Echo (The Player Book 3)

by Nana Malone

  He released her lips and changed his target to her jaw, then to her slender neck and throat. She wound her fingers into his hair, the breathy little sounds she was making spurring him on.

  When he kissed down to her nipples, her back arched as if she were offering herself up like some sort of sacrifice, and her hips rolled into his, bringing her sweet center in contact with his cock. Hell, yes. He was so damn ready to blow. But he wasn’t doing this quickly; he was going to take his time, damn it, make it last. If he could.

  When he took her nipple into his mouth and teased the other with his thumb, she called out his name and held him to her. Gentle sucks gave way to pulling tugs and he released one with a loud pop in order to tease the other.

  Her whispered pleas were like a siren call to him, and he wanted to make her feel good. Wanted her bucking and writhing in his arms.

  He kissed over her belly, tasting the soft skin and teasing until he reached his quarry. Go slow, take your time. But it was too late for that now. His brain had ceased functioning. And the moment his instinctual brain again caught sight of her soft, slick, pink lips, he couldn’t help but dive in.

  Her loud gasp had him grunting with satisfaction, as did her fingers twining in his hair and tugging him to her. He lapped at her, giving stroking kisses and flicks to her clit before teasing with more direct, circular licks.

  Wanting to taste more of her, he slid his tongue inside her slick channel, trying to taste as much of her as he could. She bucked her hips and clutched him to her, tight.

  “Cole, oh, my God. Oh, my God. Please God, Please—”

  He replaced his tongue with his finger, sliding the digit deep inside, and concentrated his tongue on her sensitive button, teasing, licking, and sucking until her strong legs were clamped like a vise around him. Her hips bucked off the bed and he held her still, with a hand flat on her belly, as he continued to lick her through her release. Her inner channel clenched around his finger, and he sucked on her again, and again, and again, until she let go of his hair and clutched at his sheets, screaming his name again.

  When he gently withdrew his finger, kissing his way up her body, he was throbbing painfully, but all he wanted was to see that look of complete and utter bliss on this woman’s face over and over and over again.

  Before her legs had even stopped shaking, he tugged off his shirt. His jeans went next. With his clothes gone, he lay down on the bed, sliding alongside her body again.

  Her skin was too hot, and Echo was breathing too hard to keep kissing him. His lips moved to a spot on her shoulder, his teeth pressing into it as he rocked against her, and she gasped. And what was with her heart? The rapid thud, thud of her pulse, combined with the blood rushing in her head made her wonder if she was having a freaking heart attack.

  Then he pressed his thumb to her clit again, and her head whirled and spun, making her crazy, and she whimpered.

  She wanted him to press harder, to bring her another release, but he wouldn’t. Instead, he slipped two fingers into her and curled them, stroking her inner walls, making her arch against his questing fingers. She writhed on the bed, clutching at the sheets. She was like a worm on a hook as she panted under his ministrations, parting her knees wider, as though that was hindering him.

  He chuckled softly beside her and stopped, withdrawing his fingers, giving her clit one last stroke.

  “Don’t stop,” she begged, turning her head towards him, seeking his kiss.

  “Not so much fun, is it?” he said, teasingly.

  “Please, I need—” she begged as her hips rose.

  He bent his head to nip at her shoulder, but put his hand back where it had been, this time using his thumb until she cried out, “Oh God, yes.” It didn’t take long for her body to shudder as the wave of anticipation she’d been riding broke through her, flooding every nerve ending.

  Wave after wave crashed into her, and she bucked against him.

  Holy hell, she couldn’t move. She could die just like this. Body limp, thighs parted. Cole and his cocky grin flashing over her. He dipped his head and kissed her softly before whispering, “I could watch you come every day.”

  He rolled away and pulled a condom from the bedside table, making quick work of the foil and latex. When he settled between her thighs, it was the most natural thing in the world to raise her hips. It was only when he slid to the hilt inside of her that she gasped. Her body stretched to accommodate him, and she breathed deep through the initial discomfort.

