Phoenix (Flames & Ashes Book 1)

by Carolyn Anthony

  I ran my fingers through his clipped beard and stroked up along his stubbly cheek. “Jaxxon . . . ” I opened my eyes, wanting to memorize every expression on his chiseled face. The light from the windows reflected a hunger matching my own in his gaze. My breathing labored harder and I stared at his mouth, running a finger over his wet bottom lip.

  He bent down, kissed me quick, before lifting up. Hovered above me, he left me wanting, left me needy, made me reach for him. He licked between my trembling lips, barely touching my tongue with the tip of his, and he stayed far enough away, keeping his eyes locked to mine.

  “Relax.” Jaxx rolled toward the headboard, reached out and pulled me to him so my back pressed against his chest. He reclined against the iron frame, wrapping his arms around me while I sat between his legs. His husky voice moved like a caress over every inch of my skin as he spoke, “I know your limits.” With a finger under my chin, he tipped my face sideways up to his. “Light from the window’s enough. I want you comfortable, but I want to see your face, your skin, your wet pussy, after you’ve come so hard nothing else matters but having my cock inside you. I will touch you, all of you, so you’re gonna have to work with me.”

  Jesus, God. The way he spoke to me. So . . . blunt. So open. But he didn’t leave me to wonder, to worry. He told me exactly what he intended to do . . . and to my utter shock, I wanted it. I throbbed with each seductive syllable out of his sinful mouth. He moved a hand down my stomach, over the fabric of his shirt that still covered me, to stroke right above my pubic bone. Right on top of the scars. The heat of his finger tracing light patterns was both unsettling and yet somehow . . . erotic.

  No. Every muscle in my body tensed.

  They’re heinous . . . remember Rick’s reaction . . . .

  I dropped my hand on top of his. “They’re really . . . ” Disgusting. “ . . . bad.”

  His lips skimmed the shell of my ear, but his touch never stopped. “Do you want this?”

  “Yes.” I shook my head. “I want you, but—”

  He kissed the top of my head. “ ‘I want you’ is good enough.” He dropped one hand to the hem of the shirt and began to lift. The moonlight dispersed throughout the room in streaks of light, not enough to see clearly, but enough to make out the darkened silhouette of his hand on my pale body.

  I grabbed his hand with both of mine and squeezed. “You . . . you’ll feel them. All of them,” I warned, through a dry throat.

  This heat, this desire, the want and excitement for not just this moment, but for the life he’d gifted me with, I didn’t want it to end. Not with his repulsion. I didn’t want to see him hide the pity or revulsion he’d feel after reality dawned on him. Not him. I would shatter. My heart that shouldn’t have been this involved would shatter.

  “Valentina,” he spoke into my ear, his tone so deep, strong and confident, it bypassed the voice in my head. “Trust me.” Moving his hands out from under mine, he brought them up and strummed both thumbs right over my nipples through the shirt I wore. “Do you feel that?” He asked, sending a shudder bolting through me. With a tender, but firm touch, he rubbed over my tight peaks with the sides of his thumbs. “Listen to your body,” he whispered in my ear, sliding his tongue along the tender spot below it. “Stop fighting what you need.”

  Trust . . . My chest rose faster with each stroke. Tentative, I settled back against his chest. I closed my eyes, focusing on the feel of all that muscle, all that strength surrounding me. He moved his hands up to caress the skin under the collar of my shirt and lifted the material away from my body. A loud rip echoed through my room and my eyes flew open. I jerked my head down to see a long tear in the shirt that stopped around my belly button—right above the scars.

  I half spun toward him. “Your shirt!”

  “Fuck the shirt.” He pulled my shoulders back to his chest and pushed his hands inside the torn material to cup my breasts.

  The calluses on his fingers stimulated my skin, adding to the heat spiking through my lower abdomen. Both thumbs drew steady circles around my puckered areolas, each pass getting closer and closer to the center.

  I dropped my head back to rest on his shoulder, my breath coming quick. He trailed his soft lips up and down the sensitive slope of my neck.

  “Please . . . ”

  His lips formed into as smirk against my skin. “Please, what?”

