"Careful. You sure you want to kiss me?"
"Course. Why wouldn’t I?"
"You never know where my mouth’s been."
"Lady, after what you’ve just done, your mouth is the tamest place I’ll be kissing you. Now come here."
Fourteen
"Have you ever done this before?" I asked, crossed my cutlery on the dinner plate and set it beside Leo’s on the coffee table.
"Cooked a meal? No, never. How was it? I have a stomach pump out back if you start to feel ill."
I cocked my head and glared, or tried to. "Ha bloody ha, Carson. You know what I meant. This. Us."
"What, had sex? No, never. I was a virgin till I met you. And you stole my cherry." He wiped an imaginary tear away from the corner of his eye and sniffed melodramatically.
"Oh really? You were a virgin until twenty-four hours ago?"
"I was. And you used me."
"You didn’t know what you were doing?"
"Didn’t have a clue."
"Well." I pressed my lips together to suppress the laugh I knew would only encourage him. Indeed, his own eyes crinkled up at the corners and his dimples were in evidence again. "You were awfully good at it."
"Ah, you got me." He held his hands up in mock surrender and settled back into the sofa. "No, really, what did you mean? Have I ever done what before?"
"Had a one night stand that ended up lasting all weekend?" Instantly I bit my lip and turned away, made out I was arranging myself comfortably on the sofa beside him. I folded my legs under me and pulled the tails of his shirt as far down my thighs as they would go, which wasn’t very far.
"Nope." He rested his arm on the sofa’s low back behind me, and my heart skipped a beat. Okay, so I hadn’t pushed it too far by asking him a direct question about his past and how it related to us. Not that there was an ‘us’. "I’ve met very few women who were brave enough to try my cooking, too, so you’re one of a very small group."
"I was hungry."
"I like to think I had something to do with that." As he relaxed, let his voice lower in volume, his Irish lilt became more pronounced, almost as musical as the CD he’d put on earlier when we’d sat down to eat. It was on low so one could only make out the words if the listener was familiar with the songs, and Hyde, now undercover again, was quiet, probably asleep.
Leo cupped my chin, the tips of his fingers caressing my neck and made me face him. "And what about you? Have you ever done anything like this before?"
I couldn’t think what had possessed me to ask about his past in that way, but ask I had and he’d answered, volleying it back into my court in a way of which Roger Federer would’ve been proud.
"No," I said quietly. He still held me, still studied me. He had a talent for making me feel scrutinized.
Known.
"Really," he all but whispered, nodding slowly. The tip of his tongue moistened his lips before he leaned in closer. "You seem..." A quiet huff of laughter. "You seem like a bit of a goer to me."
The tension between us shattered when we burst into mutual laughter. "Mister Carson, whatever gave you that idea?"
"Oh, lemme think... the fact I’ve fucked you three ways to Sunday...literally! It is Sunday? See? We’re a couple made for clichés." He paused then, and his expression became marginally more serious. Maybe it was his use of the word ‘couple’ in passing, maybe he was thinking something he wasn’t yet prepared to say out loud, but I let it pass.
He licked his lips again, and his fingers, still on my throat, twitched. His thumb ran along my jaw, then his hand tightened almost imperceptibly but just enough so that I felt him draw me closer. "You know." His breath was a whisper on my lips and I nearly, nearly, nearly told him straight out to kiss me. "I should be at the point of physical exhaustion by now."
I inclined my head a fraction. Go on, I’m listening.
"There’s something, hmm, I dunno. You’re... what’s the word I’m looking for?" His lips twitched in a smile as understated as my previous nod. So close now, we needed only minute movements to communicate. The barest breath, or touch, or word, were microcosms of what we intended to say. His lips agonizingly close to mine, he asked, "I might only be saying this ‘cause I’m Irish but have you ever had the feeling the more you drink, the thirstier you get?"
"Are you comparing me to salt water?"
Leo’s lips curved into a more obvious smile. "Yeah, I guess I am. Either that or crack-laced Guinness."
