ever one answer when life gets too complicated.
Okay, fine. Two answers—shoes and ice cream.
But since it’s late and shops are closed, Crosby and I are on my couch, cuddled in a blanket, sharing sea salt with caramel ribbons ice cream from Salt & Straw after he dashed down the street to fetch a pint.
Which certainly doesn’t make me want him any less.
Should I stop wanting him? Every logical part of me says yes, and every other part says I don’t want to stop anything.
The trouble is—I’m not sure where we go from here.
From cozy on a couch, noshing on post-sex dessert, to whatever’s next.
We’re a whirlwind. My brother’s wedding was only a week ago. I went into that feeling knocked flat and stomped on by Cupid, rejected even by the top matchmaker in Las Vegas. Now I’m having the time of my life with my good friend and new lover.
This is what I’ve wanted—the real deal.
I wanted this with a friend.
And I’m having it.
But can we trust something that ignited in a week? A week when we were supposed to be off the market?
Crosby dips his spoon in one more time. “Best ice cream ever?”
I consider the pint container, then I’m floored. “Wait. Is this even organic?”
He wiggles his brow and lifts a finger to his lips. “Shhh. I’m breaking all the rules tonight.”
Maybe that’s what we’re doing. A little rule bending, then we’ll return to the way we were.
But when we put the ice cream away, he tugs me close and loops an arm around my waist. “Ask me to spend the night. Hint: I’ll say yes.”
I grin from the depths of my soul. “Spend the night.”
“Yes.”
He takes me to bed, tugs my back to his chest, and asks if I want to go again.
“Hell yes.”
This time he slides behind me, hooks my leg over his thigh, and enters me like that, taking the lush and scenic route to pleasure. He makes love to me as we spoon, until I’m coming, and he’s coming, and it feels like we’re new lovers, old lovers, true lovers.
Especially when he draws me close afterward. When he threads his hands in my hair. And when he whispers, “You do make me break all the rules. I’m pretty sure rule number five was don’t fall for each other.” He shrugs, his lips curving into a what can you do grin. “But I broke that.”
My heart leapfrogs over itself. My smile won’t be denied. “Guess I broke that one too.”
Problem is, the rules don’t say what happens now.
In the morning, I know I want this much to happen: food and orgasms.
We shower together, and when Crosby asks me to turn around so he can wash my hair, I shoot him a dubious look.
“Is that code for something?”
“You think I’m going to do something naughty to you while I wash your hair?”
I shrug. “Maybe.”
“Do you want me to?”
“No, but maybe once you rinse out the shampoo, I’ll want you to,” I say, dragging a hand down his pecs and over his abs before he turns me around. “Or maybe now.”
He presses a kiss to the back of my neck, making me shiver. I murmur as his lips sweep over my skin, down my back, along my spine. The sound of his knees touching the tile echoes in the steamy shower stall.
He brushes his mouth over the curve of my ass, then nibbles on my flesh.
And oh my.
That feels . . . incredible.
I had no idea butt-biting was the best.
But it is. Oh, holy hell, it is.
He works his mouth over my ass cheeks, biting and nipping.
A storm gathers inside me, building in intensity as he nibbles.
I moan and groan, louder and even louder, as his tongue maps my flesh, as his teeth mark my skin.
A pulse beats between my legs, insistently, exquisitely.
I’m pretty sure he’s discovering that my ass is an erogenous zone. I’m discovering it too, because I had no idea. Now I do, and I like it.
I like the attention he’s giving to my rear. I love his hands on my flesh, his mouth on my skin, his teeth sucking and biting.
Is he going to take my ass someday?
Dear God.
What’s come over me? I tossed my V card into the bonfire of pleasure, and now I’m going to give up my ass virginity too?
Also, hey, isn’t he supposed to be washing my hair?
But who cares about clean hair when his tongue is caressing the outline of my cheek right where it meets my thigh, right where it feels spectacular?
He travels along the seam of my ass, and I’m pretty sure my bones turn molten and my blood is lava.
“Is it supposed to feel so good?” I moan.
Crosby growls then nibbles on my butt again. “Had a hunch you’d like that,” he whispers, then rises up and slaps my ass.
I ye
lp and I smile at the same damn time as a delicious cocktail of pleasure and pain wings through my cells. “You did? How did you know?”
