“Maybe I do need water.” His voice was weird, his eyes as well, the gray taking up most of his irises.
“Declan, your eyes are dilated. Are you sure you’re okay? Do you have a concussion?”
He groaned and shut his eyes.
“Declan?”
He stepped back. “It’s not the hit, Elizabeth. It’s you.”
I hissed, something in my heart shifting as he opened his eyes and stared at me. With longing. With heat.
I imagined fireworks went off somewhere in the distance.
Change happens to all of us. Sometimes you want a new haircut, sometimes you want to try blue cheese instead of ranch, and sometimes you just want to ignore your head and go with what you desire the most. Mostly it’s a gradual process, but not with Declan. I wanted sex on a mat in an un-air-conditioned gym with a hot as hell British guy pounding into me, no matter the consequences. Fuck my silly sex rules. I wanted him.
He studied me. “If you knew what I was thinking, you’d run like hell.”
“Are you thinking about tossing me on the mat for real?”
He lowered his chin, his eyes at half-mast. “Yes.”
I felt drunk at his words. Dizzy with need.
I shivered at the heat that raced up my spine as he stood there looking at me with those molten eyes.
Wanting me.
God, I was sick of being a walking, talking dead person when it came to real emotional need. I just wanted him, hard and fast.
“Kiss me, Declan. Please.”
“I’ve been waiting forever for you to say my name like that,” he said in a low voice and tugged me against him. His hand swept over my face, pushing back the hair that had fallen forward.
I clutched him, my hand snaking around the taut muscles of his neck, my nose inhaling the scent of male and sweat. His lips took mine hard, and I moaned at the slide of his lips against mine, at the way he dominated me. His arms held me prisoner in a jail I wanted, my hands clawing at his shoulders, pulling him closer. More. Yes. He tasted like the most delicious dessert, rich and decadent.
“Yes,” I murmured and rubbed my hands over his back greedily, searching out the hard muscles and indentations, wanting to map his skin in my brain and sear it to memory.
He held my arms up and tugged my shirt off, tossing it aside without even looking to see where it went.
I didn’t care either.
Hurry, hurry, take me, I said in my brain, but he went excruciatingly slow, his hands cupping my breasts through the nude bra I wore. He palmed them with one hand while the other slipped to my back and unsnapped it.
It fell unnoticed to the floor.
He massaged me, his eyes meeting mine as he bent to take a nipple between his lips, his teeth teasing and then sucking it into his mouth. Pleasure raced over me as he tugged and twisted.
I tossed my head back and gasped, my hands tangling in his hair, clutching him tighter. I was going to combust before we’d even gotten to the good stuff.
His touch was rougher than what I was used to. More masterful. Confident. Sexy.
“This is so good,” I whispered.
“It only gets better,” he murmured and captured my peaks again, his tongue and teeth lashing at my now tender skin.
His hands were everywhere, as if he couldn’t get enough, and I loved the greedy way he touched me. He knew every nerve ending that would send me over the edge, and I strained closer, wanting more of him, my hands now gripping his broad shoulders just to keep standing.
Sensing my collapse, he eased me down to the mat and then stood over me, his eyes burning.
“We shouldn’t do this,” he said, chest heaving. “We’re completely wrong for each other, and I’m not even sure you like me most days.”
“I agree. But don’t let that stop you.”
He huffed out a laugh and tore out of his pants and tight athletic boxers, his cock bouncing out and straining for me. I sucked in a shuddering breath. Thick and hard, it was the biggest one I’d ever laid eyes on. My lower regions twitched.
He grinned. “You’re looking at my manhood like it’s a stick of dynamite about to explode.”
“Is it?”
His eyes laser-locked with mine. “Indeed.”
He knelt down, and a painful dawning hit his face. “I don’t have a condom. This was the last thing I expected would happen.” He cursed and rubbed his face briskly. “Fuck. I’m sorry.”
Disappointment seared me, my body crying out for him.
