by Unknown
“How are you going to stay warm?” she wondered.
“You’ll do that.” He took her hands and lifted her from her space at the corner of the couch. He spun them in a circle, fell down in her former spot, and pulled her down on top of him in a seamlessly graceful, yet dizzying movement. She felt his hands on her ass, and he was hauling her closer. She found herself straddling his lap, her face hovering above his by mere inches. She put her hands on his shoulders and laughed.
“When did you ever learn to be so smooth?”
“Does that mean you always considered me clumsy before?”
“No,” she said softly, distracted by the feeling of his muscular shoulders beneath the button down shirt he wore. She slid her fingers into the hair at his nape, the smooth, cool strands feeling delightful against her fingers. “I mean…when did you become such a lady’s man?” she asked hesitantly, avoiding his gaze.
“A lady’s man,” he scoffed. She ran her fingernails against his scalp, and felt his cock harden beneath her. His hands cupped her ass, grinding her gently against his arousal, massaging her buttocks the whole time.
“When did you lose your virginity?” Esme asked, pretending interest in his collar.
He stilled beneath her. She glanced up anxiously, and noticed a reflection of the flames in his eyes.
“Why would you ask me that?” he wondered.
A good question.
“I don’t know,” she said, shrugging carelessly. She leaned down and kissed his whiskered jaw lightly, trying to show him this was just inconsequential, sexy banter. “It’s just, you never told me which one had the honor of being your first. We used to tell each other everything. I guess somewhere around my eighth grade or freshmen year, we kept certain things from each other. We were still friends, but that part of our lives became separate.” Secret, she thought privately.
He lifted his hand and cupped her chin, tilting her face slightly. She sensed his searching stare. “I suppose that’s completely natural though, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” she agreed, studying his collar.
“Do you really want to know?”
“Only if you want to tell me,” she laughed. “It’s not a big deal, is it?”
“Okay. I’ll tell you if you promise to do something for me afterwards.”
“Sure,” Esme said, masking her mounting unease with effort.
“Jessica Sellicon.”
Powerful relief swept through her—thank God it hadn’t been Sadie—and then amused disgust.
“Jessica Silicone? That big-boobed, bubble-headed cheerleader from Tahoe City? Jesus, you were only fifteen when you went out with her,” she said, rolling her eyes.
He merely shrugged, the ghost of a smile tilting his sexy lips. He raised his eyebrows expectantly, and she thought she understood his silent question.
“You didn’t know him. It was a guy from college. Nathan Young,” she said.
“He sounds like the football player type.”
She made a derisive sound. “Powder puff, maybe.”
His thumb caressed her cheek. She instinctively turned her face further into his hand. His palm was warm and calloused. She pressed her lips to him softly, and felt his cock surge against the juncture of her thighs.
“So our firsts weren’t hall-of-famers. We were just stupid kids, right? What did we know?” he said quietly.
She met his stare. Her heart jumped extra fast in her chest at what she thought she read in his eyes. Maybe he was right. What did it matter that he and Sadie had lusted after each other for a period of time? They’d both only been eighteen at the time, after all. Teenage boys were hardly known for being discriminating when it came to sex, and Sadie was the most beautiful girl in their high school, by far.
The thought didn’t soothe her much.
“We wouldn’t be who we are today, if we’d done this when we teenagers,” Jude said, one hand still massaging one of her ass cheeks.
“Is that a good thing?” she asked dubiously.
His thumb brushed her jawbone very softly.
“I know that I like who I’ve become. And I like how you turned out. A lot. All that matters is right now. Isn’t that true?”
She nodded, mesmerized by his fire-lit eyes and deep voice.
“Okay. So unzip your coat.”
She started in surprise. “How does that follow?”
He laughed at her reaction. “I told you you’d have to do something if I told you who was my first.”
“But I told you mine in return!”
“I never asked for the name of your first. You gave it up for free.”
She snorted in mock disgust, but unzipped her down Anorak anyway. He placed his hands on her shoulders, inspecting what was between the zipper with seeming dispassion.
“Good, you have on a button down. Open your shirt.”
“You’re awfully bossy,” she told him as she unfastened the flannel shirt she wore.
“When it comes to you, it’s the only way to get things done,” he replied, as if the answer was a given.
Beneath her shirt, she wore a white, lacy, form-fitting camisole. Jude appeared fiercely intent on her progress. When she’d slipped the last button through its hole, he used both hands to open both her jacket and her shirt wide. Esme shivered, maybe from the cool air on her sensitive breasts, but more likely from Jude’s hot stare.
“Flannel and lace. Very nice,” he growled softly.
“I’m so glad you approve.” Her voice sounded shaky. She felt very self-conscious suddenly, beneath his stare. Very excited. This was Jude, whom she’d once known like the back of her hand, but whom had become a thrilling, sometimes intimidating stranger.
A thrilling, sometimes intimidating lover.
Matter-of-factly, he placed his hands on her lace-covered breasts. Air whooshed out of her lungs.
“I’m beginning to think I’m obsessed with your breasts. They’re so pretty. I think about them constantly.”
