by Skye Jordan
Her eyes started to close, but Trace ordered, “Eyes on me. I want to see the orgasm slide through your beautiful face just before it rips through your body.”
The climax was so deep, so big, so all consuming, and so slow to come, Avery swore it felt like excruciating moments with her gaze locked with Trace’s. She felt as if he saw all the way inside her soul. She felt exposed and vulnerable. She felt controlled and absolutely owned by the time the peak broke.
Her body convulsed and jerked. The sounds that came from her weren’t anything she’d ever heard before, not in her greatest pleasure or her deepest despair.
And when the peak broke, all her muscles gave and she fell forward. Trace caught her and held her close.
“So fucking amazing,” he murmured in her ear as she shivered down from the peak, sinking into his support, boneless. He kissed her hair. “You’re crazy sexy, baby. You have no idea.”
With her head against his chest, she heard his heart thrumming hard and fast beneath her ear. “Let me do something for you.”
That low, hot laugh tickled her ear again. “Sweetheart, this is as much for me as it is for you.”
She didn’t understand that at all but couldn’t make her mind try to figure it out as he let her rest there, his hands gently stroking her back, her hair, her thighs while she wondered how many showers it would take to get all this juice and sugar off her body.
Then he straightened, chuckling when Avery didn’t try to do the same but just lay against him. “I love the feel of this.” He used both hands to pull her hair off her face and look into her eyes when he asked, “Will you lie on me after I fuck you? Drape yourself over me? Fall asleep there?”
That whole “after I fuck you” twisted something inside her, and she suddenly found strength she didn’t think she had. She tipped her mouth to his and kissed him, so exhausted her mouth was loose and sloppy, and Trace ate it up, licking her, eating her.
When he gave her the chance to breathe, she said, “I’ll do anything you want.”
He stroked her hair, and a new softness came into his eyes, but he just hummed approval, then leaned over the butcher block, easing her onto her back. He stroked his hands up her arms and back down her body, his eyes following, drinking her in, making her feel more beautiful than she’d ever believed she could.
His hands slipped behind her knees, and he lifted her legs to his shoulders. Another flicker of unease sparked in her gut, and she rolled her head to the side and tried to prop herself up on her elbows, but Trace was already threading her fingers with his and pinning them at her hips.
“What are you doing?”
“Preparing for a meal I’ve wanted so long, I could swear I already know your taste.” With his shoulders wedged between her thighs, his gaze scoured her pussy. “And I’m really hungry.”
Her body tensed. She’d barely gotten her mind around what was coming next when words spilled out of her mouth. “W-wait.”
His gaze jumped to hers.
“I . . . I . . .” Holy shit. Look what you’ve gotten yourself into, Avery. Her face burned with embarrassment. Heart pounded with angst. “I don’t know . . .”
“You’ve never had someone go down on you?”
God, the way he phrased things sounded so dirty, and it still shot sparks through her blood. “Uh . . . no.”
He grinned. “You’re in for a treat, sugar. Having my fingers inside you will pale in comparison to having my mouth on you.”
A shiver trembled through her, and she closed her eyes. “Jesus . . .”
The warm brush of air over her pussy made her body tense and her eyes pop open.
“I’m betting my job”—he paused to blow on her again—“you’re going to be writhing against my mouth within thirty seconds.”
Her fingers flexed against his, knowing instinctively he was right.
He lowered his head and kissed her inner thigh and squeezed her hands, then met her gaze again. “You say stop, I stop. Deal?”
Avery dropped her head back with a quiet, “Fuck.”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said, just before his tongue stroked over her pussy.
The warm, wet, softness was so unique, so different, so bizarre, Avery made a little sound of surprise before he licked her again and again and again. And just like that, Avery was arching against the wood. “Holy fuck.”
In less than ten seconds she was using his shoulders as leverage to lift her hips to his mouth.
Her fingers strangled his as she half moaned, half cried, “Trace, Jesus.”