He brushed a strand of hair out of my eyes. “I’m clean, though. I’ve never had sex without one. Not once.”
I’d never let a guy near me that didn’t have a condom, but I came to a rapid decision. “I’m on the pill. If you say you’re safe, I believe you, Declan.”
He kissed me hard and swift. “Thank you for trusting me.”
I stared into his eyes. It wasn’t so much trust as need riding me. “I will cut your cock off if you give me a venereal disease. Got it?”
He chuckled. “I’ll let you, love. Just the thought of your hands on me makes me happy.”
He slid down to lie next to me, the press of his body like nirvana. Strong arms wrapped around my shoulders as he gathered me close, and I moaned. Finally.
His hands roamed lower, his fingertips sliding my underwear and pants down my legs. His eyes followed their path. “Your legs are so damn long. I keep thinking about them wrapped around my hips …” He groaned, his mouth dipping down to kiss my tummy, my hips, the bend in my knees.
I groaned and spread my legs as his fingers burrowed in and slid into my center, dipping in and out. He spread the wetness around, pressing and teasing and strumming me with his touch.
I writhed and arched closer while he bit his lower lip, watching me twist to get him closer. Deeper.
There. Yes.
I moaned.
He worked me hard, yet gently, ghosting over the bundle of nerves in my G spot, thrumming them like a guitar string.
More. I wanted him everywhere.
He read my mind and maneuvered between my legs, placing them on his shoulders and then taking my center in his mouth. Hot fire flashed over every inch of me, and I gasped out as he delved deep into my recesses, his fingers playing at the heart of me. He parted my labia, his tongue searching for tender skin. His mouth worked me, rubbing and plucking with his lips.
Intense need built. I gasped out his name.
He looked up at me, eyes heavy with lust. “You like?”
I nodded. No one had ever done this to me. I’d never trusted them to.
“Don’t stop,” I murmured.
He didn’t deny me, plunging two fingers inside me, his tongue pulsing over my skin. His mouth took my clit captive, nursing it with soft strokes.
I screamed his name and snapped into a million pieces, the fragments scattering and falling all around me like stars from heaven. I gripped the edge of the mat and rode it out, my inner muscles clamping down and contracting under his mouth.
My body sagged onto the mat.
I cupped his face when he looked at me, a grin of satisfaction tipping up his lips. “I’ve been dying to do that since our first kiss in my apartment. You taste better than I ever imagined.” And then he kissed me hard, letting me taste myself.
I clung to his shoulders and gazed up at him. “I don’t know what to say except thank you for that.”
His hands caressed my face. Sweet. “I want you like I’ve never wanted another girl,” he whispered.
Oh. My heart thundered in happiness. Was he for real?
We kissed again as he eased between my legs, his hands brushing my thighs, little electric pulses shooting over me.
I let him on top of me, even though my rules clearly said he shouldn’t.
He held the base of his erection with one hand and worked into my sheath inch by inch. “You’re tight, Elizabeth,” he groaned. “So good, love.”
I moaned at how he felt, every nerve in my channel clinging to him. He he
ld me for a few moments without moving, letting the fullness resonate and sink in, then he thrust in further, pushing down his cock, making even more room.
I parted my legs more, every inch of me wanting to take all of him until finally he seated himself all the way in. I cried out at the heat from his size and how it burned in a good way.
His head dropped to mine and he kissed me deeply just as he started to move steadily, his cock pumping slow and then faster, slow and then faster, his pace controlled. He was a man who knew how to work a woman, who’d done this more times than I wanted to think about it. He shifted and reached underneath me to raise me up, giving him a more direct angle into my center.
Sweat dripped from both of us as he pressed hot kisses down my chest and captured a nipple, nipping at my skin as he throbbed inside me. He owned me, his hands clutching my hipbone to push in faster.
