by Ava McKnight
He chuckled. “A guy can hope, can’t he?”
“So can a girl,” I conceded. Because I really and truly hoped we were onto something here.
I brushed my fingers over his cheek and up his temple, then wove them through his lush hair. Mike’s eyes darkened in color and his expression changed from playful to serious.
He said, “I really, really want you, Lace.”
His hands gripped my waist as he leaned in for a kiss. Then they inched upward until he palmed my breasts, giving the bare mounds a gentle squeeze before his thumbs swept over my hard nipples.
When our kiss ended, I reached for a condom and tore the packet open. I had him sheathed in a heartbeat, and then I said, “Let’s do this. Let’s really do it.”
I knew he’d understand that I was finally going for it. Finally taking that leap of faith. Rather than just asking him to fuck me, as I’d done the past few nights, but telling him I wanted this to mean something. This had the potential to be so much more than scratching an itch, if we both gave ourselves over to the feelings we shared. It could be more than two people hot for each other getting it on. It could be what I’d waited my entire adult lifetime for…and something Mike seemed to have waited for too.
One of his hands cupped my cheek, his thumb slowly brushing back and forth. “I am so crazy about you.”
“Ditto.”
With a slight nod, he leaned forward and kissed me. His tongue tangled with mine, teasing me and heightening my arousal. While my body went up in flames over his searing kiss, he lifted one of my legs and pressed the back of my thigh against his bare chest. He wrapped an arm around me at the waist as the head of his cock nudged my opening.
I was, of course, deliriously happy to be on the verge of having sex after three years. But thinking of it, instead, in Mike’s terms, I was thrilled beyond belief he was the one about to make love to me.
With his other hand on my breast, caressing the mound, he pushed halfway into me. I tore my mouth from his as the erotic sensations shot through me.
“Oh God.” My head fell back for a second and my eyes closed as I processed how wonderful it felt to finally have that void inside me filled. But then I remembered what he’d said about making love with the lights on and our eyes open and I returned my gaze to him.
His jaw was set in a hard line, not in his usual contemplative or agitated way, but in a sexy way that told me he was having a hell of a time holding back.
“I want to feel every inch of you,” I told him. “Deep inside me.”
He groaned. His lips grazed my temple and then my cheek as he slowly moved inside me, pushing farther as our hips rocked to the same sensual tempo. He kissed me again and I twined my fingers with strands of his silky hair.
I understood why the back of my knee was draped over his shoulder, my thigh between us. He was magnificently built in all areas. He wasn’t even fully buried in my cunt, but he was already stretching and filling me in a way neither Chase nor Brandon ever had. In fact, even with his restraint, Mike felt like nothing I’d ever experienced before.
I broke our kiss and simply said, “More.”
A low grunt fell from his lips. He thrust deeply and I nearly screamed.
“Yes,” I said on a sharp breath.
His strokes were long and full, hitting all the right spots while we still moved together in a slow, sultry rhythm. His lips eased over my neck, his tongue teasing, his teeth gently nipping. Then his mouth replaced his hand on my breast and he suckled my hard nipple.
I was drowning in sexual bliss. Swept away by how sweet and sexily he made love to me. It was provocative and engaging. Heated and passionate, yet quietly titillating as he lifted his head from my breast and stared deep into my eyes.
He didn’t need to say a word. I knew I was tight and wet. I could feel that for myself. I knew he was as turned-on as I was. I could see it in his dark and hypnotic gaze. I didn’t need any sort of reassurance or any dirty talk to know we were perfect together.
And it didn’t take long for me to reach that beautiful pinnacle of desire.
His confident strokes pushed me higher and higher until my breath caught, and then every sensation inside me collided and exploded in the most spectacular way. My mouth gaped and my eyes remained locked with his. There really wasn’t anything I could say at that moment, because a dozen emotions seeped through my veins, warming my heart as my pussy milked his cock. I couldn’t sift through them all, though I knew Mike inside me was the most amazing feeling in the world. I was beyond euphoric. I was in heaven.