Lips land on my shoulder. Hands slide up my stomach, traveling to my breasts. Firm arms cage me in. “Because you loved when I played with your ass last night while I went down on you,” he whispers. “When I squeezed you hard as I ate your pussy.”
A shudder rips through me, igniting an intense, powerful wave of sparks. Like fire shooting through my veins.
I gasp, aching for him. “Can you do that again? Knead my ass as you finger me? I think I’ll love that too.”
His teeth land on my neck, possessive and hungry, chased with a groan that sounds like it was ripped from his chest. “I love how you ask for what you want, Nadia. You’re so damn bold. It turns me on so much. Everything about you turns me on,” he rasps, pushing his cock against my ass, the hard length of him pressing against my cheeks.
“I like asking you for what I want. I love that I can,” I say, opening up to him in yet another way.
I shudder against him, then he lets go of me, spins me around, and meets my gaze. His eyes darken to midnight blue, shimmering with wild arousal. “You can ask me for anything. I want you to. I want to give it to you.”
“Thank you.” I loop my arms around his neck. “I mean it. I’ve had all these desires, all these wants. And to act on them with you . . .” My voice catches, and I’m not entirely sure how to finish. We’re talking about sex, but we’re also talking about intimacy.
True and real intimacy.
That’s what I feel with Crosby.
Dipping his face, he drops his lips to my jaw, bites me, then pulls back. “I want you to share them with me. Your desires. Your wants,” he says, his tone edging toward desperate. He sounds as lost as I feel. “Share them anytime. I’ll give them to you.”
I shake with the emotions and lust surging through me all at once, twining together like strands of a rope. “I will.”
“Good,” he says, low and smoky. “Now, let me give you what you asked for.”
He backs me into the shower wall, dragging one hand down my body to glide between my legs while the other snakes around to my ass.
Panting, I rock my hips, seeking out his touch in an act of sheer desperation. His fingers connect with me in a burst of heat. The fire in me licks higher, burns brighter.
He works me over, stroking my clit, squeezing my ass, then slamming those lips to mine.
I’m hemmed in by desire, by the sweet torment of touch everywhere. Of the way he drives mad pleasure through me, and the way I need it, crave it.
Lust claws at me.
I feel out of control, wild and animalistic.
I feel like I’m losing my mind. Losing my reason, my logic, my inhibitions.
I feel like I never want any of them back.
As he crushes his lips to mine, thrusts his fingers inside me, sweeps his thumb across my clit, and grabs my ass, I nearly die of bliss.
My climax seizes me, taking hold of my body, my mind.
It shakes me to my bones. He breaks the kiss, and I cry out, gasping his name, God’s name, every name.
I don’t even know what I’m saying.
I’m only feeling.
Feeling ecstasy vibrating from my core out through every cell.
At some point, who knows when, we separate, and I am a noodle.
A spent noodle.
I blink up at him, and he stares at me with a new intensity in his dark-blue eyes.
Yes, that was intense.
But it was intense because I trust him. Because he’s discovering me. We’re discovering how we are together.
He swallows roughly, his eyes flickering with passion. “What have you done to me?”
My throat tightens with emotion, with the need to touch him, to be touched. “What have you done to me?”
He shakes his head, maybe in disbelief, then he dips his face near my ear, brushing his cheek against mine. “Need to get close to you right now, sweetheart. Want to be inside you.”
Desire squeezes my chest. “Yes. Please. God, yes.”
He steps out of the shower, grabs a condom, and returns to me.
The water still beats down on us as he slides the condom on his cock, wraps my leg around his hip, and tells me to hold on.
Then he slides into me.
We gasp at the same time.
We stare at each other in the same way.
And when he sinks into me, we’re both feeling it—something else. Something new.
I might not know much about sex.
I might never have been in love.
But I know this much. Somehow I’ve fallen for him. Hard, fast, relentlessly.
I’m pretty sure it’s the same way for him.
That’s how he fucks me in the shower.
Like he wants me, like he needs me, and like he’s as utterly floored by what’s happened in a week as I am.
When he reaches the edge and I follow him there, coming again, coming together, I don’t want to stop.
I don’t want us to stop.
And I don’t want to pretend at all, not one bit.
Maybe he doesn’t either, since he cups my cheeks, presses his forehead to mine, and whispers, “I’m so crazy about you, Nadia.”