He went harder, his eyes wilder, his hands going everywhere, thrumming and circling my clit, demanding I come. He grunted in a primitive way, and I raised up on my elbows, wanting more friction, more of him and his coaxing fingers. I rotated my hips against his skin as we slapped together, up and down, slow and fast. His thrusts were sharp and sure, the pleasure mounting higher and higher.
Sharp sensation gathered at the base of my spine, and I tossed my head back and pushed against him, swiveling my hips with his, making him hiss and his eyes glitter.
I was close, so close.
He smacked against me, knifing inside me, his body a blur, a muscled, well-oiled machine that could go on and on. “Come again, Elizabeth.”
I shivered at the authority in his voice. “Yes,” I gasped.
He panted. “Good. I’ll follow.”
He pushed my legs down into my chest until I was imprisoned and went at me with a new vengeance. He hammered into me without mercy, all gentleness gone. One of his hands spread me apart, his fingers stroking my lips and clit, delving into softness.
“So gorgeous.” His voice was hoarse. “You’re mine, love. And I’m going to make you come hard.”
With a snarl he pressed my knees down tighter.
This. I’d never had this feeling. I wanted to soar. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs. I wanted him to fuck me and never stop.
More, more, give me, give me. I didn’t care that he had me pinned down on the mat. I didn’t care that he was taking me hard. I wanted sex like this with him. He was in control, and I reveled from underneath him, begging him for more, urging him to send me over the edge. “More.”
He barked out a laugh and pounded me, his arms squeezing my thighs together and getting a new angle.
I went to the moon as I lost my mind, my muscles clenching against him, grasping at him, milking him.
He went with me with a loud roar, his neck muscles in stark relief as the pleasure knifed through him, his cock tightening and expanding as he held on to my hips, thrusting hard. Heat flooded my core as he came inside me.
Our pants filled the air as he released my legs, but still he moved inside me, his eyes heavy. “I can keep going. Can you?”
I sucked in a shaky breath. Laughed.
“You laughing at me, Unicorn?”
I cupped his face, entangling my hands in his hair. “Never. That—that was the best sex I’ve ever had.”
He smiled. “I’m not surprised. I aim to please.”
I laughed at his cockiness, but I knew he was teasing.
He’d done way more than just please. A giant stick of dynamite has just gone off inside me.
21
She was so damn beautiful underneath me with that soft look in her eyes. From the moment we’d met, she’d had a vulnerable coolness about her, a quality that told me in no uncertain terms she’d been hurt. So seeing her now, all relaxed with a happy glow on her face, made me feel bulletproof.
I collapsed next to her on the mat and gathered her in my arms. She was warm, her skin damp from our lovemaking. I gazed down at her, my hand stroking her gently after the roughness, brushing against her tummy. I cupped her full breasts and lightly kissed each rosy, still erect nipple. I made my way up her body until I kissed her on the nose, my thoughts still dirty, my cock throbbing to dive back inside her and make her come again.
She hit all my senses when it came to the way she looked, the blond hair that was most decidedly natural, the curve of her face, the dramatic sweep of her eyebrows that lent her an exotic look—all of her was perfect.
Sex was the language she and I had got exactly right from the very beginning, the level of heat I felt for her more intense than anything else I’d ever felt.
It had just taken us a while to nail it home. Literally.
I grinned. “I wasn’t kidding. I can go again if you’re up for it.”
She snorted, blue eyes dancing. “Please. No. You’re insane right now.”
“Insanely hot.”
She grinned at me and then looked down at her legs. “I’m still quivering.”
I was too, but I kept quiet. She did that to me when no girl ever had.
She played with my arms, tracing designs over my tattoos. “Besides, this is the part where you’re supposed to whisper sweet nothings in my ear about how beautiful I am. Cuddling and hand-holding, all that jazz.”
I cleared my throat. “My dearest Elizabeth, your eyes are the most beautiful blue I’ve ever seen, like the color of the Blue Man Group. Let me count the ways I love them. I love them more than fish and chips. I love them more than Dr. Feldman’s class. I could …”
She slapped me playfully on the arm. “Okay, that’s enough with the cheesy poetry.”