He growled, opened wide, and covered her completely.
Avery choked out a moan, unable to believe she was rubbing her pussy against his mouth. “Fucking crazy.” God, it wasn’t enough, and now that she knew the kind of pleasure he could bring, she was greedy for it. “More, please, God, more.”
He lifted his mouth from her to rasp, “That’s fucking music to my ears, baby.”
He circled his tongue over her entrance, and sensation washed over her sex, her pelvis, deep into her core. “Yes.”
He closed his lips and sucked, shooting an electric current through her, and she shuddered. “Don’t stop. God, that’s so good.” She was fighting a frenzy of lust-laden need. “Ah, God, yes.”
His mouth closed with suction, massaging her gently with a moan of utter bliss.
“God, Trace . . .”
The orgasm hit her like a tidal wave, swift, intense, overwhelming. She tumbled and tumbled, the ecstasy dragging her under. And while she was struggling to find the surface, another wave hit, spinning her head over ass again.
She was still shaking when Trace released one of her hands. She threw her forearm across her face, panting, spinning, floating. “Jesus . . . fucking . . . Christ . . .”
Then Trace was pulling her legs around his waist, dragging her up by the arms and lifting her against his body. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on the best she could. “Where . . . are we . . . going?”
“Shower.” He started out of the kitchen, and Avery lifted her head from his shoulder.
“What shower?”
“I finished the shower in the apartment.”
She pressed her forehead to his temple to stop the spinning. “When did you do that?”
“Yesterday. I’m going to wash all this sticky off and finally get inside you with water spilling over your gorgeous body.”
“Mmm. Love the sound of that.” As he started up the stairs, she released his neck and felt for his jeans. Popped the button, forced the zipper down.
Trace stumbled. “Fuck.” He leaned against the rail. “Don’t do that while I’m trying to get up the stairs, baby.”
“Oh, I’m sorry—does that make it hard to walk?” She lifted her head and grinned at him while stroking a hand inside his boxers and getting a handful of long, thick heat. “Oh,” she laughed the word. “Guess you were saving the best for last?”
He covered her mouth with a groan and a heavy sweep of his tongue before pulling back with a breathless, “Stop it. Let me get you upstairs.”
Now she was having some fun. “Is it hard to think while I’m touching you?” She wiggled out of his arms and pushed more clothes out of the way while Trace settled a death grip on the railing. “How hard do you think it will be to think if I were sucking you?”
A growl rolled out of Trace’s throat. He grabbed her around the waist with his free arm and looked directly into her eyes with a clear and predatory sparkle of dominance. “The first time I come, it’s going to be inside you.”
The ferocity of his tone and the underlying innuendo of ownership in his words ripped away the veil of playfulness. He could tell himself whatever he wanted, but Avery had spent every day around the man for two months, and somewhere between sitting on the kitchen floor and now, this had shifted out of the casual arena. She didn’t fool herself—or scare herself—into thinking that meant whatever this was would last beyond tonight, but it exposed his layers. Layers that o
nly made him more attractive.
To balance his intensity, she kept it light, twisting to loosen his grasp with a teasing, “Maybe you’re not in control anymore, Hutton.” She licked her lip and scraped it between her teeth the same way he had. “Because I’m hungry now.”
When she finally pulled his cock from his jeans and lowered to take him in her mouth, Trace stepped down a stair, wrapped his arm around her waist, and turned her away from him, then trapped her between the banister and his body. His swift movement and sheer strength whipped a thrill through her chest.
With his mouth at her ear, he rasped, “I’m not going to make it to the shower if you put your mouth on me here. And I told you”—he slowed his words, speaking deliberately—“the first time I come, it’s going to be deep inside you.”
Okay, maybe she had tipped back one glass of wine too many, because somehow, she found this little power trip both sexy and amusing.
She leaned her head back against his shoulder, bit his jaw, and used a jaunty little voice filled with attitude to ask, “Does someone have control issues?”