"You silver-tongued devil." I dipped my head, gently so, so he’d know I wasn’t trying to move away from his touch. My lips parted when they grazed the side of one of his fingers. With an upward glance I caught him biting his lip, trying—failing—to stifle the sharp intake of breath.
"You, Piper Holt, are addictive. That’s the word I was looking for. That’s what you are. Addictive." In one swift movement he unbalanced me and threw me back.
I screeched with laughter, surprise and delight as I scrambled in the opposite direction from him, or tried to.
"Me and my silver tongue." Above me, leering, he waggled his eyebrows. "Doing devilish things to your most intimate parts."
My laughter only quieted to silence when he pulled up the shirt, exposing me. I just could not understand why I had these moments, why I felt watched, observed, studied.
"I knew I fancied something sweet for dessert."
What would have been laughter choked in my throat and became something desperate, vulnerable, as he slipped a hand between my knees, moved one of my legs off the sofa and knelt on the floor. He followed the line his hand traced back up my leg with the very tip of his tongue, murmuring unintelligible words against me as he did so, making my skin tingle.
"You," he said, lifting his head just enough for me to hear him now, "have got the sweetest taste." His tongue circled my clit, not touching, just circling, as one of his fingers teased my pussy.
All smart replies disappeared from my mind as my body responded, pushed itself onto him. All I could think was, this is too intimate. This is too intimate. He’s... he’s... but I craved his touch; lightning bolts of pleasure shot up my spine from where his tongue flickered over me. He’s done this before; why so shy now?
Leo licked from my pussy up to my clit and when he touched me there at last, flickering the tip of his tongue back and forth, I gasped, tried to follow him with my hips, but he pulled back and looked down at me again.
Don’t look at me like that. Don’t look at me like that.
Pause.
"Leo?"
My use of his name seemed to shake him out of whatever had frozen him. "Sorry. I was just...looking."
Well don’t. It makes me uncomfortable. "Haven’t you seen enough of me yet?"
"You are kidding?" He bent his head again. Tasted me again. My pussy rippled against his tongue. "I could never see enough of you. Or taste enough."
He slid a finger inside me. Two. Circled his fingertips against my G-spot in exactly the same rhythm his tongue played against my clit.
"Oh God, Leo!"
"Mmm," he murmured against my inner thigh. "Piper Holt." He nudged me with his mouth, tasting my skin, the wetness around my pussy of which even I was aware and made the motion of his fingers that much slicker. Still tender inside, I gasped.
"What’s wrong?" His head lifted, and I propped myself up on my elbows to get a proper look at him. "Tense?"
I lowered myself back onto the sofa. "Uh-huh."
His fingers stayed inside me, still moved, though slower. He had never hurt me, not intentionally, but now I understood the meaning of the word gentle.
Leo Carson the gentleman.
Another gasp. And I wasn’t sure if it was from me or him.
"Piper, there’s something I want to do, but..." He slid his fingers out, touched them to his lips as he knelt on the sofa above me, licked them. "But..."
Then his hands were in my hair, and his tongue, tasting of me, ran along my lips and his weight was on top of me. Not crushing. Just abov
e me.
He stopped. Stared.
Oh God. This is it. This is why I feel jittery. This is going to explain why I’m so uncomfortable. Why I can’-t—
"I don’t want to hurt you." His hands tightened in my hair and mercifully, mercifully, he whispered against my lips rather than looking down at me from a distance. "I want to be inside you."
My heart thumped. Or maybe it was that up to that point I hadn’t been aware of it beating, and now it thundered against my rib cage as if he already moved in me.
"Piper?" He frowned, cocked his head, and kissed me again.
Oh God, oh God, I don’t know what’s happening. Someone make it stop. Someone tell me what’s going on.
"I want to be inside you but I don’t want to hurt you so just... say something. Tell me if it’s—"
"No."
He flinched.
"I mean, no, it’s not wrong. Too soon, I mean. It isn’t. I..." My breath came in ragged bursts which I hoped conveyed desire rather than fear. I couldn’t take his scrutiny, his verbal probing any longer and the only way I could think of to stop it was to take him inside me.
