by Madeline Ash
So, this was happiness.
“Not yet?” She grinned at him. “What are we waiting for?”
“This game to end, so I can make you come ten times harder than last night.”
Her breath caught. Last night had been the best sex of her life. What did he plan on doing, growing a third hand? Curious, she stopped teasing him and asked, “You still on fire for me?”
“Ravaged by flame,” he said. “Day and night.”
“What else?” She hardly knew what she meant, but still wanted to hear his answer.
His gaze was unwavering in the dull light. “I’ve woken up next to my best friend. And I can’t believe it’s really happened—that you’re here, looking sleepy and sexy, and the same but somehow so different in my bed without clothes on. I can’t believe I’m going to wake up next to you every morning. That I’m going to learn more about you—little things, amazing things, like that sound you made right before you woke up or how hot you take your showers.” He paused, voice dropping to a rumble. “Or the feel of your release when I’ve had you for longer than a few minutes.”
Her skin flushed, and emboldened, she rolled onto her side to face him. His attention leapt to her breasts, hungry, yet holding back.
“Want to learn that one now?” she asked.
“God, yes.” She felt his answer in the pit of her stomach. “Yes.”
Then his hands were on her, drawing her to him as his lips found hers. Slow and lavish, his tongue took her straight back to the night before. That’s right, her mouth remembered, that’s his taste. His naked skin sparked against hers, waking her in a rush before he pressed her onto her back with the hard length of his body.
She tensed, and he drew back in silent question.
“I—don’t generally like missionary,” she admitted, curling a hand around his shoulder, somehow seeking his protection against the threat of his own position.
“Doesn’t feel good?” A line appeared between his brows. “Or something else?”
She swallowed at the old memory of the Burberry boy—at how she’d felt powerless and scared and trapped within his braced forearms. “Something else.”
He scanned her face, serious. “You want to sit up? Turn over? Choose a wall, any wall? Table, chair, windowsill?”
She rolled her lips together a moment before she laughed. “All of the above.”
“Anywhere except on top—not yet,” he said, kissing outward along her left cheekbone. His breath was a soft shock in the shell of her ear. “I get to do things to you first.”
She heated at his wicked promise, and found herself relaxing, loosening back onto the bed. On her back, with him above her. “I think this might be fine.”
She wanted it to be. For her—for them.
He grinned back. “It’s going to be more than fine.”
Then he kissed her again, banishing thoughts of her past while his hand moved down to the waistband of her underwear, toying with the elastic, his fingers dipping beneath as far as his first knuckle and running across her stomach from one hip to the other. The touch teased her, flared heat between her legs in calling. Down here. His fingers ran back the other way and she lifted her hips a little with a gasp. Come all the way down.
“Just once, wasn’t it?” he murmured against her mouth.
“I’ll kill you,” she said.
Chuckling, he slid down her body, tugging her underwear off over her feet. Settling at her hips, his erection snug against her outer thigh, he pressed an openmouthed kiss to the sensitive skin below her belly button—at the same time as his fingers pressed between her legs. Her body arched, she moved her hips against him, and he made a deep noise of satisfaction as he started to circle her.
Time passed, measured in his strokes.
Not that she had the mind to count.
Heat bloomed beneath his fingers. She gripped his shoulder tighter and tighter, almost embarrassed at how quickly her pleasure built. She’d hardly held on the night before, blamed it on years of anticipation and the thrill of finally being with Kris, but already, the heat at her core was threatening to spill beneath his touch.
On a moan, she stole a glance at where he lounged beside her, one arm draped over her waist, the other busy, so busy.
His gaze flicked up, and he smiled, his eyes glinting. “So ready.”
“Maybe I like you,” she said on a gasp.
“It’s going to make this next bit a little harder,” he said, ignoring her frown as he moved to settle between her thighs. His broad shoulders brushed against her skin, and something about all his strength and rough-hewn intensity serving her pleasure sent shivers right to her toes. God above, there’s a cowboy between my legs. And his tongue was about to swagger all the way inside her. He held her stare, giving her time to call off what he had planned, then said, “Tell me when you’re close,” and bent to her core.
She’d thought she’d known heat. But as his tongue—as it slid over—mother of—as it slid inside—
It was a lick of fresh fire.
Her hands found the pillows, squeezing as she cried out. His puff of hot-breathed laughter only drove her higher. A mindless, oh-yes-yes stretch of bliss later, her face was pressed into her knuckles and tension was twisting tighter and hotter inside her, and she distantly found the focus to say, “Close.”
With one hand on her stomach, he kept up the rhythm, building her higher, mouth and fingers working her with masterful precision, until—
He stopped.
Literally, just—stopped. He gently lifted his mouth from her and eased his fingers out.
Any thoughts that he was going to crawl up her body and shatter her from the inside flickered out when he stayed put. Stunned and teetering on the precipice, she released the pillows in trembling, half-numb hands. He gave a low growl, as if he’d been pulled from his peak, and bit her thigh with scraping teeth. Sensitivity heightened, she gasped—and gasped again when he cupped one hand between her legs, moving very lightly, and pressed a firm path down her thigh with the other.