  God he was big. Too big.

  He muttered a low string of curses. “Holy shit, you’re tight. So fucking tight.” He squeezed his eyes shut, then held himself still. When he opened them again, he kissed her softly and asked, “You okay?”

  “Yeah, you’re just bigger than I imagined.” Way to go Echo, you couldn’t pick someone with a smaller dick your first time?

  She caught a quick, self-satisfied smirk flash over his lips, before he again nuzzled her neck. “We’ll go slow, okay?”

  She nodded. And then he began to move. Oh, wow. He filled her completely. Within seconds, the bite of pain receded, and all that remained was a delicious electricity as he rocked into her. He arched above her, his full weight on his locked arms.

  Cole took his time, the pace he set reverberating through her hips and up her spine. She looked at him, the sheen of sweat on his brow, and knew he was using all of his control, that he was taking his time.

  Suddenly, it was as though a switch had been thrown inside her, and her body responded automatically. Each thrust of his hips elicited an echoing cry from her. Every muscle in her body seized on him, to try to hold him deep within her. Her legs locked on his hips, her hands reached down to his ass and pulled him deeper, holding him firmly.

  The edges of her vision went grey again with another wave of bliss. “Cole, oh my God.”

  With three deep thrusts, his eyes slammed shut, and his arms trembled with the force of his release, before he lowered himself gently onto her, and pressed a kiss to her collarbone. “Jesus, I think you nearly killed me.” They lay entwined for some time, his head nuzzled in the hollow between her neck and shoulder, his breath cool on her sweat-dampened skin. He withdrew from her carefully, then made a quick trip to the bathroom. When he returned, he turned her so her back rested against his chest, then settled down with his arm draped over her. Her hand found his, and they twined their fingers together as they drifted into sleep.

  Six

  Echo woke suddenly, and took a quick personal inventory. The room was quiet and dark, Cole’s deep, even breaths the only sound. Her body was sore, but in a delicious, good-pain kind of way. She wondered what time it was. She craned her neck, but still couldn’t see the clock. It was blocked by something on Cole’s nightstand. Still, she supposed it was as good a time as any to figure out how to extricate herself from the apartment and make her way back to Jen’s.

  First things first, she had to use the bathroom and locate her clothes. Clothes would be good.

  Cole’s arm was draped over her waist, holding her against him. She gently lifted it and slipped free of the blankets, shivering without the warmth of him at her back. She tripped over one of her shoes in the dark as she felt her way along his dresser, remembering it ended just near the doorway to the bathroom. Closing the door and turning on the light, she realized she should have collected her clothes and brought them in with her. There would be less danger of her movements waking him if she changed in the bathroom, than if she stumbled around his room in the dark, trying to tie that ridiculous top back onto her torso.

  Sleep had made it harder to slip back into the Cece persona, and to figure out how she would handle this part of the night.

  “Are you all right in there?” Cole’s voice called from the other side of the door, startling her.

  She came back out to see that he’d turned on a lamp by the bed and was rubbing his eyes.

  “Yeah, I uh…just had to…you know,” she babbled, crossing her arms over her ches
t and wishing she wasn’t quite so…naked.

  “Yeah, no. Of course. You coming back to bed?” He yawned.

  “Actually…”

  “I’m not going to jump you again. Not yet, anyway. We could talk, or I could hold you.”

  “Talking wasn’t really the point of tonight, was it?” she asked.

  Cole laughed. “Okay, it wasn’t. But that doesn’t mean we can’t.”

  Echo didn’t want to talk. Because talking meant lying, and she didn’t want to have to lie to him. She liked him more than she should. When she didn’t budge, he stood—apparently completely at home in his nakedness—and took her hand to lead her back to bed.

  “I’ll go first, then. Uh…so I have a younger brother. We were pretty close growing up, but you know that already. I took the job out here to pay for his college. It’s just me and him, so I need to make it happen for him.”

