The Next Move

by Lauren Gallagher

  His mouth tasted vaguely of wine, but it was the realization that it was Chris’s tongue against hers that sent a shiver up her spine.

  This is really happening.

  He broke the kiss, resting his forehead against hers as his fingers tangled in her hair. "Jesus, Kat…"

  He brought his chin forward to kiss her again, but pulled back a second before their lips met. Closing his eyes, he swallowed hard before releasing an unsteady breath. He made no effort to push her away—in fact, he still held her close to him—but he avoided her mouth.

  "Kat, I want to kiss you again." He was breathless, his

  voice was tinged with frustration. "I want to so bad, I…"

  "Kiss me again." Please. Chris. Please, kiss me again. His fingers moved in her hair and she realized his hand was trembling. "Chris…"

  "If I do," he paused, swallowing hard.

  Why won’t you kiss me again?

  Finally, he found the words. "If I do," he whispered, touching her face. His voice shook with desperation. "Kat, if I kiss you again, I won’t be able to stop at just a kiss."

  The ache inside her, that feeling that had nagged her all night, suddenly became unbearable. All night long, she’d wondered how she could tell him she wanted him, that she wanted him every way he’d have her, and finally, the words came:

  "Kiss me again."

  Chris didn’t hesitate.

  As his tongue explored her mouth, he slid his hands under her shirt. They both gasped as his skin touched hers, and they broke the kiss just long enough for him to lift her shirt off.

  Kissing her deeply, he let his fingers memorize the bra he’d imagined so many times since its strap first caught his attention that night. He ran his fingertips along its alternately smooth and coarse surface, seeking the warm silkiness of her skin but hesitating as if some irrational part of his mind expected her to shove his hands away. As she leaned into his kiss and murmured when his thumb circled her nipple through the fabric, that irrational little voice quieted.

  Kat reached behind her and a second later, her bra went slack, as did Chris’s mouth when his hands cupped her breasts with nothing separating skin from skin. It wasn’t as if he’d never touched a woman before, but he’d done a lot of fantasizing about this particular woman and never imagined he’d ever have her like this.

  Circling her nipple with his thumb, he kissed his way down her jaw and onto her neck, his mouth watering at the thought of sucking on her nipple, of gently holding it between his teeth while he flicked his tongue across it. He wanted to taste every last inch of Kat’s body.

  She tugged at his shirt. "Let’s take this someplace else."

  He murmured against her neck. "Wherever you want."

  Without another word, she took his hand and led him out of the kitchen. On their way through the living room, his jacket, draped over the back of a chair, caught his eye.

  "Wait," he said.

  "What? But—"

  "Condoms." He paused to pick up his jacket and fish the condoms out of the inside pocket.

  "No reason to go get all the way into the bedroom, then." She grasped his shirt and pulled him into a desperate kiss.

  With a hand on the small of her back, he guided her towards the couch, but she stopped him.

  "No. Right here."

  "Right—"

  She cut him off with another kiss, pulling him down to the floor behind the couch. He didn’t protest; he was already on the verge of coming simply from her desperate, hungry kiss. Though he wanted to touch and taste her all over, he had to be inside her right now. Judging by the frantic hands trying to unbuckle his belt, Kat was very much on the same page.

  He sat up and pulled his shirt off, then went for his zipper. Nodding towards her, he growled low. "Get those jeans out of the way."

  She chewed her lower lip and fumbled with her belt, cursing under her breath as her hands shook. His own hands trembling, Chris tore the condom wrapper with his teeth and pushed his jeans far enough off his hips to be out of the way. Rolling the condom on, he watched her shimmy out of her jeans and the black lace panties that matched her bra. A passing thought of I didn’t know she had those tattoos murmured through his consciousness, but there would be time to look at her ink later. The only thing that mattered now was being inside her.

  As he came down to her, she met him halfway, kissing him deeply as they sank together to the floor. Her thighs squeezed his hips and she pushed against him, whimpering as the head of his cock slid into her pussy.

