“You taste like heaven. I missed this skin.” I kissed her neck again, ending with a little bite. “And yeah, these lips.” I moved back to her mouth, kissing her again, but pulled back when she clutched me and tried to deepen things. When she whimpered again, this time with urgent protest, I chuckled. “Greedy little kitty. Patience, patience. I’m worshipping you, woman. Just enjoy it.”
“Can’t,” my beautiful girl whined. “I want all of you right now. I don’t want to wait. I’ve been waiting for too long.”
I didn’t give her a laugh, soft or otherwise, for that one. Instead, I slid to my knees alongside the sofa. She cried out again, but there was method to my madness. I wanted to survey her entire body, reacquainting myself with all its mystery and angles, stretched out before me. “Hmm. Now, look at this gorgeous little girl who needs worshipping.”
“Well, you got the need part right.”
As I soaked up every drop of her adoring gaze, I took on new strength. Fresh desire. And even better, a surge of something that felt like…me. The man I used to be. The lover who reveled in a mantle of complete control…
Especially when it was given by a formidable female like my Rio.
“So…which end should I start with?” I tapped my chin with my forefinger in playful contemplation. “I think I need a solid plan here…”
“Grant!” She squirmed like a kitten batting at a yarn ball. “Come on! Please.”
“Please what, baby?” I crooked my finger, turning the movement into a slow and elegant tease. She nearly undid me by licking her lips, but that shit was on me. I was extending this fun foreplay, not her. “What do you want me to do?” I murmured then. Having to focus on words was always a good way of setting boundaries for the gang below my belt. At least for now.
“I—I don’t know. Just something other than sitting there, looking at me like I’m a Playstation on Christmas morning.”
I chuckled. It just couldn’t be helped. “Rio Gibson, you are better than a thousand Christmas mornings.”
She wriggled again. But there was less frustration to it this time. This was also more her—the sexy, free-spirted siren that had risen from her emotional depths to expose herself to me during our time on the ocean waves.
“Okay, then. Why don’t you come and…unwrap me, big boy?”
I laughed harder, attempting to summon a matching accent to give to her Mae West flair. But my John Wayne and Gary Cooper impressions were pitiful. Elijah, who excelled at both, was fond of reminding me.
“Soon,” I promised her instead. “But first, a question.”
She huffed. “No, I can’t tell you how many ounces are in three quarts without a converter, okay?”
“All right.” I leaned in, tilting my head. “How about an easier one? Like…are you wet for me?”
A gulp made its way down her throat. “Wha—?”
“Don’t be shy now. Two seconds ago, you were Little Miss Bossy. So yes or no, Rio? Are you wet for me?”
She opened her mouth, but nothing emerged except an awkward gurgle. “I—I don’t know.”
“Bullshit.”
“Grant!”
The little black band T-shirt she was wearing was thin, almost threadbare in some spots. From the hem, I pushed the cotton up over the swell of her breasts, slowing to unhook her bra—one of the pieces I’d purchased for her on our trip, which kicked my smile higher—before taking the mounds in my hands and teasing her with some small squeezes.
“Fuck. Your nipples are so perfect, lady. Just look at these pert little beauties.” I smirked as she gasped, reacting to how I scraped my thumbnails over both her erect little nubs. “Are you telling me now that even with such hard, throbbing tits, you have no idea what state your pussy is in?”
Rio whimpered as I rolled her red nubs between my thumbs and forefingers. When I gave them both a deliberate tug, she finally cried out, “All right, all right! I’ll tell you!”
I rewarded her with an approving growl but took a second to pluck at her angry peaks once more.
“Grant! All right, I’m wet! I’ve been soaked from the second I saw you at Elijah’s.” She cut herself off with another whine, high and achy and beautiful, that nearly derailed my efforts to get her shirt up and over her head.
Impatiently, I tossed the garment onto the floor beside me. At least that was where I thought it went. My gaze didn’t rip an inch from the half-naked nymph before me, already making it hard to remember my breath. Who was I kidding? I was just hard, period. Everywhere. And getting harder by the minute.
“You are so stunning,” I finally managed to say. “Do you know that, Rio? Do you get even half that truth when it leaves my lips? Every damn time I say it? Do you have any idea how much I—”
Whoa. Watch it, big guy.
I commanded it at myself, just to make sure every cell of my brain got the message. I needed to keep my head fully in the game or I was going to say something I regretted—aka something that overly scared her. Yeah, she’d been hearts and flowers and swelling orchestrations about declaring she was ready to go public about our relationship, but that was before I saw the thin glass beneath her bold trumpets. She wasn’t necessarily ready to go down the I-love-you path with me.
“Grant? How much you what?” she prodded. My bright little minx hadn’t missed a second of my slip, of course.
“How much I need you, Blaze.” Quickly, to get her mind back on what was happening here and now, I leaned over and kissed the sweet swells of her breasts again. And then traced along her collarbone with my tongue.
“Look at this perfection,” I murmured into her succulent skin. “You are flawless, woman.”
She gasped and arched her back. “Only for you, mister. Only with you. Always…”
“I need to remember you exactly this way,” I uttered. “Will you let me take your picture? Lying here like this?”
She opened one eye. Then the other. “Ummm…”
I laughed again. Once more, it wasn’t intentional. I’d spoken from my heart, but she’d also reacted from hers, and it was so damn adorable that I simply busted up with joy.
“Okay, why are you laughing now?” she groused.
“Sorry, baby,” I said sincerely. “I guess you had to see it all from my point of view. But I’m serious about the pictures. I want to have you near me all the time.”
“But you don’t even have a phone right now. Are you using one of Elijah’s?”
“Shit,” I muttered. “Yes, you’re right. Well, when I get a new phone, I promise you my first shots won’t be of Robert.”
She took her well-deserved turn with the mirth, erupting in a giggle that didn’t stop until I swept in again, covering as much of her nipple and breast with my mouth as possible. Before she could gasp, I started to suck. I didn’t stop even as she fought to both push me away but hold me close. Simultaneously, she begged me to stop and never stop. She moaned and panted, telling me how aroused she was by scissoring her legs.
When I finally eased off, smirking at the certain mark I’d left that time, her whole body was racked by shudders. She fluttered a hand up to her neck and clutched her throat.