His fingers and lips both paused. “Hmm?”
“I just—I don’t do this much.”
Slowly, he pressed another kiss to the side of her throat. “What? Have sex?” His lips drifted higher. “Or let yourself be seduced by a man you just met in the most romantic city in the world? Because if it’s the latter, I can’t say I’m shocked.”
Her laughter this time was easier and sadder, all at once. “I’ve gone all the way with exactly two people, and one of them was a pickup, and . . .” She didn’t really want to think about it. “. . . and that wasn’t much fun.”
She’d been into it enough, but they’d both been drinking, and it had all started moving too fast. When he’d gotten her onto all fours, she hadn’t been ready, and it hadn’t been horrible. But that was the best she could say.
The way Rylan held her shifted. It was still loose enough that she could get away at any second if she wanted to—she didn’t doubt that. But there was a possessiveness there. “If I ever make you feel like this ‘isn’t fun’—” He cut himself off and took a slow, deep breath before restarting. “I will never take anything from you that you don’t want, or before you’re ready to give it. There is nothing I want to do tonight but give you pleasure.”
She couldn’t help the twinge of doubt. “Nothing?”
“Nothing.” He swallowed. “It’ll be torture, but I’ll walk away right now if you tell me you’re not interested.” At some point, he’d pulled his hips back, but now the long line of him pressed against her rear again, not insistent or demanding at all. Just there. “Make no mistake about it. I want you. Badly. But that’s all secondary to what you want. If you never touch me but still let me make you come . . .” Trailing off, he ran her hand down her side. “I promise I’ll be satisfied.”
She opened her eyes. What was this man doing to her?
Even with Aaron, sex had never been fun. He’d had a good enough time, but she’d never managed to get him to understand what she needed him to do. He’d never asked.
And now Rylan was offering her all these things . . . And she wanted them. So much.
“I want to touch you.” Her voice came out whispery and low. “Only—can we . . . can we take it slow?”
“As slowly as you want. I have just one request.”
Her stomach sank. “Oh?”
Taking a partial step back, he turned her around until they were standing before each other, eye to eye and face to face, and his gaze was burning. “Please. Kate.”
“Yes?”
“Please tell me you’ll at least let me taste you.”
chapter SEVEN
Kate’s breath caught in her throat. It wasn’t that she’d never had a man do that before. Aaron had tried a few times. It had been warm and wet, and mortifying. Mostly mortifying, though.
She’d never been so close to giving in and faking it already as she had been, lying there, waiting for him to get bored.
Heat rising in her cheeks, she played with a button on his shirt for something to look at. “You don’t have to.”
“I don’t have to do anything.” He ducked, giving her no choice but to meet his gaze. “And neither do you. But I want to.”
She shrugged. “It’s just never done much for me.”
“Then whoever was doing it wasn’t doing it right.”
“And you think you’ll do better?”
“I know I will.” With that, he took her by the hand and made to lead her off the balcony. “Come on.”
As she followed him into the room, he paused to close the door, drawing a pair of sheers over the glass but leaving the heavier draperies open. Squirming inside and uncertain what else to do, she faced the bed and took a deep breath.
He came up behind her, encircling her waist with his arms, just like he had out on the balcony. “Is this all right?”
“Yeah.”
Apparently, he was starting everything on established ground. “And this?” He smoothed her hair out of the way before kissing a longer, wetter line down the side of her neck. The soft scrape of teeth against delicate flesh made it all the better, and some of the stiffness left her limbs.
“Yes.”
He moved so slowly, sliding his lips across her skin. With one arm holding her flush against his chest, he brought his other one up. Warm fingertips dragged across her throat and along her collarbones, lingering there before drifting lower. He swept them down the valley of her breasts. At her navel, he turned his hand over and retraced the circuit, again and again, until the thrumming in her abdomen felt like a smoldering glow. She relaxed her arms. Let her head fall back against his shoulder.