  “What happened to your parents?”

  Cole swallowed hard. “They died three years ago. Car accident.” Cole shook his head in disgust. “Sorry, that got depressing quick. Tell me about you.”

  “Uh,” she said, fidgeting. “It’s okay. I’m so sorry about your parents. I guess my parents are supportive. Just not of what I really want to do.”

  “You said something about designing, right?”

  The tension eased out of her shoulders.

  “I want to be a designer. I got into design school. Classes start in just a few weeks.” She knew she was walking a fine line. She wasn’t lying the way she knew she should to keep up the Cece illusion, but she wasn’t creative enough to pull such intricate lies off. At the same time, there was no way in hell she was going to confess the truth of who she was now.

  “Hence your eye for fashion,” he remarked with a lopsided grin.

  “Yes. But…I’m not sure I’ll be able to swing it right now. Design school, that is. Stuff has come up with my dad’s health and… My parents rely on me for stuff. Mostly running interference with my brothers. I know how much they’re going to need me through this, and…I don’t want to let them down. I mean, it’s frustrating as hell to have to keep waiting for myself all the time, you know what I mean? I keep putting off taking those steps for myself because ‘they need me,’ and I do like being needed… But now I’m getting to a point where I want it to be my turn.”

  “I’m sorry to hear about your dad. It sucks not having a say over yourself or your future,” Cole agreed. “This new job I’ve got starting. It could be a huge opportunity, and for that, I’m excited. But it’s…I’ll be working for exactly the kind of people I can’t stand. Whiny and rich, don’t have the first clue about what it’s like to work for something, or give up anything for anyone else. I hate that my future career could be decided by people like that.”

  She swallowed hard. People like her family. “But you’ll make the best of it, right?” When he nodded slowly, she added, “Sometimes you need to readjust feelings or expectations. My friend J—Emmalee says I should be able to figure something out so I don’t have to give up design school. Take classes part time or something. Defer my acceptance. Whatever happens, I’ll keep on designing, that’s for sure.”

  “So…show me something. Show me what one of your designs looks like,” he urged.

  Echo flushed and looked down at her naked body. “Uh…and where do you think I’ve been keeping my sketch pad and pencils, exactly?”

  Cole laughed and rolled out of bed. Echo looked away, then kicked herself for doing so. Cece wouldn’t have done that. She would have made sure he saw her looking and evaluating.

  “Aha,” Cole yelled, triumphant. He returned with a small lined steno pad, and a stub of a number two pencil. “Materials. Now…design me a suit. A superhero suit.”

  Echo laughed and shook her head, but took the paper and pencil before moving the pile of her clothes to the floor and perching on the chair. She watched from the corner of her eye as Cole lounged across the bed to stare at her while she worked.

  She sketched the outlines of a generic form, starting with the broad shoulders and straight waist she usually relied on when designing for men. But as she moved to design the pants, she got distracted. He was much more fascinating to her like this. She frowned and flipped the page, leaving the suit design unfinished.

  Cole watched as Cece turned the pad of paper the other direction, so it was horizontal. Then she grinned and sketched in earnest, the pencil noisily scratching across the surface of the page, her eyes taking time to caress his form before returning their attention to the drawing at hand.

  “What was wrong with the last one? What are you doing now?” he asked.

  “Can’t really design an outfit when there’s no color scheme to work with,” she explained. “So I’m going to practice figure drawing.”

  “You’re drawing me? Like this?” Cole asked, glancing down at his body. He enjoyed the way she’d been looking at him, like she had more than a few ideas in mind for what she’d like to do to him, but now that he knew she was drawing him naked…

  “Designers have to understand and appreciate the body in order to clothe it properly. We need to be aware of all the curves and planes, the underlying musculature. Otherwise, people won’t be able to move or breathe or live in the clothes we design,” she elaborated, her focus on his body and her hand rather than the words she said. “They can’t just look good on the page or function well in theory. They have to come to life and work.”

