by Lilia Moon
She turns us so that I’m facing backwards, puts her hands on my chest, and glides us neatly into the bedroom. The flush rising up her cheeks is beautiful, and almost manages to make me forget that I’m coming perilously close to handing her the reins. She stops when my legs run into the bed, higher than most for reasons she likely isn’t thinking about too hard.
I am. I’d like nothing better right now than to bend her over the edge, hands held tight behind her back, and see just how she responds to me holding her still and fingering her until she comes.
She leans in, slides her hands up to my shoulders, and grins. “Race you to naked.”
I stare as she suddenly turns into the sixteen-year-old girl I remember, pulling her dress up over her head and giggling madly as she reenacts a moment that is forever seared into my brain. And then I stare some more, because under the dress are some of the sexiest scraps of red underwear I’ve ever seen, adorning a body that isn’t remotely sixteen anymore.
She catches me looking and pauses in the act of dropping her dress in a pile on my floor. “You’re not naked, Eli.” Her voice is husky, and taut with need.
Someone doesn’t want to do this slowly.
Normally that would be my cue to make sure she doesn’t get to come for at least the next hour, but that’s not the Eli I’m supposed to be tonight. I reach out and brush my fingers along the strap of her bra, down to the lace covering plush curves. “I’m kind of distracted at the moment.”
Her fingers cover mine. Not stopping them, just seeking connection. Giving me a chance to make the next move.
I step into her, pulling her tight against me, cupping one luscious breast in my palm. “My hands are busy. I don’t suppose I could convince you to unbutton my shirt?”
She slides one hand up to the top button. “Maybe.”
I roll her nipple between my thumb and finger and notice her sharp intake of breath. “I can be more convincing.”
She chuckles and undoes one button. “Both breasts would probably do it.”
I tweak the nipple I’m holding a little harder. “I’m busy with this one.”
She tugs me down for a kiss. “Bossy man.”
She has no idea. I let go of her waist and slide my other hand up, cupping two lace-clad breasts. I knead them, using my thumbs to friction the lace over her nipples.
She tilts her head back and moans softly, skin pebbling with need.
I lean in to kiss the smooth, soft skin around her collarbone, up the side of her neck. She’s delicious, and an enchanting mix of curves I remember and those I definitely don’t.
She rests her forehead on my shoulder and undoes buttons all the way down to my navel.
I wait, which seems every kind of wrong.
Her fingers slide onto the warm skin of my chest, parting the shirt. She feels her way over muscles that Ryan insisted we all grow on his chin-up bar at the back of the tour bus. I’ve kept them, even though I don’t ride the bus anymore. A strange kind of homage to a part of my life I still miss fiercely. I breathe in as she traces her fingers through the dusting of hair on my chest. I didn’t have that at sixteen.
I have two nipples in my hands, taut with need and nicely warmed up. It’s a true sadness to let them go. I pull away slowly, using the lace to make sure her skin doesn’t forget me.
Chloe gasps and whimpers, all at the same time.
I manage to hide my grin. I know a few tricks sixteen-year-old Eli never dreamed of.
Chapter Eighteen
Chloe
He’s killing me and I haven’t even made it out of my underwear yet.
My fingers have a hold on his chest hair that can’t possibly be comfortable, but I can’t seem to let go—it might be all that’s keeping me vertical. A problem Eli solves by dipping down, scooping me up, and tossing me onto the bed. I feel it give underneath me. Deep, sinking luxury with no bounce.
This isn’t a bed to be escaped easily.
I look up at him standing over me, still mostly dressed, with a loopy grin on his face. I’m not the only one remembering how this once was between us. The playfulness. The goofy spontaneous combustion of two kids heading hell-bent into totally new frontiers. I’m not the only one appreciating the differences between now and then, either. He’s filled out into muscles and hard planes, ones strong enough to hold his fierceness and protect his softness.
Once upon a time, I was madly in love with both.