  "Fuck me," she moaned.

  You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to hear that.

  In the next heartbeat, he was inside her. Deep inside her. Closing his eyes, holding his breath, he was still. Every fiber of his being screamed at him to fuck her, to thrust hard, deep, fast, but for a moment, he simply. Couldn’t. Move.

  "Oh God." His own voice sounded foreign, the words coming out as something akin to a sob.

  "Chris," she moaned.

  He opened his eyes, and the look on her face almost drove him right over the edge. Lips parted, skin flushed, blue eyes on fire with pure, desperate lust.

  Slowly, he withdrew, exhaling as he pulled almost all the way out. A soft whimper escaped her lips, her eyebrows lifting, wordlessly pleading with him to stay inside her. She took a breath, opened her mouth as if to speak, but before she could, he slammed into her and took her breath away. He paused, then did it again. And again. Her moans and shudders turned him on more than anything, and he fucked her faster and faster.

  Thrusting as hard as he could, he watched her eyes, watched her body writhe beneath him as her pussy tightened around his cock with every stroke he took.

  Her fingers dug into his arms. "Oh my God, oh my God…" Her spine arched beneath them as she screwed her eyes shut and gasped for air. "Oh God, I’m…I’m…" All that followed was a throaty cry, and she came.

  Chris kept thrusting, kept fucking her, watching her come, feeling her come, completely disbelieving that he was making Katrina come, until she cried out his name and he couldn’t hold back anymore. He couldn’t even say her name, or curse, or cry out, or even moan; all he could do was gasp for breath, hold onto her shoulders, and come.

  When the last shudder had passed, he rested his weight on his shaking arms, trying not to collapse on top of her.

  He lifted his head and kissed her. As soon as their lips met, goosebumps prickled his skin. That desperate hunger was still there, barely tempered by what they had just done. If anything, she was even more turned on than before.

  Judging by the way she held him and devoured his kiss, she wasn’t unsatisfied. He’d done nothing wrong. She simply wanted more.

  He dipped his head and kissed her neck, working his way up to her ear, where he whispered, "Bedroom?"

  The shiver that ran through her told him everything he needed to know.

  Three

  The orgasm Chris gave her had the opposite effect of any she’d ever had. It turned her desire for him into need. Every stroke of his cock inside her had driven her insane with desire and as soon as she climaxed, every nerve screamed for more.

  Chris kicked off the last of his clothes and followed her into the bedroom. Beside the bed, he grabbed her hips and turned her around, kissing her passionately.

  Something in the back of her mind tried to tell her this was wrong, but the ache in her pussy and the desperation in his kiss silenced her doubts. She pulled him onto the bed on top of her. This was too right to be wrong.

  For the longest time, they simply kissed, holding each other close and exploring—devouring—each other’s mouths. There was nothing tender or gentle or even intimate about the way they kissed. It was, in every sense of the word, desperate.

  Chris lifted his head, opening his mouth to speak, then kissed her again. The second time he broke away, he finally managed to speak.

  "I want to taste you," he growled.

  The thought of his tongue on her clit made her gasp as he started down her
neck, kissing here, circling with the tip of his tongue there. His lips lingered on her collarbone, then slowly trailed kisses down to her breasts. When he sucked her nipple between his lips, holding it gently between his teeth as his tongue flicked across it, she realized he didn’t just mean he wanted to taste her pussy, he wanted to taste her. All of her.

  He sucked her nipple just hard enough to border on painful, that perfect balance between not enough and too much. Her shoulder blades dug into the bed as she arched her back towards him, silently pleading for more. She moaned, the earliest shudders of an orgasm building inside her. If he could do this just by touching her nipple, she could only imagine what would happen if—when, not if, oh God, he’s going to, I know he is—his tongue met her clit.

  His fingertips drifted down her side, leaving a tingling trail of goosebumps in their wake before pausing on her hip. Though his mouth drew most of her attention to the deliciously maddening way he teased her nipple, that still presence of his hand on her hip didn’t escape her notice.

