My damn eyeshadow palette. Lark was holding it. Now it’s face down on the couch, the colors smeared in a rainbow riot across the dingy gray cushions.
Lark notices where I’m looking and he laughs, too. “My fault,” he admits.
“You’re paying to clean this,” I inform him, right before I cup his face between my hands and lean in to kiss him again.
“I’ll do one better,” he replies when we break apart again. At the same time, he slides his hands up the back of my shirt, tugging it up and over my head, then tossing it aside. He pulls me against him again, his face level with my chest, and starts to kiss and lick his way around the edges of my breasts, still tightly confined in my bra. “I’ll replace the whole damn couch, I promise.”
With my head tipped back, my eyes fluttering shut at the sensation of his tongue on my skin, I almost don’t hear what he said. The moment the words register, though, I jerk back upright, my eyes flashing. “I don’t need your charity.”
He’d been in the process of unhooking my bra. Now it hangs between us, my nipples bare and hardened, but he’s not touching them. He’s peering up at me, expression unreadable. “It’s not charity if I destroyed the thing. I’m merely replacing what I owe you.”
“I don’t want to be spoiled,” I reply, chin raised.
But that only makes him grin, slowly. “Don’t you?” One hand slides up to cup my breast. His thumb traces over my nipple, which was already hard in the cool air of my apartment. Now it could probably cut a diamond. “That’s a shame,” he says, bending close. He runs his tongue over my other nipple, making me gasp and arch up—which he takes advantage of, his free hand gripping my hip and pulling me down against his cock, the hard length of his shaft falling right between my legs, pressing against my swollen clit. “Because I had so many plans for how exactly I’d spoil you today, Ms. Marks…” He speaks with his mouth close to my chest, his breath heating the damp spot he left against my nipple. Then he sucks it between his lips again, gently closing his teeth around my nipple, and I gasp, my head falling back, my protests forgotten.
I’m pushing my hips down, grinding against his cock, desperation building. The couch argument can wait. I want him now—no. I need him. “Fuck me already, damn it, Lark,” I say, my voice practically a growl.
In response, he grins, and reaches down to undo the buttons on the presentable work pants I wore today—foolishly thinking this would just be another business meeting. Not planning for this.
Somehow I never plan for Lark.
By the time he finally gets both of our pants out of the way; when we’re perched on the couch naked, me still straddling his hips, I’m so wet I’m surprised it’s not dripping down my inner thigh already. His cock is swollen, red with want, and he takes his damn time rolling a condom over himself before he positions the throbbing tip at the entrance of my pussy.
“I’ve dreamt of this for weeks,” he tells me, his eyes blazing where they catch mine. “I’ve been missing that sweet, tight pussy of yours so goddamn badly…”
“Lark, please…”
I try to sit right on him, but he holds my hips in both hands, smirking all the while.
“Not so fast,” he tells me. “I want to savor this.”
When he finally guides me down onto his cock, it takes every ounce of self-control I have not to cry aloud with pleasure. I manage to keep it to a low, throaty moan, as the sensation of his cock sliding into my pussy, slowly spreading my lips, making me ache to contain him, fills me up.
I move slow, sinking onto him. Every time I think I can’t possibly take him any deeper, I move a centimeter closer, feel him stretching me to my limits.
“God, you’re perfect,” he groans, and the tightness in his voice almost undoes me as much as the feeling of him inside me.
When he starts to move again, tiny motions at first, bucking me up off him and pulling me back down again, I have to cling to his bare chest for support, because I’m already halfway to an orgasm already, the sensations filling my body like nothing I’ve ever experienced.
He takes it slow. Torturously slow. But by the time we both come together, my whole body jerking against his, it feels like we’ve melded into one body, one mind.
That’s the moment I know I’m in trouble.
6
Cassidy
I wake up the next morning to a loud buzzing at my door. I roll over with a groan, unsure why every muscle in my body is screaming for mercy—until I remember the couch.
And after the couch, the shower.
And after the shower, this very bed, which dammit, I’ll need to wash the sheets now. But not yet. For now, I roll back over with a groan and pull a pillow over my head. Lark left sometime this morning—I vaguely remember him kissing my cheek and promising to keep his promise soon, whatever that means. I wasn’t awake enough to process it.
Just like I’m not awake enough now for whatever that commotion is outside.
But the horrible raucous buzzing continues, and I finally sit upright in bed, realizing. Oh shit. Doorbell.
“Coming!” I shout, which is inane, because nobody can hear me at the front entrance from all the way up here. Groggily, I pull on the nearest clothing—a pair of sweats and a baggy sleep shirt. Then I pad into my living room and hit the buzzer. My hair is a mess. I take one look in the mirror and grimace, pulling it up into a ponytail and heading into the bathroom to splash the worst of the sleep from my face.
I don’t expect the knock on my door, a few minutes later. I had figured the buzzer was just the mailman or someone locked out of another unit in the building.
Confused, I pad back to the entrance and ease open the door a crack, my stomach a riot of butterflies. Because, sure, I might be expecting Lark.
Instead, I find a man in a delivery uniform outside, holding out a form. “Ms. Marks?” he asks.
“Uh, yes, that’s me.” I rub at my eyes, frowning. “But I didn’t order any—”
“Right here, boys,” the man calls over his shoulder, and the next thing I know, a series of delivery men are shouldering open my door and hauling a brand new couch through it.
I watch, my jaw dropping, as they work. Lark. I thought I told him not to do this.
The main delivery man notices my expression, and grins. “Mr. Anderson warned us you might be, ah, surprised by the delivery. Don’t take it too personally. He has a tendency to do this sort of thing.”
I fold my arms and watch the man’s assistants expertly disassemble my sagging, stained couch, and reassemble a replacement in its place. “To do what, barge into other people’s lives and force gifts on them?” I reply.
“Pretty much.” The man laughs.
But, I have to admit, looking at the new couch they’re unwrapping, Lark chose well. It’s in a similar style to the one I owned, with big, puffy cushions and a simple fabric pattern—dark gray this time instead of light, which I have to admit does pair better with my shaggy carpet and steel coffee table.
Still. He could have at least consulted me first.
“You should see his apartment,” the delivery man continues. Before I can say I have, he adds, “Or the house he used to share with his wife, for that matter. Everyone who visits compliments Sheryl on her eye, but he’s the one who really put the place together. All for her sake, of course.”