  If he didn’t touch me soon—I arched away from his chest, my breasts filling his hands.

  The erotic strokes continued to get closer to my aching nipples, but still he wouldn’t touch me. I squirmed about, but he kept just out of range.

  “Ask me, sugar. Can you do that? Ask and I’ll give you what you need. I always will.”

  I turned my head into his neck, my lips skimming his ear. “Please . . . touch me.”

  He feathered his thumbs over my nipples so light it was more a soft brush. “Like that?”

  I bit my lip hard. Not enough, but still so good. His hands were so large, they covered the entire area of my breasts. “Um, yeah.” I breathed and arched again. “Yes.” Harder, I needed him to squeeze harder—direct stimulation. I needed—I needed to feel him.

  He covered the sinew between my neck and shoulder with his teeth, bit down hard enough to send a jolt of pleasure straight to my clit. “Oh—Jaxx . . . ” The bite shouldn’t have felt that good, but it allowed me to take in a full deep breath for the first time since he’d touched me.

  “Tell me what you want.”

  The authority, the order spoken so low, shifted some dark . . . thing I didn’t know existed inside me. My legs scissored. The ache between my legs grew stronger with every pass of his thumbs. “More,” I begged in a hoarse whisper.

  Jaxx closed his lips over the pulsing vein in my neck and sucked the stinging skin into his mouth, at the same time he took both breasts in his hands and rolled my nipples between his fingers.

  This time, I didn’t bite my lip as I whimpered and called out his name, and the evidence of my need saturated my panties.

  “I don’t think my name’s ever sounded that sexy.”

  “Please don’t stop,” I pleaded, so lost in a body-consuming bliss I couldn’t think straight. My breasts and nipples swelled under his ministrations and though he hadn’t touched between my legs, my clit throbbed for him.

  His thumbs and index fingers rolled my nipples harder, right before he pinched them.

  Over and over, he alternated between firm rolling and sharp pinching, my need growing with each tormenting stroke. “Yes!” I tilted my head back, reached a hand around the back of his head and pulled him down to me. Our lips collided and he drove his tongue into my open mouth.

  Breaking away, he cupped my chin. His eyes locked on my mouth. “Don’t come. I haven’t even started.” His chest vibrated as a chuckle rolled through him. “You have beautiful tits, baby. So fucking sensitive.”

  Words became my undoing. Every dirty word made me wetter. I fought not to fling myself around so he could take my nipples in his mouth—his warm, wet mouth.

  I lifted up, but he dropped both hands to my hips and drew me tight against him. He slipped his fingers inside the top of my sweats, drawing soft lines along the skin underneath.

  So lost in his touch, I let him maneuver my sweats and panties under my ass and down my thighs.

  “I need those gone.”

  I leaned forward and shoved them over down my calves, working them the rest of the way off with my feet.

  He slid one hand between my thighs, moving up until three fingers covered my outer lips. The thick, intimidating length of his cock pressed against my lower back.

  “Fuck,” he ground out. “You’re so damn wet, sugar, you’re perfect.”

  Up and down, he stroked me until I began to pant. The friction of his fingers against my slick lips indirectly worked my clit and I reached both hands back into his hair. “I—I need you.” I turned my head up and took his lips as if I were dying and it was the last kiss I’d ever receive
. Stroking my tongue over the seam of his lips, he opened immediately and sucked my greedy tongue into his mouth. He kept stroking my pussy, but brought the hand on my breast up around my throat to hold my face to his. I waited for the panic to kick in, but it never came. Instead, his firm hand at my throat calmed me. He broke from me to hover his lips above mine.

  “You have the softest lips, full, so swollen.” Flattening out his hand on my cleft, he dipped his middle finger inside my entrance and groaned. “I always want you this wet for me.”

  I wrapped my hand around his neck and pulled him down to me while I lifted my hips. Our mouths collided, our tongues tasting, exploring, and breaking away only to come back together, hungrier.

  The hand at my throat tightened before sliding up into my hair. Wrapping it around his fist, he slanted my head to the side. “Show me,” he growled. “When you came, how did you imagine me touching you?”