  He moved to her other nipple, teasing it just as mercilessly.

  His thumb moved on her hip, just brushing across her skin, but it was more than enough to make her gasp. When it continued, drawing a slow, gentle line in the groove between her hip and thigh, edging dangerously close to her pussy, she couldn’t breathe. Then his entire hand moved, following his thumb’s path, and she bit her lip, certain she would come just from his hand’s proximity to her clit.

  Now his lips moved, trailing kisses down her chest and belly as his fingertips teased her pussy. His lightly stubbled chin grazed her skin, making her shiver, momentarily distracting her from his fingers. Her attention was instantly drawn back, though, when his fingers slipped inside her, moving slowly, touching all the places that were still deliciously sensitive from everything his cock had done to her.

  As he kissed his way along her hipbone, his fingers bent slightly inside her, beckoning, turning up just enough to put his fingertips right against her G-spot. She gasped as they stroked it gently, every movement sending lightning bolts up her spine, but his mouth stayed stubbornly away from her pussy. Even as he brought her closer and closer to what promised to be a powerful orgasm, he only kissed her hipbone, the inside of her thigh, anywhere but the one place that screamed for his tongue.

  "Oh God, Chris," she moaned, sheets bunching in her hands. Nothing between her hips and shoulder blades touched the bed as her building orgasm threatened to levitate her entire body.

  "Come for me, Kat," he murmured, his breath whispering across her skin inches away from her clit. His fingers crooked a little more, putting just the slightest bit more pressure on her G-spot, and a heartbeat before she came, he closed his lips around her clit, circling it rapidly with his tongue.

  "Oh fuck…Chris…don’t…stop…"

  He didn’t stop. Even after her orgasm rose and fell, he didn’t stop, gently circling her clit, his fingers still moving although much slower now, the constant stimulation keeping her from completely coming down from her climax. The ability to release a satisfied breath, the exhalation that signified her return to terra firma, stayed out of her reach in the same way an orgasm itself often did: Almost there, almost, not quite.

  Finally, it became too much. She begged him to stop and as soon as he did, her entire body relaxed. She exhaled, closing her eyes as the room spun around her.

  A moment later, he was over her, kissing her deeply with the heady sweetness of her pussy on his tongue.

  "You taste incredible," he said, licking his lips before kissing her again. "I’ve been wanting to do that all fucking night."

  "Then why did you wait so long?"

  He laughed softly. "What do you mean?"

  "You took ages to finally do it."

  He grinned. "Was I frustrating you?"

  "Yes, you were." She laughed.

  "There was a method to my madness," he said, bending to kiss her neck as he pressed his cock against her hip. "God, you don’t know how bad I wanted to, but…"

  She thought he shuddered, but maybe she did. It was impossible to tell with as turned on as she was. "But what?"

  "I wanted to taste you," he whispered, pausing to kiss her. "But I wanted my first taste of you to be right when you came." He kissed her again with the same desperation from earlier, once again making her clit tingle without even touching it.

  Can’t wait. Need him. Right now.

  Without breaking their passionate kiss, she reached for the nightstand, fumbling blindly for the drawer. As he kissed her neck, she cursed under her breath. It was bad enough that she couldn’t see the drawer, but she was also on her back, so her arm was at an odd angle to try to open the damned thing, let alone rifle around in it. Then, his hand was over hers, gently nudging it out of the way, his lips meeting hers as he opened the drawer. The rustle of foil against foil told her he knew exactly what she had been searching for.

  He sat back, tearing the wrapper open and looking at her as he rolled the condom on."I think the only thing I could possibly want more than I wanted to taste you earlier," he said, lowering himself over her."Is to be inside you."

  Slowly, his entire body trembling as if it took every bit of restraint he had, he pushed into her, making sure she felt every. Last. Inch.