I reach for him, needing more connection than the gaze of his eyes. Appreciation I can get elsewhere, although I’m glad he likes what he sees.
He sits down beside me on the bed, slowly undoing the buttons of his cuffs. Never taking his eyes off me.
I tug on the sleeve, wanting the shirt off.
Something flashes in his eyes, and then it’s gone. He grins at me and lets the fabric slide off his shoulders, dropping it onto the pile that started with my dress.
I eye his belt buckle, wanting that to go next.
He chuckles and lies down on the bed beside me. “You’re in charge of buttons tonight, shorty.”
A buckle isn’t a button, but I have no plans to argue with him. I swing myself up to sitting, which brushes my sensitized nipples against the lace of my bra. I hiss in a breath and move to undo the clasp in the back.
His hand stops me. “That’s mine to do.” His lips brush over the lace, blowing warm heat over skin that’s already tormented.
His other hand slides lower, to the lace between my legs. I moan as he finds the fire building there, rubbing soft lace against my most sensitive parts. I try to squirm away—I’m not done with foreplay yet. I have an entirely delicious man to explore, and so far, all I’ve managed to feel up is his chest hair. I push against his arm, which doesn’t move an inch. “I want to touch you, Eli.”
He lies back and sets a hand under his head. A one-man buffet, laying himself out for my pleasure. Except for the hand still between my legs, his fingers sliding under the lace and into parts of me desperate for his touch.
I grit my teeth and reach for his belt buckle.
His fingers slide deeper, rubbing firmly over my clit as they delve into my wet heat.
I manage to get the buckle undone, but it’s a close thing. I stare at the button of his pants, not at all sure I remember what to do with one. I lean down and catch one of his nipples in my teeth, just as he does something sharp and wicked to my clit. I bite down harder than I intended. “Take off your pants. Please.”
His chuckle is low and dark. “Since you asked so nicely.” A sinuous jungle-cat move and he’s back lying down on the bed, naked and bold and entirely unselfconscious.
My eyes want a chance to look, to just drink him in and get to know the Eli of now, but my hands don’t have anywhere near that kind of patience. Or any other part of me.
I go to shuck my underwear and his hand stops me again.
Bossy man. I raise an eyebrow. “This is your idea of vanilla sex?”
His eyes soften. “Let me. Please. You’re a present done up in some really pretty ribbons, and I want to unwrap you.”
I stop, fingers under the lace of my panties, all of who I am melting at his words. Those are the feelings of the boy I once knew, but he never would have been able to say them. Only his cello knew how to speak about what lay deep inside a quiet, gangly teenager, yearning to break free.
This Eli has learned to use his words.
Chapter Nineteen
Eli
I can feel her, tilting on the edges of surrender—and I don’t chase it. Don’t give her the small push that would get her there. Because I promised, and I’ve already pushed her far enough with words that weren’t intended to do anything but let me stroke my new playthings a little longer.
A request that’s about to be entirely blown away anyhow. I can feel the volcano that has always been Chloe already starting to vent into my hands. At sixteen, it was a miracle to find someone else who lived with that kind of explosive passion inside them—and even more ma
gical to find a way to share it.
The magic hasn’t dimmed, and the woman who is offering it to me now is trusting me to catch what she’s throwing. I pull her down to the bed beside me. Some symphonies start with a slow movement. This one is clearly headed entirely in the other direction.
There will be time later for slow.
I leave her lacy underthings in place—I like to look at them, and I have two fingers buried deep inside her that don’t have any intentions of leaving. I move in, nuzzling her neck, feeling her curves meld into mine, and curl my fingers into her g-spot.
She jolts, and then her hands are in my hair, her mouth hot on mine, her body undulating in needy, demanding waves.
One day I want to tie those waves down and send them down a narrow channel of my choosing, but not today. I curl my fingers again, giving her something to ride, and focus on the mouth under mine, catching the whipping end of the electric current I’m setting off in her pussy and sending it right back down again.