  I pulled away slowly and settled back against him, then lifted one leg over his, and the other over the opposite side. Reaching back up, I wrapped my arms around his neck and led his lips down to mine.

  He stopped me before I reached him. “Mmm, I’ll take it from here.” He opened his knees, spreading mine wide, and lifted me higher up his chest.

  My core was on full display, naked and open to him. Every muscle shook with need. I was like a puppet he maneuvered. Arousal trickled down my thighs. He covered my cleft with an open palm, just applying pressure. My head collapsed back against him on a long moan.

  He slid his middle finger through my slippery lips to my opening, hooking the tip inside me, coating it with my juices. My channel contracted at the loss of his presence when he removed it. Gliding his finger up through my lips, he circled one around my clit.

  “Breathe,” he said, as his lips lingered at the space between my neck and shoulder.

  I lifted my hips to him.

  “Soon enough.”

  His words danced across my skin. I slammed my lips together to keep from begging for him to end my torment. My body wasn’t mine anymore. It was his. His to tease, his to touch, just . . . his.

  With the slightest brush, his wet finger slid over my clit and I wrenched out of his hold. An arm around my chest anchored me back against him.

  “Right there, I’m thinkin’.” He dropped the hand at my chest to the top of my cleft and split me open with two fingers, pulling the slippery skin of my lips back, exposing me more. The warm heat of his finger drew lazy circles on my clit, lifting me higher with each stroke.

  His soft rumble against my neck pulsated through my chest. “I need to taste you.”

  In one fluid motion, he lifted my legs up and spun me around to face him. “Lay back,” he ordered, and proceeded to crawl over me, forcing me to move back until my head was near the foot of the bed.

  As soon as my back hit the mattress, he laid down between my legs. I pressed my knees against his hips to stop him, the hard length of his shaft teasing my aching core. “Jaxxon,” I gasped. “Wait—”

  He moved to his knees between my legs and placed both hands under my thighs. “Sugar, we’re beyond waiting.” With a gentle pressure, he pushed my legs open more.

  Now able to fit between my legs, he leaned down and kissed me hard. I grabbed at his face, clutching at him. Tilting my head, I sealed my mouth tighter to his. He licked at my tongue, my lips, before devouring my mouth. Lying between my legs, the long shaft of his cock pulsed against my core.

  He rocked his hard length against me, and I cried out against his mouth. I wanted to feel him, not the material of his shorts.

  Breaking the kiss, he held me by the nape of the neck and kissed his way across my cheek to my ear. “Move for me, baby.” Over and over, he rubbed his length against my clit until my body surged under him, up against him.

  “Fuck. You’re gonna to feel so perfect—all that tight, wet heat choking my cock,” he hissed, before moving down my body with soft nips along the slope of my neck and down my chest, leaving goosebumps in their wake.

  Taking one swollen nipple between his lips, he moved his hands on top of my hips, caging me between him and the bed. The barrier embedded somewhere deep within me wouldn’t allow me to ask for what I needed. Not when—

  A firm bite at my nipple snapped me back to him, and I stopped moving. When I glanced down, his intense eyes studied my face as he flicked at the stinging peak with his tongue.

  “Stay here,” he ordered and sucked my nipple into his mouth. “Keep your eyes open.” He worked his way down my stomach, lingering at my belly button, jutting his tongue in and out of the sensitive indention. His big hands slid up my inner thighs and under my knees. He split my legs open wide enough to fit his shoulders between them. Running the tip of his tongue above my pubis, right below the hem of my shirt, he pulled my legs wider. When I inhaled and grabbed his shoulders, he leaned down and flicked his tongue right over my separated and sodden folds.

  I dropped my hands and gripped the comforter. Jesus. It was a ghost of a touch, but it turned the kindling fire into an untamed blaze, lighting me up from the inside out. “Jaxx—”

  Again, he licked over my cleft. “Eyes, sugar,” he snapped. When I focused on him, on his gorgeous face between my thighs, his amber eyes met mine. “I knew your pussy would taste this fucking good.” Sliding one hand around my thigh, he held me open with two fingers and sucked one of my swollen lips between his. “Warm sunshine and sex. I could eat you all night.”