The simple fact was, I needed him inside me as much as he wanted to be there.
"Tell me if it’s too soon. If you’re at all uncomfortable, then... I’ll stop." His hand went for his waistband. And over the low background music, I heard the pop, pop, pop of each button as they opened in sequence. "Christ, it’ll kill me to do it but I will."
"Wait."
And as promised, he stopped. Froze, in fact, one hand in my hair, the other inside his jeans.
"Okay, I keep mine in my bedside table. Some in the bathroom cabinet, but... we’re in your living area, so...?"
"Ah." Leo’s hand moved from his waistband to his back pocket. He reached for something—I took an educated guess what—and tapped the tip of my nose with the foil square. "I, uh... tucked one into my jeans earlier, just in case..."
"One?"
"Okay, a couple."
"You. Sneaky. Bastard."
"Well..." He widened his eyes, looking not at all innocent but giving a damn good impression of a man who was trying to appear so. "You got me there." His expression went from playful to concerned, wide-eyed to frowning. And then his eyebrows lifted, this time not in feigned innocence, but anticipation. "Yes?"
"Yes." The word was a simple exhalation. Inevitable.
"Then..." He held the corner of the foil between his teeth and tore it open with his free hand. "You might want to help me with this."
"I can’t. Nerves. You know. I might... tear it."
"Jesus." He panted, pulled himself away from me and slumped against the sofa back in a lazy sitting position. "If your hands are that shaky, then, any chance of a hand job?"
Despite my nerves—my inexplicable nerves, given that it wasn’t as if I’d never done this before, done him before—I laughed. God, I could easily fall—
Piper fucking Holt. Shut the shit down on that line of thought right away!
"Hey." Leo breathed the word against my mouth, against my open lips as he moved over me. Into me.
"Oh."
"What’s wrong?" he asked, halting the push, the easy slide.
"Nothing. Nothing’s wrong. I was just—"
"Breathing?"
"Yeah. Breathing."
"That’s good, right?"
"Yeah." I nodded. "Very good. Very— oh God."
He’d pulled up my left knee with one hand just as my hand went to his face, his throat, stroked the hair on the back of his neck.
"You know what I really want to do?" he asked. "I’d love to..." His lips moved to my jaw and whispered against my ear, "I’d love to get as deep inside you as it’s possible to get."
"Oh..."
"But not if it’s gonna hurt—"
"It won’t. I know."
"How?"
"Leo." My tone of voice drew his attention. His mouth against my ear stopped whispering and breathing against me as I spoke. "Go deep."
"Say that again."
"Go—"
"No, not that. Say my name. Say it—" His voice broke, as if something inside him was on the verge of breaking too. "Say it like you just did there." He pulled back, from his hips, pushed forward while pulling my leg up further and wrapping it round his waist as tightly as we could stand. Then both his hands were in my hair again. "Say it."
"Leo."
"Don’t stop saying it. Are you sure I’m not hurting you?"
"God, no. You’ll only hurt me if you stop."
"Say it."
"Leo, oh Jesus, do that again."
"This?" He moved from the hips in exactly the way I liked, at exactly the right angle to make my G-spot feel bigger than it was, as if my entire body was an erogenous zone designed for him to move inside.
"That’s just..." Perfect, I added in my head. I’d nearly lost it. Nearly lost control. But somehow I’d managed to hang on to that one shred of dignity which meant he was inside my body and not my mind.
"Are you sure you’re okay with this?" His shoulders tautened under my hands, just as his fingers tightened in my hair, pulling, with each stroke he took inside me. "This doesn’t hurt?"
"God no."
"Tell me how it feels. And... and..." He faltered as my nails dug in to his juddering shoulders. "Use." He gulped. "Fuck."
"Your name?"
"Fucking Christ, Piper, you... you have to do something."
"Anything." The word was out before I could stop it.
"Promise."
"Anything." It got easier each time. I’d have said it three times, ten, a hundred, a thousand, if he’d wanted.