She writhes, arching up against me with hot, incoherent moans.
Her teeth close on my earlobe. “I need you inside me. Please, Eli.”
I remember the first time she said those words to me. And the last. I pause a moment, head on her shoulder, suddenly staggered that I have the honor of hearing them again.
She turns her head so that her cheek lies against mine. Breathing together. Remembering. Two older, wiser people, drenching ourselves in the wonder of a second chance.
This isn’t going to be vanilla sex—it’s going to be the soul-melding kind. I keep our hearts joined and move my hips just enough to position myself at her entrance. I slide into fierce, wet, welcoming heat. She jolts again as I bury myself inside her, and her legs wrap around my back, seeking purchase. Pulling me deeper.
I pull her knees up onto my shoulders and lever myself to a better angle. I slide in again, slowly, touching every part of the inferno, making sure she can handle hard and fast this way. Her eyes meet mine, full of fire and need. I can feel lace frictioning my cock, because I somehow forgot to unwrap her before I buried myself inside her.
It doesn’t matter. I’m here now and I’m not going anywhere until what’s barreling toward us smashes us both into willing stardust. I sink my cock deeper in short, quick thrusts, watching each of them land in her eyes. Her heels push on my shoulders, finding the leverage to join us even tighter.
I stay deep and rock, giving her what she needs to go over.
She wiggles away from the pressure an inch or two and slams her hips back into mine, insisting that I come with her. And then we’re two frenzied, moving bodies, racing toward the volcano’s mouth as hard as we can run.
It’s a storm over as quickly as it began, leaving two sopping wet, boneless, shuddering people in its wake, with bits and pieces strewn all over the beach and no idea how to gather them all back up again. I hold her close, listening to the rasp of our combined breathing, feeling her heart pounding in rhythm with mine.
I don’t need to calm us anymore. Don’t need to hide the volcanoes back underground.
It’s the gift that control has given me.
I hear her breath get more ragged—and then I feel the splash of wetness on my shoulder. The part of my heart that has always been hers staggers. I reach my fingers to touch the tears slowly running down the cheek that isn’t buried into my chest. “You still do this.” The first time she cried after we made love, it flattened me. Terrified me. It took a long time to understand that’s just the last splutters of her volcano.
She cuddles into my side, soft and pliant and still vibrating, her voice husky with her tears. “Apparently so.”
I kiss her forehead. Witnessing. Giving her the Eli that is no longer scared of tears.
She raises her head her eyes soft and wet and lucid. “I haven’t, though. Not for twenty-six years.”
Chapter Twenty
Chloe
I smile down into sheets that smell like the morning after a really great night—with a side of bacon. Apparently someone is making breakfast.
Since I don’t put it past Eli to put bacon and eggs into a stir fry, I find the muscles that attach to my arms and push my face up off the mattress. An act that’s rewarded by an amazing view of Seattle on a sunny morning.
I imagine Eli picked this condo for the view—and the lack of view the neighbors have through his windows. I feel like a bird waking up in a really cushy nest, one with indoor plumbing and something wondrous underway in the kitchen. I sniff again. I would get up just for bacon, but I’m pretty sure there are coffee undertones. And singing.
My heart does the melty thing it’s been doing randomly through the night, every time Eli woke me up and several times he didn’t. I’ve always been a light sleeper, especially when the dial is turned up high on my emotional state. Even gooey with sleep and craving bacon, I can feel the potency of what happened last night sluicing through me.
It wasn’t the really great sex, although that was entirely, wildly memorable. It was the certainty, somewhere deep inside me, that my soul knows this man in a way that lasts forever. That my life would be rich and beautiful walking beside him. Which is a crazy amount of meaning to throw on less than twenty-four hours, but whatever rose inside me to meet him last night doesn’t give a damn.
