“Couldn’t resist?” he murmured.
She nodded. Then, in slow motion, she glided closer and kissed him.
Soft lips. Warm, plush, slightly sweet from the drink she’d sipped in the bar. Instinct urged him to weave his hands into her hair, tip her head back, and take more. But he stifled the instinct, holding back so he could enjoy the way the current bumped her mouth against his. Though she floated mere inches away, their bodies touched at only a few points—her hands on his shoulders, her lips on his. Anticipation pulsed between them like a living thing.
Finally, she sighed and closed in until she could rest her elbows on his shoulders and twine her arms around his head. A hunch of her shoulders lifted her higher. The hard points of her nipples scraped his chest, and they both groaned. Done for, he slid his arms around her waist and fitted her against him. Keeping her lips on his, she dug her heels into his calves and levered herself a couple inches higher. He braced her there, her smooth ass a perfect handful, and gave her his tongue.
She made a needy noise before she closed her lips and used suction to pull him deeper. White-hot need shot from the base of his tongue to the base of his cock. He cupped the back of her head and gave her more—fast and hard, slow and steady, over and over—showing her exactly what he had in store for her. They were both breathing heavy by the time he drew back. Then she squirmed a little, and he realized he had a punishingly tight grip on her backside. Immediately, he relaxed his hold. Since when had a woman wound him so tight he lost track of himself?
Since the czarina.
“Sorry. Hope I didn’t bruise you.”
“Doubtful.” Soft, damp lips brushed his as she spoke. “I don’t bruise easily.”
“I’ll check later, just to be sure. If I find any marks, I’ll kiss them all better.” Right now, he settled for kissing the pulse fluttering at the base of her throat. Against the vulnerable hollow, he murmured, “I like how you swim.”
“I haven’t done it in a while,” she admitted on an unsteady breath. “I might be a little out of practice.”
He raised his head and looked at her. “I’m happy to help you practice. All night, if necessary.”
Chapter Three
Cool air swirled around her body as Nick carried her out of the pool, but she barely noticed because his hot mouth seared a path down her throat. She probably looked like an oversize octopus with her arms and legs all wrapped around him, clinging to his hard body.
But who could blame her, because, good Lord, his body. Every chiseled angle and rippling contour of the man promised pleasure. She could already visualize him over her, balanced on strong arms. He’d have his big feet planted solidly on the ground, or the lounge chair, or wherever they needed to go for maximum traction. And his cock. His glorious cock. Anchored by heavy balls, it jutted proudly. Long and thick and just as athletic as the rest of him, not to mention impervious to humble forces like gravity. Her education and career had honed her appreciation for shape and proportion, and she recognized a masterpiece of both when she saw one. It deserved to be sketched and framed, or better yet, memorialized in sculpture. It deserved to be licked, kissed, cradled in her mouth, and savored. The only thing she wasn’t sure she could do was fuck it, because the wide, blunt head bobbed imposingly against her butt with every step he took, and made the parts of her desperate for attention quiver at the notion of being stretched and filled to capacity. More than she could handle? Maybe, but she was sure as hell going to try. Her orgasm had become a wily thing of late, flitting away every time she thought she had it firmly in hand. She was tired of chasing it alone.
He carried her to the lounge chair, but instead of putting her down, he hitched her higher in his arms and licked a bead of water from the very tip of her nipple. The drag of his tongue pulled every nerve in her body taut. She arched her spine, offering him her whole breast. Shoving it at him, really.
But he still wasn’t in a hurry. He raised his head and looked at her. “More?”
“God, yes. Take two, they’re small.”
That earned her a low laugh. “Small has advantages.”
“Does it?” She shivered as he rubbed his rough jaw along the underside of her breast.
“Uh-huh.” He scraped his way to the other breast. “You won’t be too uncomfortable if they get bounced around.”
“Are they in danger of getting bounced around?”
“It’s a definite risk, because I’m going to give you the kind of unrestrained fucking that guarantees you a flashback orgasm anytime someone asks if you had a good time in Maui.”