The vibrancy he sparked in my soul was equally stirring. The combination was unsurpassable.
I wrapped my arms around his neck. He released my thigh and sank fully into me, a strained sound escaping his mouth.
“Michael,” I whispered against his neck, making my point the way he always did when he called me Lacey instead of Lace.
I gripped his hips with my legs and reveled in the feeling of him, pumping steadily, sensuously. He held me in a tight embrace, my breasts pressed to his chest.
“Nothing is better than feeling you come with my cock inside you, sweetheart.”
I shivered. “What about you coming inside me? I want to feel that.”
He groaned. “I am so close. You are so incredible.”
Squeezing him tight with my inner muscles, I said, “Let go. I want to feel your body tremble and hear you call my name.”
Our bodies continued to move together, with a slightly faster pace. I lifted my head from his shoulder and we gazed at each other again.
His sculpted face reflected the tension building within him. Passion and adoration flashed in his eyes. I swept back a lock of unruly black hair from his forehead and then pressed my palm against the side of his face. Our breathing had escalated, but was perfectly in-sync.
“Come,” I murmured. “With me.”
He kissed me. It was possessive and lustful and electric.
When he broke the kiss, he held me even more firmly and whispered, “Lace. You are everything to me.”
And then his body convulsed and I felt his cock surge and pulse deep within me as he erupted. The sensation was so powerful, another orgasm rippled through me. Intense, yet strangely languorous. As if my body, heart and soul had just reconciled something significant and wanted me to savor it.
I did. Though in the back of my head, Mike’s words repeated over and over again.
Chapter Ten
It Wasn’t Me. I Swear.
Mike withdrew slowly from me, sending a flurry of sensation through me again. I laughed. He crooked a brow at me.
“Something amuses you?”
With a smile I knew was giddy—because I truly was deliriously happy—I said, “Every little touch makes me shiver with delight.”
The brow dropped. “Oh. That’s better.”
I kissed him and then told him, “You were so right about this. I felt things I’ve never felt before. Intensely erotic and emotional things… Jesus. That was sensational.”
He scooped me up in his arms, lifting me off the table, but not before I snatched the other condom from it.
Mike carried me into my bedroom and set me on my mattress. Then he disappeared into the bathroom as I dropped the foil packet on my nightstand. I settled under the covers, pulling back the ones on the opposite side for him.
When he returned and slipped between the sheets, I was all over him. I couldn’t help myself.
Rolling on top of him, I left kisses all over his hunky chest and abs and then kissed his lips. Staring down at him, I said, “You may be a first-timer with this making love stuff, but you’re an instant A-plus.”
His big hands plowed through my hair, pushing the strands away from my face and off my shoulders. He wore a serious expression as he asked, “What about that thing I said?”
My stomach flipped. My heart fluttered. “What girl wouldn’t want to hear that from a guy like you?”
He let out a long breath. “I didn’t mean to lay that on
you, Lace.”
My fluttering heart stammered. “So you didn’t mean it?”
One corner of his mouth lifted. “Oh I meant it. And I’m not taking it back. I just…wasn’t intentionally trying to overwhelm you.”
I folded my forearms on top of his wide chest and rested my chin on the back of one of my wrists, still gazing at him. I was sprawled across his massive torso, our legs tangled together in the sheets.
“I am a little shocked,” I admitted. “But not wigging out. Well, yeah, maybe a little bit. But I’m too excited about how spectacular we are together to overanalyze what you said.”
It was like his use of the “L” word in the note he’d written me. I’d had to consider the true intent of it and had quickly realized it was a common sign-off he’d felt comfortable enough with me to use. I thought the same of him telling me I was everything to him. He’d been in the throes of passion, after all. And we’d both been amped up because of the emotional aspect of our lovemaking. So I knew to take it with a grain of salt.