  In spite of the fact that she was aroused beyond belief, and the fact that he’d already been inside her once tonight, her pussy yielded to him gradually, as if barely accommodating him. His cock slid against her G-spot and every nerve ending in her body was suddenly electrified again, just as they had been when he made her come, each one awakening like a dimly glowing ember flaring back to life.

  "Oh God, Kat, your pussy feels so good," he whispered, letting his head fall beside hers and exhaling against her neck as he withdrew.

  With each stroke, he moved faster until he knocked the breath out of her with each deep, powerful thrust, fucking her so hard it hurt, and she begged for more. He toed the intoxicating line between just right and too much, and the more he fucked her, the more she wanted him to cross that line. She wanted too much and then some.

  As her orgasm built, as every sensation reached and passed that coveted degree of too much, her cries and moans quieted, her voice making way for the silent intensity that he so easily unleashed within her. The only sounds were their sharp, uneven breaths and the bed creaking in time with Chris’s powerful thrusts. White light exploded just beyond the edges of her vision and she wanted to tell him how fucking incredible he felt, how close she was, but managed little more than a whimper when something inside her finally gave, and she came.

  She gasped, her body lifting off the bed as much as possible with Chris over her, and he kept fucking her, kept driving himself into her.

  "Oh God, Kat," he moaned. "Oh fuck, that’s…you’re…"

  She finally found her voice. "Don’t stop, don’t stop…"

  "I won’t, I can’t, I—" He slammed into her, growling through clenched teeth. "I can’t… Fucking… Stop."

  Then he gasped, pulling her hips against his as he shuddered, groaning as his cock twitched inside her. "Oh Jesus, I’m coming…"

  As one last tremor rippled through him, they collapsed together. She hadn’t even realized that her back had come up off of the bed until she sank back down to it. His head fell beside hers, his breath cooling her sweaty skin.

  Though the palpable desperation was finally sated, finally calmed enough to let them breathe, it still simmered just beneath the surface, waiting for a touch or a kiss to reignite it.

  She stroked his damp hair as he panted, his shoulders rising and falling rapidly. Catch your breath, Chris. I’m not done with you yet.

  Four

  Kat winced as she sank onto the sofa, coffee cup in hand. She wasn’t hung over; she’d had several glasses of wine the night before, but that was just enough to make her a little tipsy. Too drunk to drive, sober enough for anything else.

  Except, evidently, using halfway decent judgment when it comes to frie
ndships. She shifted uncomfortably, her aching hips reminding her of everything she and Chris had done the night before.

  She really couldn’t blame the alcohol. They were both completely coherent. He obviously wasn’t too drunk to perform, and she remembered everything with crystal clarity.

  No, it wasn’t the alcohol. It was lust. Pure lust.

  Pure, stupid, unthinking, reckless, lust.

  Neither of them had said much that morning before he left. Just a few awkward morning after pleasantries, some small talk, the kind of stilted crap she’d expect after a one night stand, not with Chris. Not after a night with Chris, because there never should have been a night with Chris.

  "Shit." She closed her eyes and ran a hand through her hair.

  Replaying the night’s events, she couldn’t comprehend how they’d gone from a casual evening of chess to a sizzling night between the sheets. She’d always been attracted to Chris, but what had gotten into her? And for that matter, what got into him?

  Not that it mattered. It was done. The only thing that mattered now was the fallout, and the nervous knot twisting in her gut suggested that it wasn’t going to be pretty. She only hoped she hadn’t completely destroyed her friendship with him. A few awkward evenings and some uncomfortable conversations, she could deal with. The loss of his friendship would be too much.

  Her cell phone rang, breaking the silence and making her jump so badly she almost spilled her coffee. Ice ran through her veins as she expected to see Chris’s name on the caller ID, but to her great relief, it wasn’t him. It was her younger brother, Dylan.

  "Hey," she said, trying to sound cheerful in spite of her sour mood.

  "Hey, how’s it going?"

  I think I just royally fucked up a friendship, even if it was some of the hottest sex I’ve had in recent memory, but otherwise, peachy. You? "I’m okay. You?"