My heart flutters wildly. “I’m pretty mad about you, Crosby. And there’s nothing accidental about it.”
He laughs softly, then his laughter fades. “What the hell are we going to do about this?”
I shrug. “Wash my hair, then let’s get some breakfast and figure out what kind of frocktangular mess we’ve made of our friends-with-benefits plan.”
“It’s a fuckerrific mess, that’s for sure.”
27
Crosby
I know three things right now.
These eggs at Helen’s Organic Café around the corner from Nadia’s place are moan-inducing.
The tea is life-giving.
And the woman across from me is quite possibly the reason I’ve picked the wrong women for ages.
Was I waiting for Nadia all along? Had I already met the right woman when we were younger, so I torpedoed everything else with terrible choices?
I’d bet I did. Everything about Nadia feels right.
We laugh. We talk. We connect. We share.
And we smolder.
She’s a friend and a lover.
This thing we’re doing right now? Eating breakfast after making love? After that kind of sex, that kind of soul-deep intimacy?
Hell, I want it. I want it with her—badly.
But something nags at me from the back of my mind.
Several somethings.
The deal I made with her brother. The same one I made with Gabe and the guys too.
It’s the same promise I made to myself. A few weeks ago, I was so fed up with my own poor judgment that I asked my friends to be the rubber band I snap on my wrist to break my bad habit. Because I’m tired of wading through my own relationship wreckage.
I know I don’t make the best choices.
That’s the crux of the issue.
What if this choice—wanting to be with Nadia—is another disastrous decision, only I don’t know it yet? Like I didn’t realize Camille was bad news? Like I didn’t know Daria would be terrible for me?
Here I am untangling from the remnants of girlfriends past, and while Nadia isn’t one bit like my ex-girlfriends, I’m still me. I’m the one who needs fixing, needs a hard reset.
I don’t want whatever this thing is with Nadia to backfire simply because I have a bad track record.
I set down my fork, then drag a hand through my hair. “I don’t know what to do.”
She blinks, as if shifting mental gears, but she asks, “About what?” like she already suspects the answer. Maybe she’s been thinking in the same circles.
“About how the hell we became a we in a week.”
She shrugs a little helplessly. “I know. I came to town to focus on th
e team. You needed a break from relationships.” She scoffs lightly. “And now look at us.”
I slide my hand across the table, gripping hers. “I don’t know if I should trust myself. A few weeks ago, I was telling your brother how I was radioactive. That I needed to detox. And that’s what scares the shit out of me.”
“Detoxing?” she asks, a little confused.
I shake my head. “No. That I needed to do one thing, but I did the opposite. I intoxxed. I intoxxed you.” My heart fills and empties at the same time. “I’m falling so hard for you, Nadia,” I say, and it feels wonderful to give her the truth of my heart, but terrible too.
“I’m completely falling for you,” she says. In her voice I hear the same kind of hope I feel, and a thread of the same worry too.
That’s the trouble. Is this a false hope?
“But the last thing I want in the whole entire universe is to screw this up, Nadia,” I say.
She nods slowly in understanding, maybe even agreement. “Because it’s happening so fast?”
“It’s like a wild roller-coaster ride we’re on, and I don’t know how to pull the brake, or if we even should. I want to be with you, but I also don’t want to ruin this by rushing things when the timing is wrong, or the timing is against us?”
She winces, but nods too, taking it on the chin. “I feel the same. I wanted nothing to do with a relationship when I moved back, and now . . .”
I finish the thought. “We’re practically having one?” It comes out heavily.
So does her reply. “We are. Instant relationship, just add water.”
I scrub a hand over my jaw. I’m pretty sure falling in love should make you stupidly happy, not constantly worried you’ll torch the best thing that ever happened to you with one false move.
But maybe there’s a way to pull this off. Maybe we can pull us off the way we originally planned.
There has to be a way to get back on track. To salvage our initial intent. If it’s friends-only or lose her completely, I’ll do it.
I brace myself for what I’m about to propose. “I know what we should do.”
Her eyes flick to mine, hopeful. “You do? Please tell me.”
“The plan was to stay friends, right? We need to adult the fuck out of this. We need to adult it for real this time. We never truly tried to buddy up. We said we would, but we didn’t.”
The Virgin Rule Book (Rules of Love 1) Page 18