Flashback orgasm? She liked the sound of that. Then sound cut out entirely, because he closed his mouth over her other nipple and rolled it between his lips. Electricity speared through her—so intense she bucked against him. The move gave her a breath-stealing ride over rugged terrain, and sensations that had eluded her for months suddenly crowded close. The compulsion to hurry gripped her tighter because she didn’t want to lose them. “Oh God, Rider. I hate to break it to you, but if you do that again there’s a pretty good chance I’m going to come right here.”
He simply hollowed his cheeks to suck more of her breast into his mouth.
Her hips couldn’t be still. She grinded on him. “I-I’m trying to warn you…”
He boosted her higher and then let her slide down his hard-packed abs. “Ribbed, for your pleasure. Do what you need to do to take the edge off, Czarina, because the unrestrained fucking portion of the evening is coming. Believe me, you want me to ease you into it.”
Generous of him, and normally she wasn’t above taking things easy, but tonight she needed something else. She pulled his head back, lowered hers, and kissed him hard. “I don’t want to take the edge off. I don’t want easy,” she murmured against his lips as she unhooked her legs from around him. When her toes touched the ground, she reached between them and wrapped her fist around his shaft. It pulsed in her hand. His jaw clenched and his eyelids fought gravity. “I want you to take this big dick you’ve been teasing me with and use it to give me a soul-deep, hurts-so-good, cry-for-mercy orgasm. Can I count on you for that?”
Brown eyes cleared and focused on her. “Grab that condom, Czarina.”
She scrambled to do it and banged her shin against the table in the process.
“Ow.”
A strong arm caught her around the waist and held her steady. The muscles weren’t just for show. He had quick reflexes.
“Maybe you better sit while I take care of the preliminaries.” There was no missing the amusement in his voice or the fingertips trailing down her arm. He took the small foil square from her hand before he flexed the arm he’d wrapped around her and tipped her off balance. The move surprised a gasp out of her, but she needn’t have worried. He simply turned her into a passenger of strength and physics, lowering her onto the lounge chair until he had her reclined the way he wanted her.
He straightened. Pool lights and moonlight played over his body while he tore the foil wrapper. She folded her arm behind her head and enjoyed the view, the anticipation, the…oh damn…he wrapped his hand around his cock and dragged it up the length, pulling skin, lifting his balls, manhandling himself to the right position to roll the condom on. The pulse between her legs quickened. She pressed her thighs together to relieve the pressure.
“Uh-uh.” He planed a knee on the cushion and hooked his hands behind her calves. “No taking the edge off. You didn’t want easy, remember?” He parted her legs. “You wanted…what was it again? A soul-deep, hurts-so-good, cry-for-mercy orgasm?”
Just hearing him say it made her tremble. She swallowed and nodded. “Please.”
One good tug on her legs and he’d scooted her down the chaise until she was flat on her back, arms sprawled over her head. She lowered her chin to her chest and looked at him.
He cocked his brow at her, lifted her legs high, and draped them over his shoulders. Then he leaned in, forcing her knees toward her ears and her toes skyward. Bringing their fa
ces closer. “Better hold on, princess.”
To what? she wanted to ask, but just as she opened her mouth, he thrust his hips—the most brutally satisfying thrust she’d ever experienced. Her breath left her lungs in an inelegant “Gaaah.” Her vision went dark, and the universe shrank to one thing. Him. Lodged inside her so profoundly she didn’t know whether to call the precarious sensation pleasure or pain, and she had a sneaking suspicion there was more of him to take. She didn’t dare move for fear of finding out. Didn’t dare breathe, even though he’d emptied her lungs with the power of his thrust.
Luckily, he didn’t suffer from the same paralysis. He rocked back, almost all the way out. She attempted a quick inhale, but he drove into her again, pushing deeper, making her relinquish the air in another loud gust before it reached her lungs. Pressure built in her chest, her core.
“Look at me.” The low command vibrated through her, loosening places stretched unbearably tight.