“See?” His voice was a low rasp. “Isn’t that nice? Don’t you like it when I touch you?”
She did, and the pit of heat flared, something clenching deep inside. “Yes.” And she should be touching him, too, shouldn’t she? She reached to wrap her palm around his thigh.
But he shhed her, brushing her overture aside. “Later, if you want. For now, just let me.”
It wasn’t easy, but an instinct she’d thought had been burned out of her wanted to do precisely that. To give over and give in. She dropped her arm back to her side and took him at his word.
His hand drifted to her hip. Her breath hitched. On the way back up, he barely skimmed the apex of her thighs through her jeans, and a sound passed her lips.
Two minutes ago, she’d been so nervous about him coming anywhere near her, and now she was losing her mind, all but whimpering at a teasing glance across her sex.
Murmuring words she couldn’t hear against her neck, he skated his hands up and down her body, flirting with but never quite making contact with the places that were slowly starting to strain for it. When another, breathier sound of desire escaped her, he groaned, pressing himself tighter against her spine. Letting the line of him sear its way into her, until she was liquid, yearning for his touch.
He didn’t have to ask a question. She closed her eyes and answered it. “Yes.”
“Good girl.”
It should have been cold water on her flame, but somehow it was anything but. She wanted that praise again, wanted that soft, gravelly voice telling her she was exactly what he wanted her to be.
Sucking the lobe of her ear between his lips, he rubbed the hem of her shirt between his fingertips, transcribing what he was going to do and giving her room to tell him no. Her breath went shallow as he rucked the fabric upward, skimming warm fingertips over her abdomen. He didn’t push it all the way up, though. Pausing with her breasts still covered, he ran the corners of his knuckles around the outer curve.
“Can I?”
She nodded minutely, arching forward and holding her breath.
He didn’t grab or squeeze at her as he finally let his hand traverse the center of her chest. She exhaled shakily with the relief of his gentle touch, pleasure simmering with the graze of his thumb across her nipple, the pressure of a broad palm encompassing the full swell of her breast.
He nudged at the hem of her top again, and she lifted her arms. He stripped her out of it and let the material fall to the floor before molding himself to her spine again, running his hands more freely over bare skin. Electricity seemed to trail behind every touch, winding her up higher and higher until he dipped into the cup of her bra, brushing the hard, naked nub at her peak, sending crisp and white sparks branching. Panting, she turned her face into his neck, and he held her, even as he was cupping her more firmly, sliding his hand in deeper beneath the satin.
“No one ever took their time with you, did they? Never got you screaming for it before they tried to get theirs, huh?”
She’d thought she’d gone slow before, but it had never been like this. She wanted to twist all the way around inside his grasp. Open her legs and wrap them tight around his hips. She felt so empty and hot and soaking with how much she wanted this.
“Gonna take my time with you,” he promised, gravelly against her cheek. “Gonna take you apart all night, until you’re
shaking.”
“Please.”
Her little begging gasp echoed in the room so loudly. Before she could even muster up the presence of mind to be ashamed of it, he was picking her up. Her eyes flew open, a scream forming in her throat as she scrabbled to keep from falling, but then her spine hit the soft surface of the mattress. She looked up, and he hovered over her, on his knees between her spread legs, staring at her like she was something to eat.
No. Like she was something to treasure.
Her breathing sounded deafening to her own ears as he stared down at her, blue eyes pinning her, the sharp point of his jaw and the lines of his cheekbones glowing gold. Without looking away, he undid the buttons of his shirt and shrugged it off his shoulders, then reached over his head to grab the neckline of his undershirt. His face was obscured for a moment as he tugged it off, and she took the chance to glance downward.
A fine trail of dark hair led into the waistband of his jeans, and above that was the smooth plane of his abdomen, lightly defined musculature glinting in the lamplight. His chest was just as sculpted, widening out into the broad cut of his shoulders before drawing the eye inward to the dip of his collarbones and the hollow of his throat.
