“Any time. I mean that. Any time.”
He hesitates, his chest expanding, then starts to leave. Makes it all the way to the door.
“Wait.”
His back muscles tense, his hand pausing on the doorknob. “Yes?”
This is crazy. I can’t really be considering asking this near-stranger to stay the night. We just met. I’m not mentally healthy enough to do casual or serious. But I’m already walking toward him as if in a trance, already sliding my palms up the range of muscles on his back, absorbing his shudder. How can this feel so inevitable? Almost…foretold? “Stay.”
He braces a palm on the door, and once again, I marvel at the size and capability of his hands. The way one of his knuckles is crooked and scarred. But I’m distracted from my thoughts when he says, “Stay and have coffee? Or stay and take you to bed, Jolie?”
“I don’t know,” I say to his back. “I just know it makes me feel safer to have you here.”
“There’s irony for you,” he mutters.
I frown. “What do you mean?”
His fingers curl into a fist on the door. “Nothing.”
Long moments pass and all I can hear is the sound of his breathing, my racing pulse.
“I’ve never spent the night with a man before. Am I doing this all wrong?”
“God, no, honey.” He drops his hand from the door and turns, expression sincere and strained all at once. “You are fucking perfect.”
The look in his blue eyes knocks me back a step. He’s…aroused. Very much so. The crotch of his jeans protrudes at an angle, his jaw slackening while he looks me over, head to toe, a low sound coming from his throat. He’s so huge. The muscles of his forearms are in tight ropes, his pupils expanding to encompass the blue. Starved. For me.
When my back meets the wall, I realize I’ve been putting distance between us.
“I’m already scaring you,” Christopher says raggedly.
Is he?
I’m wet. Growing so damp, so rapidly, my thighs are trembling. My skin is crying out to experience those large hands. Have them rake my flesh. I’m drawn to him like nothing else. And yes, the attraction is so immense it startles me, but I think I’ll collapse if he leaves.
Christopher shakes his head, reaches for the doorknob again, signaling his exit. “This is moving too fast. It’s my fault. I—”
Quickly, I unbutton my cardigan, from my neck to my waist, shedding it.
The belt is undone next, dropped heavily with a metal sound to the tile below.
When there’s nothing left but my dress, I curl my fingers in the hem and wait only a moment before stripping it over my head. And then I’m standing in front of this magnetic man, my neighbor, in a matching bra and panties set. White with a red rose pattern. All of the lights are on. There’s nothing and nowhere to hide. It’s also the reason I see every emotion cross his face. Awe, hunger, surrender, lust. Lust like a battering ram.
He takes one step and flattens me against the wall of my entryway, his mouth coming down on mine with a groan. His fingers slide into my hair and cradle my nape, our hips meeting, thighs pressing. He kisses me with lips only, pulling at my top one, bottom one, slanting his mouth on top of mine until I mewl, arch my back, and he finally slips his tongue inside, stroking it against mine, his breath catching. I’ve felt nothing but fear for so long that I race toward my own need, flinging myself into it like a cliff diver into a blue lagoon. It feels so good to be alive, to have this man’s touch, and I’m suddenly greedy, desperate for more.
I scale his sturdy body, slinging my legs around his hips, the kiss taking hold. Going deeper. With more urgency. He slides a hand down the back of my panties and kneads my butt, pressing my upper half to the wall, his lips racing down to my neck, my throat.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” he rasps in between kisses, those eyes intense, exploring. “I’ve needed you. I’ve needed you.”
“I’ve needed you, too.” My fingers work to unbutton his shirt. “Take me to bed.”
No sooner are those four words out of my mouth than I’m ripped off the wall, carried down the back hallway at a fast clip. He false starts toward the guest room, but I point to the right door and he changes directions, entering my bedroom. All the lights are on. Every single one. And I’m grateful for that when I finally get Christopher’s shirt open and it parts to reveal tattooed muscle. Weathered brawn. Slab upon slab of inked steel.
“You must sell a lot of insurance,” I breathe.
The corner of his mouth ticks up. “I had a wild youth.” He lays me down on the bed, shrugging off the shirt and tossing it away, flicking open the button of his jeans. Those blue eyes blaze over me, drinking in every inch. “I’m still a little wild, Jolie.” He hooks his fingers in my panties and shucks them down my legs, a shudder wracking him. “But all of the wild inside me is for you now,” he says thickly, tracing the seam of my womanhood with his thumb. “Do you understand?”
I’m having a hard time concentrating on anything when he’s touching me with such possession, but I capture his meaning. He’s going to make love to me with abandon—exactly what I want. What I need. I don’t want to think of my past or my trauma. I want to see and think about and feel only Christopher.
His thumb parts my folds and grazes my clit. “Do you understand, Jolie?”
“I understand,” I gasp.
“Good girl.”
Something about those two words set off fireworks in a secret, unknown part of me, sharpening my lust like the tip of a pencil. Good girl. They’re still echoing in my head when Christopher drops to his stomach and kisses my sex. Reverently. Breathing in and out against it, his hands coasting up and down my bare thighs.
“Knew you’d have a sweet, juicy, little pussy,” he rumbles, nudging me with his nose, groaning brokenly. “Savor this,” he says, his words muffled against my flesh. Is he talking to my womanhood? “Savor your last seconds of freedom. Because I’m never going to give you a moment’s peace again.”
As if my body already knows what he’s capable of, my fingers twist in the sheets, preparing—and he starts to eat me. With long, crude licks. Thank God I invested in a good home waxing kit, because it would be a travesty to miss a single stroke.
Oh lord, I’ve never done this. Never even come close. But instinctively I know there isn’t a man alive who could perform this task half as well. He’s obscene and cherishing. Nasty and worshipful. Those blue eyes bore into mine, lust clouding them, the wet of his tongue flashing in the light, dragging up through my sex and teasing my hotbed of nerves.
“Oh Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” I whimper, tearing at the bedclothes.
I can’t breathe. The release that’s rolling in is a beautiful monster and it turns me into a creature I barely recognize. One who pulls a man’s hair and bucks against his mouth. One who rips off her own bra so she can clamp greedy fingers around her aching nipples. The monster snaps its teeth, digging into my lust and I go off, my body trembling wildly, pleasure spearing me deep, deep in the center of my body, making me rear up off the mattress.
“Christopher!”
My scream is still echoing in my bedroom when he lifts his head, moves up my body in a slow, purposeful crawl, his eyes black, chest heaving. “I could live off the perfect taste of you,” he says hoarsely, unzipping his jeans. “But we need to take advantage while you’re wet.”