“Really?” she asked, half in plain disbelief, and half in dazed incredulity because his massaging, warm hands felt so good. She squeaked softly when he gently rolled her nipples between thumb and forefinger. “Jesus,” she whispered, circling her pelvis, feeling the outline of his cock through their jeans.
“Really,” he replied firmly, if distractedly. His long fingers slipped beneath the lace. He pushed the fabric down, so that her breasts poked out over the material. For a few seconds, he just stared. Esme’s breath burned in her lungs. Then he took the weight of the mounds in his hands, and she exhaled on a whimper. He appeared utterly focused on her.
They’re so soft. So sweet,” he murmured quietly, beginning to massage her.
“So small.”
“They’re perfect,” he corrected. His forefingers feathered the nipples. She groaned and pressed her sex tighter against his cock. He raised his hips slightly, increasing the pressure. He felt very full and hard behind the fly of his jeans. “Look at how sensitive your nipples are,” he mused. “They’re rock hard,” he gently pinched a distended tip, making her wince in pleasure and grind her hips again tightly against him. “Is that because you’re cold?”
“No. Well, a little, maybe,” she gasped. “I think the cold is making it feel even better than it usually would.”
He flattened his open hand and ran her a nipple against the ridges of his fingers.
“Jude,” she muttered, growing desperate.
“I remember how they used to look,” he said, his gaze fixed on where he exquisitely tortured her. “When you wore a swimsuit.”
“You noticed that?”
He looked up at her with a flashing glance, his entire expression saying loud and clear: “You even have to ask?”
“I don’t know who you think I was, Es. But let’s get one thing straight: Despite all this weirdness with Stephen and your mom, I wasn’t your brother then, and I’m sure as hell not now. And I wasn’t any saint, either.”
He held her stare, his expression
fierce…a little stern, as though he were daring her to offer a differing opinion. At the same time, he cradled her breasts from below, squeezing them ever so gently. He leaned forward and sucked a nipple into his mouth.
She moaned. Pleasure surged through her. His mouth was hot and greedy, his tongue an agitating lash, and then a sweet soother. She arched her back, giving herself to him. His head moved, his mouth latching onto her other breast, torturing and pleasuring her other nipple. She said his name, her pelvis circling against his crotch. She could feel the outline of his cock perfectly now. He strained against his jeans. She imagined she could feel his heartbeat pulsing into her sex.
His hold on her breasts grew tauter. He pushed the mounds together, tonguing first one nipple, then the other, his manner focused and insatiable. She watched him now, overwhelmed by the intensely erotic vision he made. They made. The two of them together.
Time stretched somehow, including everything: the past and the present, every delicious sensation, the whole rainbow of emotion she felt for that special boy who had become this beautiful man.
He licked and sucked, agitating and pleasuring nerves that ran like golden threads all the way to her sex, tugging and pulling at her awareness. Everything in her zeroed down onto his sleek, wet, busy tongue and firm lips. She raked her fingers along his scalp and begged him. She didn’t use words, but somehow he understood her desperate moans and anxious caresses.
His mouth still expertly suckling the tip of one breast, he transferred one hand to her ass. He moved her against his body at a slightly different angle, riding her along the ridge of his erection, giving her a steady, strong pressure on her clitoris.
“Oh God,” she muttered disbelievingly. “Oh God, that feels good.”
His only response was to push her ass more forcefully. Esme let go all semblance of propriety, grinding her hips like a high-priced stripper. Jude gently raked his front teeth against her nipple.
She lit up like a firecracker, orgasm tearing through her.
Chapter Fifteen
Esme clutched onto Jude’s shoulders, chanting his name as she climaxed, riding the long ridge of his cock the whole time.
Her frantic hip-rolling slowed. Jude’s taut suck on her breast ended in an agonizingly gentle, erotic kiss against her beaded, hypersensitive nipple. She moaned yet again. He looked up at her as she panted, head down, her long hair cascading around her face.
“Think you’re warm enough to take off your clothes now?”
“I’m sweating like a pig, and you know it,” she hissed.
He smiled that grin that would have belonged on the devil, if it weren’t so damn sweet.
“Let’s just get you undressed then,” he said, pulling her coat down off her shoulders.
A minute or so later, Jude stood in front of her naked, the dim firelight dancing along delineated muscle and smooth olive-toned skin. Given how heavy and hard his erection was, Esme had been a little surprised at his patience in undressing her. He really did possess unguessed at depths. He’d lowered her back onto the couch, watching her with gleaming eyes as he’d taken off his own clothing in front of her. By the time he’d finished, her chest cavity felt very full, and the ache had started up again at her sex.
He stood before her, his long legs slightly parted, his stance fierce. Proud. He had every reason to be proud, Esme thought numbly. He was fabulously beautiful, a perfect specimen of the male animal. She leaned forward slowly, aware of his stare on her like a touch. She ran her opened hand along his side, from waist to buttock, awed the sensation of smooth skin and caged power. His cock sprang up an inch at her touch. She stared at it fixedly as she stroked his hard, lightly hair-covered thigh.
“Touch me, Es.”