  Blood surged to my core, rushing so hard I felt my heartbeat in my clit. One after another, he took my most sensitive lips between his. He licked between them and sucked them both into his mouth, before gently biting down. I arched my back off the mattress, the pressure between my legs so intense.

  “You’re so good, goddamn,” he mumbled against me. “I love the way you move.”

  “Please!” I begged, knowing yet not knowing what exactly it was I needed from him.

  As I lifted my head, he flicked his tongue directly over my clit, so soft the only reason I knew he’d done it was because my clit throbbed harder. The scent of my arousal mixed with the cool alpine traces of his soap permeating the air. Up and down, he changed from feather-light flicks to slow, firm strokes.

  “Ohhh . . . God,” I pleaded. “Don’t stop.”

  “Not a fuckin’ chance.”

  The cadence of his words vibrated down my quivering body, and erased the last of whatever lingering inhibitions I’d been holding onto.

  One finger played at my entrance. He slipped just the tip in and out of me in sync with the rhythm of his tongue.

  I thrust my hips down, needing some part of him inside me. My mind shut off. Nothing else mattered but an acute burn of desire, I’d never before felt. “More . . . I need—more.”

  Before the last word left out of my mouth, he slid his finger deep inside me and took my cleft into his mouth, sucking hard.

  “Oh . . . Jesus, yes!”

  As he stroked inside me, adding another finger, his tongue matched his movements against my clit. My thighs shook harder and he flattened out my legs with his forearms, holding me open to his erotic assault.

  The need to come beat at me with every soft flick of the tip of his tongue. “I—I need.”

  Rising above me a little, he licked my slit from the top to where his fingers worked inside me. “I know what you need.” He rubbed my G-spot a little harder and sucked my clit into his mouth at the same time.

  One hard flick of his tongue, followed by a continual pulsating sucking, and my body detonated. My back flew off the bed and I thrust my hands into his hair, holding him to me as my white ceiling exploded into a colorful medley before me.

  Sliding his fingers out, he wrapped both hands around my thighs and held me down as flames of pleasure singed my overheated body. Everything around me disappeared.

  The breeze from outside cooled my hot skin as I gasped for air. My hips moved in time with his mouth as he brought me down. He licked me in the most sensual way, p
ressing his tongue flat against my clit and running a finger around my saturated opening.

  When my breathing finally evened out, a whole different level of need built within me. The loss of his fingers left me feeling empty. Lost. Aching.

  He lifted up.

  I bolted into a sitting position, wrapping my arms around his waist and burying my head against his chest. The rapid pulse of his heart beat against my cheek. “Please, Jaxxon . . . ”

  A sort of madness sparked through me. I needed skin on skin. I needed to feel his body inside mine. I shrugged out of the arms of his ripped shirt, the remains pooling at my waist. I gripped the edge of his shirt and shoved it up his chest.

  With a chuckle, he lifted one hand behind his head and pulled it off from the back. As soon as it was gone, I wrapped my arms around his neck and yanked him down on top of me, shoving my hands into his thick hair.

  “You’re phenomenal when you come, sugar.” He dropped a hard kiss on my mouth. “Goddamned gorgeous.”

  Running my hands down his sides, I pushed at the elastic of his shorts. I got the material over his ass and he shoved his shorts and boxers the rest of the way down before kneeling between my legs. My brain and body were a complete frenzy, until I heard a crinkling sound and caught the reflection of a small foil square in his hand. “Jaxx . . . Um—”

  “Yeah, baby,” he asked, tearing open the top of the condom.

  I stared at it, not sure what to say, how to ask him if he was . . .

  “Talk, sugar.”

  “I—I’m allergic to latex—but I’m clean. I mean it’s been four years, and I’m checked every year, but I can’t get pregnant and—”

  “Stop, hon.” He grinned down at me and threw the condom on the bed. “I got checked as soon as you ‘needed my body’ for that dinner party,” he teased. “I’m straight.” Leaning over me, he balanced on one hand, and ran a finger over my bottom lip, his eyes locked there. “Bareback will be better for you.” Taking his cock in his hand, he glided the rimmed tip through my slippery lips, up and over my sensitive clit. He was thick, so thick, and so . . . silky.