  Cole watched, entranced, as Cece’s self-consciousness faded away and she relaxed. She’d made a point of trying to cover herself before, but now, as she drew, she seemed to forget she was as naked as he was. In fact, the way she was sitting, he had a largely uninterrupted view of all of her. He could just make out the dark patches on her breasts where his mouth had left marks. One leg was raised to brace the notepad on which she drew, while the other leg was opened at an angle. If he stretched, he might be able to see her petal-soft lips. But probably better he didn’t have an unrestricted view. He’d get distracted.

  She was so toned and trim. She had very little fat on her limbs, and he could see the cords of muscle in her arms and her powerful thighs. The muscles across her stomach were pronounced, too. She was strong. He fucking loved strong. She had a runner’s body. Probably jogged or ran the treadmill compulsively.

  The more he watched her, the more he ached. She was more than just beautiful. She was smart. She had a dream. And that body. Damn. But he liked her, too. There was something innocent and determined about her. Unlike Missy. He shoved the unwelcome thought of his ex aside.

  The scratching of the pencil stopped. When he opened his eyes, her gaze was fixed on him…or rather, his cock. Yeah, well, that’ll happen when I think of you. You keep looking at him like that and you’re not going to finish. It was difficult to tell over the sound of his own breath roaring in his ears, but Cole was pretty sure she was just as turned on as he was.

  She set the pad aside and stood from the chair with grace. She crossed back to his bedside table and searched the top for something he only recognized when she tossed it in his direction. A new condom. Hell, yes.

  “Come here, Cole.”

  Echo liked the new, bossy her.

  Cole watched her intently in the mirror. He didn’t say a word as he smoothed a hand over her back. There was none of their earlier desperation, as he slid into her from behind and they began moving together. Echo could feel the weight of him deep inside her, as his mouth moved from her jaw to her neck, his tongue and lips leaving marks on her skin.

  Each thrust of his hips added to a growing tension that stretched from her lower abdomen through her legs in one direction, and through her belly up her spine in the other, only to snap when the tension exceeded its boundaries.

  This time there was something different building. Gentler, but just as powerful in the end. Their movements were languid, but the intensity built and peaked, regardless.

  He muttered dirty words in her ear, but as he watched her in
the mirror, she knew they were making love.

  It was in the gentle trace of a finger along her spine. His palm pressed against the small of her back. His hand reaching down her body to skim lightly over her clit.

  It was in the way that he watched her. This wasn’t some random night. There was a connection, and she knew he felt it, too. Echo arched against Cole with a quiet gasp as she shook, before he jerked his hips once, twice, three times with more force, and sighed as more of his weight pressed against her.

  He tugged her back to bed, and once again, they fell asleep, their limbs entangled.

  The next time Echo woke, she didn’t want to leave. Fantasy over. Time for real life. Then why did it hurt? This time, she was able to slip free of Cole and his bed without waking him. She grabbed her pile of clothes from the floor and dressed in the hallway by his kitchen, the light from the clock on the microwave providing the only light. Then she quietly left his apartment and drifted down the stairs. She called a cab while she put her heels back on. Get out of Dodge before you fall hard.

  Seven

  Fuck him, she hadn’t left a note. Cole woke up to find himself alone. He knew there’d been a connection that second time—he hadn’t imagined it. So it bothered him that she could just leave the way she did. Not like he had time for anything right now, but hell. He’d felt something. Cece had been the first woman since Missy to get past the outer shields. It was what it was. Forget her.

  Easier said than done though, as his body bore the marks of their night together. He couldn’t help but grin, as he checked out the scratches on his shoulders from when she’d ridden him. Fuck if he wasn’t sore, too. He’d used his knee more than he usually did. It was a small consolation, but he knew he’d left his mark on her, too. He just hoped he hadn’t left bruises. That third time, he’d been holding onto her so tight when he’d gone off like a rocket.