“Um.” Disbelieving, she forced herself to her elbows. “You lost my orgasm.”
“I didn’t lose anything.” His voice was hoarse with desire and he swept a line of wet kisses along her inner thigh.
She throbbed in response.
“We’re going to catch it on the way back up.”
She stared. Body thrumming, aching, roaring for what he’d withheld.
“Frankie.” He hovered between her legs, his cupped hand continuing to rub and his touch continuing to roam, enchanting her skin, sending sparks and jolts of delight racing back to her core. Sexual potential rolled off him in tidal waves—neither of them was done here. “I’m planning on edging you into another universe.”
“What?” The excitement inside her was slipping, and an unfulfilled restlessness took its place. It was both agonizing and blissful, and she moved herself against his palm, trying to rebuild what he’d broken.
“You haven’t been denied before?” It was his turn for disbelief. His free hand was running down her thigh, over her knee, down to her foot. Farther and farther from where she wanted him, but not breaking his touch or releasing his command of her body. “Just—trust me, okay?”
She surrendered to a whole-body shiver as his fingertips found the arch of her foot. “You meant to let that one go?”
He drew his bottom lip into his mouth, heavy-lidded gaze on her body stretched out before him. “M-hm.”
“And you plan to do that again?”
His eyes locked on hers. “M-hmmm.”
She lifted a leg, nudging him in the shoulder with her foot. “Get up here.”
Eyes dark, he slid up her body until he covered her, and for a moment, she stopped breathing, caught by the reality of being naked in his arms. His torso seemed wider, safer, stronger now that she was underneath it. She ran a hand over the taut plane of his chest, aware of his heart thundering beneath. When her hand dipped, aiming south, he dropped his stomach on hers t
o block her path, and she gasped at the sensation of their bare bellies together.
Swallowing, she managed to say, “Spoilsport.”
“Denial isn’t easy for me either.” He grazed his teeth lightly along her jaw, and as webs of pleasure spun down her spine, she rolled her hips to feel him hard and full against her. “And that’s not helping.”
“Not trying to help.” She wrapped a leg around the back of his thigh and rolled again.
Groaning, he slipped a hand under his pillow and came back with a little packet. “Anticipation is good, too, you know.”
“Uh-huh. Sure.”
He was playing at exasperation, but she sensed his dark delight at her greed. After sheathing himself, he settled over her. His gaze seemed to sink into her heart. “You’re really okay with this position?”
“Yes.”
He spread his fingers into her hair. “Then let’s find your next one,” he murmured, and pushed inside her.
Oh, God. He was—this was—oh, God.
“You’ll have to tell me again.” He spoke against her neck and slid in deeper.
Eyes closed, head tilted back, she whispered, “Don’t want to.”
She never spoke during sex. Rarely made eye contact. She’d always tried to pretend her bedpartner wasn’t really there, and when the soft somersault of release tumbled through her, she’d be straight back into her clothes and angling them out the door. She definitely had no experience with morning afters, but she was pretty sure they didn’t usually go like this.
This . . . this felt like a proper first time.
The way she should have parted with her innocence all those years ago. On her own terms. In the embrace and care of a man who adored her. At ease enough to talk to him, tease him, look deep into his eyes as he pushed ever-deeper inside her.
It was different to last night. Frantic coupling in a work environment hardly lent itself to romance. But this bed cushioned her back against the impact of his thrusts, and with the drapes drawn and bed never-ending around her, she could almost believe they were the only people in existence.
“Frankie,” he said, a sound of unfiltered worship.
As he worked a hand under the small of her back and tilted her hips—as he kissed her with such sincerity, her eyes welled—she slipped so far over a line she’d never crossed, she knew she’d finally done it.
Finally fallen.
Her childhood had made her guarded and distrustful of the world. She’d banished any hope from her mind of being treated better, leaving that wish to tunnel into her heart instead. She felt it sometimes—a hollow clamor for affection, a frail longing—but knowing the impossibility of such a thing, she’d done her best to ignore it. Now, she could feel Kris beneath her breastbone. Inside that hollow space. Not as hope, but certainty. He would treat her better than she’d ever been treated—better than she’d ever treated herself. He’d do what no one had ever done in her entire life.
He would love her.
Her whole body flushed with sensation. The pressure inside her was building, more intense than before, and her breathing grew so hard, so loud, she used it to carry his name from the edges of ecstasy. “Kris.”
“Fuck, sorry about this,” he murmured in her hair, and pulled out so swiftly, she had no chance at stopping him. She clenched as if she could leap from the precipice without him, but hovered several thrusts away from flying as he shifted and wedged his thigh hard between her legs. While a part of her marvelled at his self-control, the rest of her was taking none of it.
“I warned you.” Even though her body was humming—singing in suspense, alive with anticipation—she pushed herself up and started crawling across the bed. “I’m getting my knuckles and I’m going to kill you.”