Look at him? Such a simple request, but she had a lot on her plate right now, what with keeping her heart beating and her synapses firing and staying conscious while waves of hot and cold washed over her. Drawing on multitasking skills that were second nature to her in any other circumstances, she attempted to do as he asked. His face swam into focus. He was staring at her with intense concentration, as if no detail was too small to escape his attention.
“Breathe, Czarina.”
Right. Oxygen. Very important. She wanted to explain that there wasn’t enough room in her body for full lungs and him, but her voice didn’t work, either. Then he treated her to a quick flex of his hips—an effective little grind that centered the pressure in exactly the right spot—and instinct kicked in. Her chest expanded and she sipped a little air. Those molecules caught fire as they shimmered through her, like sparks off dry kindling, until the tiny shower of heat reached her scalp, the soles of her feet, and…oh yeah…there.
Now that she could feel her extremities again, she realized she’d followed his advice to hold on to something. She’d opted for two fistfuls of his hair. As nonchalantly as possible, she released her death grip.
His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Ready now? I believe you requested the unrestrained fucking?”
“I’m good to go—ohhh…”
He started moving again, and, God bless America, she loved a man who kept his word. He kept it, and kept it, and kept right on keeping it, so energetically the solid teak chair creaked in rhythm with his aggressive pace. His balls drummed her ass. The base of his cock pounded her clit. Both sent thrilling shock waves to a hard-to-reach place inside her—a place where a devastating orgasm swirled like a rare, unstable storm.
The one he was whipping to life promised to ravage her. She arched up to receive it. Her heart raced. Her pulse rang in her ears.
And then stopped.
And then rang again—a weirdly familiar ring, almost like the ringtone of her…
Goddammit. The storm receded, and the real world crashed in like an uninvited party guest. Her family was cock-blocking her from thousands of miles away.
Ignore it. Look, Rider’s ignoring it.
He was, beautifully, with his head pitched forward, his eyes closed in concentration and the flush of hard work coloring his cheeks. As if he knew she was struggling to get back into the zone, his voice filled her ear.
“Christ, I want to go at you all night. I haven’t even felt you come yet, and I’m already thinking about how I’m going to wring the next one out of you.” He punctuated each word with a thrust.
She closed her eyes and concentrated on chasing the storm. It wasn’t so far away. She could get back there before he ever knew she’d been gone. “How? How will you do it next?”
“With my mouth,” he replied instantly. “So I can taste it.”
The thought sent a promising quiver through the territory in question.
“And then—” He broke off when her phone sounded again.
“And then?” she prompted over the disruption. Even she heard the desperation in her voice. What the hell did they want, other than to ruin her night? No. Don’t even wonder. It didn’t matter. She couldn’t control them, but she could control whether or not she let them mess with her plans.
“Then, Czarina, I’m going to flip you over. You’re going to spread your legs as wide as you can, lift that cock-teasing ass of yours, and I’m going to sink into you from behind.”
Yes…yes…yes.
“I’m going to play my way into your pussy so slowly, so gently, you bury your face in your arms and beg, ‘Harder, Rider. Fuck me so hard I can’t sit tomorrow without whimpering your name.’”
As he spoke, he maintained the steady stroke of his body into hers. She clung to his words, the feel of him, and…the sound of her phone. Fuck it. It was no use. The storm evaporated from her horizon like a mirage of clouds from a desert sky, leaving only the desert. Barren, joyless desert. Disappointment beat down on her—so stark she actually had to blink back tears.
What was wrong with her? She had a gorgeous, generous man with an unstoppable cock ready and willing to please her any way she wanted, and she couldn’t block the shit in her head for one lousy night to let him do it. How pathetic. The only thing more pathetic would be allowing him to realize he’d wasted his time. No way. He deserved to walk away completely satisfied tonight. Maybe then she wouldn’t feel like a failure.