But she was already on her way, cupping the heaviness of his erection. A shudder seemed to go through both of them once, as if her caress completed a circuit of their nerves. She stroked his length, completely focused on his warm, stone-hard cock, the pulsing power of him: desire made flesh. She fisted him and squeezed, wonder and satisfaction curling around her, at hearing his low, rough moan. Eagerly, she leaned forward and touched her tongue to the tip of his cock, circling it deliberately. He hissed softly, his fingers raking through her hair. She pressed her tongue, harder this time, against the slit and caught his taste for the first time, salt and sweet and musk.
Jude.
She felt his fingertips tighten on her scalp, and knew he was watching her with avid attention. Without hesitation, she pushed him between her lips, thrilling at the sensation of him sliding along her tongue. She ducked her head, back and then forth firmly, and palmed his testicles from below. Another rush of primal lust went through her. She bobbed her head again, greedier this time, sinking him deeper…
Suddenly, he dipped his hips back. She cried out in displeasure, feeling the defined crown of his cock pop out between her lips. She looked up at him in surprise and disappointment.
“Don’t you want—”
“Of course I want it,” he grated out, his manner now grim and hard as he leaned down over her. He placed his hands on her hips and spun her so that she mostly reclined on the velvet couch. He came down over, his arms bracing his upper body, his pelvis and damp, swollen sex pressing against her mons and belly. “I want to be inside you more, though. At the moment, anyway. I can’t stop thinking about what it was like, being inside you raw last night. Spread your thighs, baby.”
She responded immediately, opening her thighs as best she could to accommodate him on the narrow couch. He reached between her legs, dipping his finger into her sex.
“Holy Christ, you’re so damn wet,” he said, sounding equally amazed, gratified, and intensely aroused. “How do you do that?”
“I thought you did it,” she muttered.
He was moving rapidly, bracing his upper body on the arm of the couch and using one hand to guide himself to her entrance. She looked into his eyes, and saw the essence of Jude distilled, that wild childhood spirit focused and honed into this fierce force of nature.
He thrust.
Both of them shouted at once in pleasure. For a few seconds, she couldn’t think. There was only the sharp, sweet ache of him filling her, stroking so deep, her eyes rolled into the back of her head. She groaned, lifting her head. She looked up at him, disbelieving, her body shaking with the force of his possession.
“Sorry,” he said between a clenched jaw, thrusting long and hard the entire time. He must have noticed the amazement on her face. “I thought maybe after this morning, I wasn’t going to have the chance again—”
“It’s okay. I want it. Just like this,” she managed between the rhythmic crashing of their straining bodies. She grabbed his hips, tilting her pelvis up at a new angle. He groaned harshly, and increased his pace.
“Oh God, God, God,” he repeated, his lean, handsome face tight with pleasure, every muscle in his body bulging hard and flexing with effort. “If I’d ever had any idea you felt like this, Es…”
But the rest of his thought was caught up in the maelstrom of their joining. It got so intense, Esme knew she was going to explode at any second. But then he was withdrawing…shifting.
“Jude?” she whimpered, confused by his absence, every nerve in her body buzzing with electric arousal. His hands were on her, urging her a little, but mostly using his own strength to re-position her. He placed her so that her back was at the corner of the couch. Grabbing her ankles, he opened her legs, draping one over the arm of the couch and the other along the back of it.
He leaned down over her, a large, shadowed form, his slick erection bobbing in the air between them. His hands braced on the arm and the back of the couch, his feet on the floor, he descended.
“Tilt up your pelvis, baby,” he growled. Esme held her breath. His cockhead dipped into her sex.
He thrust deliberately, slow and deep, watching her face the whole time.
“Tell me you want this,” he said.
An uncontrollable shudder went throu
gh her. She reached for his hips, her fingers digging into dense buttocks.
“I want it so much.”
A muscle flickered in cheek, and then he was fucking her again, fast and furious, yet completely in control. Until…
He wasn’t anymore.
“God, Es. God, you kill me,” he grated out, and he was reaching between her thighs. She felt him swell high in her at the same time she felt the friction of his fingers on her clitoris. She grabbed onto his shoulders as orgasm shot through her, her hips circling and pumping against his cock, feeling him pulsing as he ejaculated, hearing his harsh grunts of satisfaction.
It all spun and battered inside her: pleasure, pressure…erupting emotion.
She opened her eyelids a moment later, staring at the wonder of his rigid, muscular, fire lit body as he slowed in his thrusts. She felt one final shudder go through him, and he planted himself as deep as he could go.
He glanced up at her after a moment, his dark hair falling in sexy disarray on his forehead, just the hint of a smile playing on his lips.
“So we did find something new for an adrenaline rush.”
She raised her eyebrows, too sated to speak.
His grin widened, and his cock jumped slightly inside her. “I’m addicted already.”
Esme burst out laughing. He leaned down and touched his mouth to hers, their laughter joining.
I love you, Jude Beckett. I have since I was six years old, Esme thought helplessly, watching as he leaned back and stroked her thighs and hips. The unspoken words burned in her throat, especially after the intimacy of their lovemaking.
But something inside her warned her that he wasn’t in the same place that she was. That didn’t mean that he couldn’t be, though.