He caught her around the waist and dragged her back, drawing her into his lap and touching her all over as he murmured, “Trust me, trust me,” and she said, “I’ll make it quick, you could learn something,” and he said, “No, you won’t, just trust me,” and she surrendered to his mouth when it came hot and urgent for hers.
She wriggled, more for the game this had become than any effort to escape him, and he twisted her, pinning her front-down on the bed. He was heavy against her back, erection nestled against her ass, his mouth instantly pulling on the sensitive spot where her shoulder swept up into her neck. Heat flooded her. Her muscles throbbed, ever-tightening. She was moaning, pleasure-drenched, wetter than she’d ever been.
Okay. Maybe he was onto something.
He reached down and slid a finger inside her. Not enough to finish her—just enough to torment, to make her buck against him. Practically vibrating with need, she angled her head and nipped none-too-gently at his forearm.
“The thanks I get,” he muttered in her ear, and even that light brush of air rocketed through her blood.
Denial pushed her beyond thought—hypersensitive to every tiny pleasure, wordless with euphoria.
He resisted, and rubbed against her until her blood fizzed, and then kept on resisting. She shuddered as his hands praised her—caressed her sides and massaged her ass and swept across her breasts. It was only when she angled her hips and managed to get his tip inside her that she finally found his line.
On a strangled groan, he flipped her onto her back—and drove hard inside her.
Buried all the way in, he fell still, taut as a bowstring. One second, two . . . then he pulled back and started slow all over again, building her up until her tension was a tight tangle and her edges stretched and strained as her pleasure mounted higher. She’d never seen this mountain before, never known she could approach such a peak, but with his hand on her back again, angling her hips to receive his thrusts just right, he guided her two steps as a time, three, urging her to climb ever-higher.
On each stroke, friction dug in and heaved her pleasure with him. Layers and layers of it, like dense fabric, like silken fire, gathering and dragging and burning inside her on every thrust. Crazed with readiness, she pulled his bottom lip into her mouth and begged him to take more, more, more.
Finally, a swelling rush built inside her.
“Don’t stop this time,” she pleaded, clutching him against her.
“I won’t.” He rocked higher into her. “This is it.”
And then, the pleasure he’d taken from her body, one gasp and moan and tremble at a time—all that tingling and bursting and surging—
He gave it all back.
It converged like the center of a storm, and then blew, thundering outward, tackling her beneath an endless rolling beat. The strongest orgasm of her life.
Lungs empty and body wrecked, she was vaguely aware of Kris shuddering through his own ending. When he relaxed over her, she wound her legs around his hips, warm and glowing and too satisfied to speak.
It was a while before he asked, “Still want to kill me?” against her neck.
She smiled, moving her hips gently. “No. You win.”
“You’re telling me,” he said, and raised his head and kissed her. Opening to him, she sensed an aching impatience gathering low in her chest, demanding to connect with him beyond what was possible. Even now, with him buried inside her and his tongue deep in her mouth, he was still too far away, and she longed to haul him through her rib cage and right into her beating heart.
Or was it less that he was too far away—but still too unknowable?
She’d spent years of friendship skirting around his edges. Holding back questions, keeping her distance. Well. Now she’d have to wait. Months, years even, because what she really wanted from her best friend was to know him, as utterly as she knew herself, and only time could offer such truth. Mornings wrapped in each other’s arms; evenings deep in conversation; moments that tested and punished and rewarded them. Time would grant her the power to decode him one piece at a time until she understood the man he was, in all his complexity, and could fit seamlessly against him.
That was why she ached—for an intimate relationship.
And h
e would give it to her.
Eventually, he pulled back and said, “You’re so perfect, I never want to move.”
“But however will we eat?”
He grinned and her happiness soared. She raised a hand to the side of his face, stroking her thumb over his bottom lip, scarcely believing she was allowed to spend her life with him.
“Say it,” he murmured. “Say what I can see in your eyes.”
She blinked, startled, and focused on his chin. “I—”
Had never said it. Never heard it. She hardly knew how it was supposed to sound.
Panic kicked up her pulse and he made a soft sound of reassurance as his fingers circled her shoulder.
“I’ll help,” he said. “This is all you do. Just say . . .” And he paused, waiting until she looked up, right into his eyes. Her heart stuttered, like the pair of trembling hands she longed to hide behind, too shy to look his emotion in the face. But she did, kept her attention fixed on the affection raw and tender in his gaze as he said, “I love you.”
It sounded like the gentle brush of his lashes against her heart as he saw all the way inside her; sounded like an extended palm, held out, waiting for her to take hold.
Her breath was fast, and she couldn’t look away.
“Frankie,” he said, whispering this time. “I love you.”
As the silence stretched out, a tear slid down her cheek. Not because she was scared of his love or her own for him. Rather because she had a lifetime of fear inside her and his confession had just nudged some of it out.
“It’s okay.” He brushed the tear aside with his nose and murmured, “I know you do.”
She wanted to confirm it, speak the words out loud, but as much as the past twelve hours seemed to disagree, she couldn’t change her entire life overnight, and that included her emotional limits.