I said, “Don’t worry about it, really. It’s all good.”
Honestly, I was flying too high from a brilliant sexual release and a visceral connection I’d never achieved before that I wasn’t going to hold him to anything he said while he came inside me.
Nor was I done with him for the evening. We still had another condom.
I pushed myself up and straddled his lap, forcing him to release my hair. The long locks fell over my shoulders and cascaded down my back.
Mike sucked in a breath as his hands clasped my hips. “Damn, you are seriously beautiful.”
I smiled down at him. “Enough to arouse you again?”
He sat up suddenly and snaked his arms around my waist. “And again and again and again…”
“Oh good. Because the floodgates are open. And you feel ridiculously good inside me.”
He kissed me, the depth of his emotion evident. He made me feel free to share all the things I’d kept bottled inside me. He made me feel free to share true intimacy with him.
He eased back against to the mountain of pillows propped along my headboard, bringing me with him. Then he rolled over, pinning me under his hard body. His hands roamed every inch of me and his mouth followed suit. My flesh quivered everywhere he touched me and I was wet in a heartbeat. His fingers grazed my pussy lips, rubbing languidly back and forth. I was restless as my hips lifted, silently demanding more.
Of course, he didn’t disappoint. He pressed the pads of two fingers against my clit and massaged it in his leisurely way. He was so good at the slow build. Liquid fire crept through my veins as my heart picked up a few extra, erratic beats.
The fingers on the swollen knot of nerves between my legs slid into my pussy, jolting my body. I gasped as fire roared through me. His thumb rubbed my clit, a bit more aggressively now, as his fingers pumped in and out of me.
At the same time, his tongue flicked my pebbled nipple, then the other. As he sucked the tight peak into his mouth, his teeth lightly scraping it, I let out a small cry.
My back arched, offering him more. My pelvis rolled, my hips undulated. Greedy of me, but I couldn’t get enough of him.
I ran my hands over his rigid biceps, up to his broad shoulders and then down his wide chest, my fingernails scraping his nipples and making him groan. One of my hands slid around to his back, and then lower to his ass. I cupped a cheek and squeezed. In turn, his fingers in my pussy plunged deep, pulled almost all the way out and then plunged again. Quick and determined.
On a ragged breath, I told him, “I’m going to come.”
“All over my fingers. Do it.” His tone was dark, his voice strained.
He worked me faster, harder. And then everything inside me swelled and burst and I called out his name.
Apparently he was pretty hot for me, because he was already hard and reaching for the condom while I was still gasping for air. He had the latex rolled down his thick shaft in seconds and then he thrust into me, burying himself deep.
I loved it. He lifted my leg and slung it over his hips. His mouth was on my throat, kissing and suckling and driving me wild.
He whispered against my skin, “You feel so damn good, Lace. So wet and tight.”
My inner walls contracted around his cock and he groaned. Seemingly spurred on, his hips bucked as he thrust into me. He had to feel the sexual frenzy as strongly as I did. Our bodies moved together as he fucked me hard.
“Whoa,” I suddenly said, a disconcerting thought popping into my head. I put a hand on his chest and gave a little shove. “Hey. You’re not doing this right.”
Against my throat, he muttered, “Do you want me to stop?”
Oh hell, no. But…
“Look at me,” I insisted as he continued to hammer into me. I was close to coming. So close it was a wonder I could think coherently. “Michael,” I said in a stern tone.
He shook his head. “I can’t, Lace. Just come with me.”
“Not like this.” Though how I could have possibly said such a thing was beyond me. He might be breaking the rules, but he was damn good at it.
“I can’t look at you,” he said on a rough breath. “Jesus, Lacey. I want you so much.”
Hard to argue against that point. Or the way his hand slid around to my backside and his fingers rubbed the cleft, then homed in on that forbidden spot that sent electrical currents through my body.
“Mike.” I moaned. I had no idea what had happened with him, but I could no longer hold on to my thoughts. “Yes,” I ground out as he hit all the right spots again. “Oh God, yes. Fuck me.”