And there, dangling from his neck, a plain silver chain.
She didn’t have a chance to see what was hanging from it as he dropped the ball of cotton to the side. Leaning over her, he grinned, clearly having caught her ogling, but the smirk receded into an expression that was quieter and more intense. Her chest heaved as he perched on his haunches over her, the muscles in his biceps flexing as he laid his palms on her knees. Slowly, looking up at her through thick lashes, he dipped his head. Placed one kiss and then another on the inside of her thigh, trailing upward, and she could hardly breathe. She clenched her hands as his nose nudged the crease of her hip through her jeans.
Oh God, he’d said he wanted to taste her, but would he? Like this?
He lifted up a fraction of an inch to look at her squarely, and her heart was beating overtime, all her nerves firing off at once, every inch of her body concentrated on the space between her legs. He hadn’t even really touched her yet, and already she was gasping for breath.
Her whole chest felt like it was caving in when he lowered his head again, and Christ, God, he pressed his lips right to the center of her jeans, right over her clit. She could feel the warm rush of his breath even through the fabric, the weight of that touch pushing her to the point where she thought she would explode just from this.
Light-headed, her belly and her sex alive with heat, she arched her spine. She’d never had a man make her come before, but the feeling was already gathering, an ache that bloomed and spread, familiar and foreign all at the same time.
He pressed a little harder, sending a wave of heat through her, and she tightened her muscles, unable to believe this was really happening. But then he lifted his mouth to look up at her, and he was smirking. All at once, the tension that had been building within her dropped away, and she clenched, restless around nothing. As she groaned in frustration, soft lips pressed to her abdomen, then an inch above her navel, then higher and higher. He kissed the tops of both breasts, dragging his torso through the valley of her legs.
“So,” he said, hovering above her, face to face. He held himself up with both hands planted beside her head, his knees between her calves, hips a firm presence against her pelvis, warm and vital and there if not yet grinding in. He kissed the corner of her mouth and then the other, sliding the tip of his nose against her cheek. “Is that a yes to letting me taste you?”
And she couldn’t stop herself. She laughed, sliding her hands into his hair and letting the thick strands twist between her fingers. He’d gotten her so close. She’d probably say yes to anything. “It’s definitely not a no.”
“I can work with that.”
Shaking her head, she tugged more insistently at his scalp, drawing him up her body. Half-naked like this, he was all warm skin and the scent of amber and lust. He lowered onto her, fitting hips to hips, and oh, there was that pressure again, right where she wanted it. Letting out a noise of pleasure of his own, he thrust against the cradle of her thighs, and she felt like she was melting as their lips met. The kissing and the weight of him overwhelmed her, making the air too thick and her lungs tight.
He dragged his lips along her jaw to her ear. “Do you think you’re wet for me?”
She wasn’t sure she’d ever been slicker. But the words, so easy for him, wouldn’t come to her mouth. With a sound that was half whine and half hum, she put her hands on his back, running them over hot, smooth flesh, then lower, to the waistband of his jeans, trying to urge him on.
It was encouragement enough. He kissed the shell of her ear before sucking at it. “Bet you’ll be so sweet.” Encompassing her hip with his palm, he ground into her harder. “Think you’re ready for me to find out?”
She was ready for anything. If he wanted—if he really wanted, she’d let him have it all, misgivings or no. He’d taken such good care of her body so far. Who was she not to trust him with it now?
He lifted his hips and pressed his brow to the pillow beside her head, breathing fast and shallow against her hair. Everything inside her tensed as he shifted his hand, sliding it along the top of her thigh.
When the heel of his hand connected with where she was desperate and aching, she nearly screamed with the relief of it.
“That’s right,” he murmured. “God, I bet you’re soaked. You’re burning up, aren’t you? Just waiting for me to take you over.”
“Please.” She was shocked to hear the plea fall from her lips. “No one’s ever— I’m—” Close. Scared. It was hot and vulnerable, shaking apart like this inside a man’s arms, letting him see all these pieces of her as they broke, their hidden facets exposed.