I kept my face blank. “Too bad you’ll never know now how much better it could have got.”
She paused, stopping her laughter with her hands. “Wait. You are teasing me, aren’t you? ’Cause that was crap.”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Ugh, I hate it when you do that noncommittal shrug. I can’t figure you out.”
I grinned. “Good.”
I rolled her onto her back and kissed her again, this time more insistent, my hands cupping her face. She craned upward, wanting more, her hands sliding and rubbing my lower back, her nails digging into my arse.
I flipped us over and rolled her on top of me.
“What are you doing?” she breathed down at me.
“This.” I spread her apart and seated her on my now fully erect cock.
She tossed her head back and moaned as I held on to her hips and shoved up, twisting around in her pussy.
“Ride me,” I said.
She rode me like a horse, bouncing and gyrating. Her tits bounced with each thrust, their nipples straining toward me. I couldn’t let them go unattended. I squeezed them together and divided my time between them both, my tongue tasting her sweat, my nose inhaling her skin.
I plowed into her sweetness, letting her take control, her body jerking up and down. We worked each other, my cock sliding nearly all the way out and then back in. She panted, her long hair sticking to her face as she ground herself against me.
She cried out when I started pumping harder, getting deeper, wanting every single inch to be encased by her. Everything faded away, and all my eyes could see were her.
Her, her.
It was intense and crazy and wild and soul-wrenchingly good.
I wanted to go slower this time. I did. I wanted to savor the sweetness of us. But I couldn’t. My need was too sharp, too fucking primitive.
She seemed to sense the same urgency, as if this moment might be our last.
“Lean over me,” I told her after a while. “Let me do the work.”
She moved over me, and I took over, my cock jerking in and out of her, needing to be the one she wanted, the only one she ever wanted.
We moved together like we’d made love a million times. I captured her breasts and sucked hard, my free hand finding her tender nub and coaxing it. Stroking her to the rhythm of my cock.
She screamed my name and came, her muscle
s clenching around me.
She collapsed on top of me, but I wasn’t done, pounding into her, skin on skin, chest to chest.
It was electric and hot as hell.
I threw my head back against the mat and yelled as I came, my hands holding her tight.
So tight.
Never let her fucking go.
22
The next day was Saturday, and my cell phone rang at exactly eight o’clock in the morning.
Who on earth would call this early?
“Hello?” I managed as I sat up in bed. Last night had been wild, and my body was still reverberating with little aftershocks.
“Miss Bennett?” a crisp female tone said.
I cleared my throat. “Yes?”
“This is Sylvia Myers with Myers’ Jewelry Store.” She paused as if waiting for me to reply, as if she were returning my call.
“Hi?”
Myers’ was one of the premier jewelry stores in the Raleigh-Durham area. I’d been in there a few times to window shop and get ideas, but their prices were way out of my league.
“I’m calling you about the images you emailed our office? We’d like for you to come in and meet with us next week to discuss perhaps purchasing some of your designs.”
Images? I hadn’t sent anyone pics.
I sat up straighter in bed, brain racing. “I see. Which ones were you interested in, Ms. Myers?”
A shuffling sound of papers came through the phone. “Your personal assistant, Shelley, sent over several drawings, but the ones that caught my eye were the silver pieces, the butterfly ring in particular and the scroll bracelet. We have a shop in Asheville where your artisan type of jewelry would sell quite nicely. Would Wednesday at nine be okay to meet?”
Shelley!
Just when I thought she was full of crap and as empty-headed as a balloon, she’d gone and done something so incredibly … sweet.
But why would they want my designs?
Because they’re beautiful, a small part of my heart whispered. At one time, you believed in yourself. Do it again!
I scrambled around for a pen and a notebook I kept on the nightstand. “I have classes all morning, and I’m not done until one and then I have to work … but I can probably get off. Would three o’clock be okay?”
British Bad Boys: Box Set Page 14