He did. And we both came in an explosion of grunts and groans and heavy breaths.
I clung to him as the vibrations coursed through my body. Bright lights flashed behind my closed lids, lightning bolts zapping my insides.
“Oh Christ,” I squeaked out.
His face was buried in the crook of my neck and he said, “Don’t be pissed. But I’m in love with you, Lacey.”
Chapter Eleven
Remember That Sticky Web of Seduction I Mentioned a While Back?
I continued to hold Mike to me, though my mind whirled. Myriad emotions crashed over me. Some of them good. Some…not so much.
When I got my breathing under control, I shoved him away. He withdrew from me and flopped onto his back, staring up at the ceiling.
Sitting, I glared at him. “You tried to keep that from me.”
“Yeah.” He was still dragging in sharp breaths of air. “I knew I was feeling it before tonight, but when we were together in the foyer… I only barely managed to tamp it down.”
“So you thought if you fucked me instead, you could keep from saying it?”
He let out a hollow laugh. “I knew if I made love to you again, I’d blurt it out. Turns out, it doesn’t matter how we get it on. I still feel the same.”
My heart melted. I said, “Wow. That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
He groaned. “I’m not good with romantic, flowery sentiments. You should know this about me already.”
“I don’t know. It was eloquent enough to give me butterflies.”
His head rolled on the pillow and he stared at me. “You’re not going to yell?”
I shook my head. “As twisted as it is, I get it. You tried to stave off some of the emotion by hammering into me. But geez, Mike. We’re explosive together no matter how we do it.”
His jaw clenched. Then he sat up and threw his legs over the edge of the mattress. He raked a hand through his dark, tousled hair and stood.
As he stalked into my bathroom, I frowned. He was miffed.
Okay, I realized I hadn’t returned the sentiment, but he had to know I wasn’t ready to. Despite having some very intense feelings for him, I wasn’t at the point where I could digest or give into the ultimate feeling. At the same time, I didn’t mind that he’d said it.
But something told me that wasn’t what had him agitated. I had a feeling it had more t
o do with the fact he’d insisted we wait until we were ready to make love and then he’d gone and reneged on the grand plan by fucking me.
When he came back to bed, he settled in beside me, but didn’t say anything further.
I snuggled close and rested my head on his chest as he draped an arm over my shoulders.
I said, “First of all, it’s apparent that any way we want to have sex is the right way for us. Second, you’re more upset about telling me you love me than I am about hearing it. Isn’t that backward?”
His sexy grunt filled the quiet room. “I told you I didn’t want to push too hard too fast.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not letting you take this one back either. I appreciate that you’re being so open with me. I want to be the same way. I just need time to…assimilate, remember? Get a grip, you know?”
“I’m not purposely rushing things between us, Lace. I swear.” He let out another half-laugh that held no humor. “Yet that’s exactly what I’m doing.”
I was quiet a moment, then asked, “Do you think it was just the sex? I mean, apparently I seem to inspire professions of love when I’m in the bedroom.” Which, of course, was a dismal realization on so many levels, since those professions had never translated to real love. I would hate for that to be the case with Mike.
He was quick to say, “It wasn’t the sex. You’re damn good, make no mistake. But I told you, I was feeling it before you stared into my eyes and came. I was feeling it before you held me close and called me Michael. I was feeling it before you squeezed me tight and sent me over the edge. I just hadn’t embraced it until all of those things happened.”
“Huh.”
With a sigh, he suggested, “Why don’t we ignore it for now?”
I considered this. Probably the most sensible thing to do. I didn’t want him thinking the significant sentiment or saying it when I hadn’t reciprocated. At the same time… I was twenty shades of sheer giddiness over his admission.
But I wanted to be fair. So I told him, “Maybe we should sleep on it.”
He chuckled. This time it didn’t sound tormented. “That’s a very good idea.”