“Shh.” He made his way to her mouth again, kissing her softly but with no less heat. “I’ve got you.”
But his reassurances didn’t soothe anything at all. Her legs were stiff with how long she’d been tensing, waiting to fall, but all his rubbing at her through her jeans only made her need coil tighter without any of that sweet unfurling of release. If she could just get her own hands on herself . . .
For one hysterical second, she thought about faking it, the way she’d been so tempted to in the past.
But then he was kissing down her body, undoing the fasteners of her jeans.
“What are you—” she started, but it was a stupid question.
“Tell me you don’t want this.” He had the side of his face mashed up against her stomach, his long fingers parting her zipper. Brushing against the fabric underneath.
She didn’t want to pretend to come. She didn’t want to lie.
He turned, burying his mouth and his eyes against her skin. “You’re aching for it. I can feel it. God, let me do this for you.”
What was left for her to do but nod?
As if he’d been dying to do it, he tore her pants down her legs, cursing in frustration when he got to her shoes. Somehow he got them shoved off, and they bounced across the carpet to the other side of the room, followed by her pants, and then he was hooking fingers into the lace at the hem of her panties.
Shooting one last glance up at her, he peeled them down.
Naked but for her bra, she felt even more uncomfortable and vulnerable. Weird and cold, and her breath was shaking as she tried to close her legs. He wasn’t having any of that, though.
More tenderly than she would have imagined, he parted her thighs. Put his palm to the place where her leg met her torso.
The first swipe of his thumb over the length of her slit was a bright burst of pleasure, almost like pain, it was so sharp. Her leg jerked, and she reached to try to still his hand, but then he shifted, getting his fingers into the mix. They were softer as they spread her open, and she forced herself to breathe. To relax.
And then he moved in with his tongue.
“Oh God.” It was warm and wet, like she r
emembered, but instead of just spelling out his English homework, this man moved around. He touched and licked, across the less sensitive side of her clit and then at the point where everything was too intense.
Then he found the right spot, and her whole abdomen went molten.
“Rylan—”
Without shifting from her sex, he reached up for her hands. Put one in his hair and grasped the other one tightly, and it gave her something to hold on to. A way to be grounded when words had left her, everything had left her. Everything but the sweet pulsing and the building wave.
Over and over, he lapped at her, through each false start, when she was so close she swore she could taste it, only to have it slip away and leave her panting and frustrated. She whined and clutched him tight, probably pulling too hard at his scalp, but he hummed and dove in more hungrily, nuzzling and kissing, licking and sucking.
Tensing hard, she pushed into his touch, into the eager heat of his mouth, and it was there—right there. Warm fingers pressed against her opening, then just inside.
Her eyes snapped open, and her whole body arched, and she reached—reached—
“Rylan—”
God, it wasn’t a wave. It was a tsunami and relief and this crashing, incredible, pulsing oblivion. She shattered, over and over again, swearing out loud and groaning his name, and just wanting him to keep her right there. Against his tongue and his kiss and this trust. This promise.
That he had fulfilled.
When the fire and blackness and flesh-ripe taste of fruit inside her mouth collapsed, she opened her eyes, twitching at the few last laps he took across her clit. She drew her hand from his hair and, too sensitive, nudged at his head to try to get him to stop. Pressing upward with his fingers, he placed one more kiss to her sex before pulling away. Another aftershock rocked through her, only to be followed by a dull emptiness when he withdrew.
Rising up onto his knees, he was a vision, all bare skin to his waist, lips and fingers slick from what he’d given her. He dragged the back of his wrist over his mouth, and she whimpered. For a second, he closed his eyes, tilting his head upward as if he were appealing to a deity. When he looked to her again, his gaze was burning, a hunger so intense it sent a lick of misgiving curling up her spine. She moved to close her legs but he was still between them.
Seven Nights To Surrender Page 8