I sigh and push the rest of the way to sitting, curling up with my chin on my knees. The feelings rising inside me are so very primal—and so very innocent. They don’t even know what kink is. They don’t know how hard I resist being controlled, even when the intentions are entirely well meaning.
This is the pure yearning of the place inside me that cried when I left my farmer and stayed with my lawyer, the wild and free waif at my core who just wants to be seen and loved. I’ve never known quite how to tell her that there’s more to me than a dancing child, but I’ve always known she’s the very best part of who I am.
She wants Eli, and I can’t blame her. The rest of me wants him too.
I shake my head and blink away the tears. The sun is out, I just had a night of spectacular sex, and a really hot guy is making me breakfast. I need to live in that and not in what-could-be. I slide off the bed just as he opens the bedroom door and walks in bearing a steaming cup of coffee.
He grins. “Please tell me you eat breakfast naked too.”
I laugh. His good humor is contagious, and there is so much desire in his gaze. “I own three stores’ worth of sexy lingerie. I’m rarely naked.”
He hands me the coffee, lips quirking. “I like taking sexy things off.”
Or torturing me while they’re still on. I breathe in deeply, letting the aroma of coffee and happiness wake up the sleepy parts of my soul. “I smell bacon.”
He sits on the bed, bends down, and runs his tongue in a quick circle around my nipple.
That’s just going to get him coffee on his head and burnt bacon, although the instant heat between my legs would be very happy to get onboard with his plan. The waif, however, needs me to go somewhere else.
I tip my chin down, resting it on the top of his head. “We need to talk, love. Before I get sucked in again by your very talented tongue.”
He gives one last lick to my nipple and looks up, awareness in his eyes alongside the happiness.
I want so very much to find a way forward that lets us hold on to both.
He stands up, takes my coffee, and holds out his hand. “Come. I’ve got bacon and eggs ready and toast that might be a little too crispy.”
His calmness somehow reassures me. I noticed it last night too. This Eli doesn’t waver when the going gets tricky—and he values naked honesty maybe even more than I do. I breathe out and take his hand. We’re both stronger than we once were, and wiser. If there’s a way, I trust that we’ll find it.
And if there isn’t, I trust that we’ll find our way through that too.
Chapter Twenty-One
Eli
I can feel it warring inside her—the hope and the fear. Even the lure of bacon
and eggs hasn’t silenced it altogether.
I wait until she finishes a second helping. I know what we need to talk about. Last night hasn’t changed the need for this morning’s conversation, it’s just increased its importance. The shape of the rest of my life is on the line. Which might sound melodramatic to anyone who isn’t sitting at this table, but I can tell she feels it too.
“I’m not going to leave, Eli.”
I look up to find her watching me. She smiles. “I want to say that much first. Some of last night was about sex, but some of it was about us being two people who have always loved each other right down to our toes. That part stays. No matter what.”
I slide her fork out of her fingers and take her hands, exhaling fear I didn’t even know I was holding. “Deal.”
She smiles, and then her eyes get a little sad. She curls her legs up into sexy Buddha pose and sighs. “I know why I like to have control in my life. Tell me about why you like it in yours.”
I know what she’s asking. Whatever it might say on her business card, she’s been a theater major her whole life. And I remember how she used to prepare for her parts. It was always about motivation—understanding her own and that of the other major players on the stage.
She wants to know why I’m a Dom.
It won’t be enough for me to tell her, but it needs to start there. I tug on her hands. I want this conversation happening without a table between us. I guide us over to a long leather chaise and sit down, copying her Buddha pose. She takes a seat facing me, her knees touching mine.
Just like when we were sixteen. Which gives this conversation a place to start. “We saw a lot of control growing up.” The army is full of it, and being a really unimportant side cog in very big machinery isn’t all that much fun. Especially if you’re not particularly cog-shaped.
She nods.
“A lot of that control was just part of the culture. It didn’t feel like it had a purpose, or even when it did, it often still wasn’t very nice to the people being controlled.”