"Use your—" He stopped to breathe a puff of laughter against my jaw, as if partly embarrassed. "No. Dig your nails in. Hurt me," he growled. "Every time I move inside you, I want your nails in my back."
No compliance was needed, at least in words. Every time he moved, and he moved agonizingly slowly, my hands raked across his shoulder blades.
"Leo."
He made no sound but a low moan, his breath catching momentarily. A grunt, a gasp, a whisper of "Ahhh..." into my mouth when my nails raked down his shoulders to his mid back. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, Piper. Just keep saying my name when I do something right."
The desperation in his voice, his cock’s slow friction against my G-spot, his hips’ slow movement against my clit.
Oh Christ, Leo, I can’t take this.
"What?" One panicked word from him and he stopped mid stroke.
"Don’t stop!"
"Babe, you said you couldn’t—"
"I said that out loud?"
"Yeah, you—"
I clawed the skin of his back, eliciting a feral growl from the back of his throat. "Don’t. Fucking. Stop. I was nearly..."
"Piper." His forehead was clammy against mine. Or maybe it was me who was sweating. No. We both were. In between labored breaths, he said, "There is only one thing more important to me right now than making you come and that is making sure I don’t hurt you worse than I did earlier."
"Leo, you didn’t hurt me. You made me come so hard I..." I gulped. "It wasn’t... it was..."
"Babe, I was responsible for that and I—"
"Leo." This time the word he loved to hear was emphatic, not desperate, and he stopped. Looked me right in the eye. And for some reason, this time I could take it. It was exactly what I wanted him to do, at that moment. "If you... If you think that making me come is going to hurt, and if you think that means you have to stop... I swear to God, I will tear you apart with my bare hands."
His lips, underneath a Cupid’s bow beaded with perspiration, curled into a shy smile before covering my own. "You," he said, breaking the kiss, "are fucking amazing. And I... I just want to make sure you’re not... I mean, I..." His head dipped, nestling into the curve of my neck as he started moving again. From the hips, and slowly, gently, setting off the earliest sparks of orgasm inside me, the warmth radiating out from where his cock stroked me. "I wouldn
’t hurt you for..."
"Anything."
"Anything." He nodded and at such an odd angle, the stubble on his jaw rubbed along my neck.
That was when he tipped me over the edge. When it all got too much. When the edges of my vision clouded over. When my nails dug into his shoulders, clawed at him, raking, pulling, trying to get him to push harder.
"Say it. Say it again."
"Leo."
"Say it when you come." His lips were a whisper away from mine now, as he breathed against me, panted almost. "I want to hear you say it when you—Jesus, you have to come now, baby, I’m going to -"
"Leo..."
"Now, I can’t hold off—"
"Leo..."
"Jesus, you feel so—"
"Leo!"
Fifteen
In the middle of the night, I lay still with my eyes closed. Much of my body ached. Pleasantly so. The throb of well-used muscles, tender after an extended workout.
Deep breath.
Cool air rasped the back of my throat, reminding me of screams, gasps, talking, swearing, barking of orders, biting, tasting, kissing.
"Mmm," he murmured, as if reading my mind, throwing his arm across my waist.
I opened my eyes, blinked, waited for the night-blindness to dissipate. Like a photographer watching for his subject matter to appear in a developing shot, I saw Leo.
One half of his face lost in the marshmallow-like softness of the pillow, the other shaded by near-absolute darkness, but his silhouette still recognizable. His breath cooled the curve of my cheek as I too half-turned to the pillow. With his every inhalation I felt drawn to him and with every exhalation, rejected. My breathing fell into the same pattern as his, only in reverse. Our breaths whispered back and forth, like waves.
Wake up.
His hand on the small of my back, his fingertips tickling the curve of my spine.
A twitch. No, a squeeze.
His thumb ran across the small of my back, his fingertips giving my backside a gentle squeeze.
But in his sleep.
Why don’t you wake up?
I shifted, aware of the cramp threatening my legs, my spine, the arm on which I’d been lying. Leo Carson had twisted me like a pretzel and now I felt it.
Long Time Coming Page 15