Sadly, she had this routine down pat. She was the Simone Biles of making her partner feel successful. She clasped her hands at the nape of his neck and arched her back dramatically. “I’m so close. Don’t stop. Please. Right there. Oh God.” She pitched her voice up. “Oh God. Oh yes.” Point the toes, moan a little louder, clench the inner muscles rapidly, and— “Oh…my…Gawddd!”—stick the landing. Just as she flopped against the chaise in her best impersonation of exhausted bliss, his thrusts quickened.
Her orgasm might be MIA, but apparently her acting skills were still on the job. Equally apparent, he’d been holding back until the job was done. But no more. Braced on his arms, he pumped furiously, obeying a fundamental instinct strong enough to override restraint and flay away layers of charm and civility. She watched in fascination, and a little envy, as pure, primitive pleasure overtook him. A shudder racked his body. His head dropped forward, and his breath came out in a long, ragged groan.
Yep. She definitely nailed the routine. Smiling inside, she closed her eyes and snuggled into the cushion. At least she’d managed to hold on to her pride.
She was so busy congratulating herself on a gold-medal performance it took a moment to realize he was utterly still and silent above her. She cracked an eye to find him staring at her, his mouth curved down at one corner.
She opened her other eye and blinked at him. The frown lingered. “Hey.” She reached out and brushed his hair back from his forehead. “What’s wrong?”
Assessing brown eyes narrowed. “Did you just fake it?”
…
“What? No! Of course not.”
The czarina gave him a wide-eyed look he assumed she intended as guileless and tried to wiggle out from under him, but he had a good eighty pounds on her, and he wasn’t going anywhere. He was fine with fake names and fake histories, but fake orgasms? No fucking way.
Finally, she huffed out a breath. “I had a screaming orgasm. Can’t a guy, um…feel it?”
“Yeah, I know what a female orgasm feels like. Question is, do you?”
She blushed and dropped her gaze to somewhere around his chin, which would have given her away if basic human physiology hadn’t already done it. No postorgasmic engorgement of the subpapillary venous plexus? No dilated pupils? No elevated respiration? No orgasm.
“Yes,” she sighed. “I know what an orgasm feels like. And for the record, I really was close. But then”—she shrugged, not quite pulling off the casual gesture—“it disappeared. No big deal. Don’t take it personally. To be honest, I don’t usually come by just, you know”—she shrugged again—“interc
ourse.”
He pinched the base of his cock and eased off her in a careful withdrawal. “While I appreciate all your honesty, Czarina”—she had the grace to blush at the unsubtle reminder of her lack of honesty—“this particular gem of truth comes a little late, don’t you think?”
She sat up and swept her hair away from her face. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Translation? She didn’t want to discuss it. Another dismissal, reinforced by the way she turned and started digging through her purse. The black curtain of hair she’d pushed back a moment ago draped forward to obscure her face from his view.
Too damn bad, because he knew the score. She hadn’t picked him up at the bar because she’d wanted more of his conversational skills. Tonight wasn’t about getting to know each other better. Hell, she didn’t even want to know his real name. No, he’d had one job. Deliver a soul-deep, hurts-so-good, pray-for-mercy orgasm, and he’d failed on his first attempt. Now he owed her one—a debt he took seriously—so he wasn’t going to be so easily dismissed. “I mean, this would have been good information to share with me before you decided to give up and bring things to a unilateral conclusion.”
She sighed and held out a tissue to him. “You are taking this personally.”
He accepted the tissue and dealt with the condom. Fine, maybe he was. The universe had a way of keeping everything in balance, and he was no exception. He wasn’t cut out for relationships—his first serious attempt had fucked him up beyond repair—but to offset that sad reality, he excelled at sex. Orgasms on tap were pretty much what he had to offer, and he’d promised her one. His ego refused to admit defeat. But there were better ways to go about delivering on his promise than calling her out on her fakery.
She’d gone back to rummaging through her purse. Correction. Checking her phone. He moved the fall of her hair behind her shoulder and discovered her scowling at the small screen. “I’m taking it as a signal I need to ask a few questions, so this next round, when you scream my name, you’re not polluting that beautiful mouth with a lie.”
Compromised in Paradise Page 3