A low growl sounded in the back of his throat and transitioned into, “Fuck it.” He released the banister and reached behind him. “Forget the shower.”
“What? Wait, I want the shower—”
“You’ll get your goddamned shower.” The unique crackle of a foil pouch sounded just before his hips moved away, and he rolled on a condom. Then he gripped her waist and pulled her back against him. His cock rode the curve of her ass, long and thick and hard. “You’ll just get it after I get you.”
He covered her hands and pressed them to the rail, then pulled her hips toward him and used his knee to push one thigh up a stair.
Nerves tangled with excitement. She glanced over her shoulder but didn’t get any words out before his cock stroked along her opening. Her breath froze in her lungs, and her fingers tightened around the rail. She dropped her head back against his shoulder. “Oh, yes.”
Trace stroked both hands down her hips, over her ass cheeks, then one slipped between her legs, stroking her, opening her, and guiding the head of his cock inside her.
The pressure was instant and both alarming and thrilling. He growled near her ear, and the sound in the dark as he penetrated her was the wickedest thrill she’d ever known. Her body sang with sensation, with excitement, with lust. Avery lifted her ass and opened her thighs wider.
“Mmmm, that’s my girl; make room for me.”
That rough voice rippled through her gut, like a stone in a pond. And as he inched his way inside her, insanely patient as he met resistance, his kisses and whispers tightened her chest with something more than sweetness. In the dark, trapped against the stair railing with this mouthwatering man working his cock inside her from behind, this moment overwhelmed Avery with a sense of possession. Of ownership. Of precious, gentle, but demanding domination.
And as much as her mind rejected the idea, her body responded to the carnality. To Trace’s self-confidence. To his physical and emotional power. Even to his control. He was only halfway inside her, and she was shaking with the effort to hold back another orgasm.
He kissed her neck. “Fuck, you feel so good.” Bit her shoulder. “So tight. So hot.”
She whimpered his name. “Trace . . .”
“Right here, baby.”
He wrapped one arm around her waist, slid his hand between her legs, and started those movements that made her push her hips into the pressure.
“Trace, don’t.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m going to come again.”
“Yes,” he hissed in approval. “Perfect.”
“I want to wait.” But he already had her on the edge of climax again, making her wonder where in the hell this body had come from. “I want to come with you.”
“You will.” His breath was quick and hot on her shoulder. “Right now I need you slick and juicy so I can push deep.”
The indirect pressure circling her clit was maddening. Her sex opened and took him deeper.
“That’s it,” he murmured.
The pressure brought the orgasm closer, and she opened more, took him a little deeper. The excruciating cycle of pleasure continued with his rough voice against her skin.
“Take all of me, baby.”
The visuals that flashed in her head with his words pushed her to the peak. The orgasm rushed in on a swift upstroke. Avery cried out as her back arched, pushing Trace deeper. She shuddered through another wave of ecstasy, and when her slick walls released, Trace thrust deep with a grunt of supreme satisfaction joining her moan.
Her breath stuttered in and out of her lungs. Her fingernails bit into the wood banister. And, thankfully, Trace remained perfectly still.
“Sweet Jesus,” he rasped between pants against her neck. “Never felt anything . . . so fucking perfect.”
His hands roamed her body again, his mouth kissing her shoulders, her neck, her temple. “Tell me when you’re ready, baby. Once I start moving inside you, I won’t last long. Just too fucking good.”
She took a deep breath and blew it out, then rocked her hips away and pushed back into him. The movement brought pleasure beyond description. Pleasure she couldn’t quite comprehend. His thickness and length seemed to spark sensations everywhere. The pressure spilled a foreign kind of pleasure through her body and tightened her throat.
Trace bit into her shoulder just enough to pinch. “Do it again.”
She tilted forward and added force when she pushed back. The head of his cock hit something inside her that was like a pleasure-release button, and sensation washed through her hips. “Ah . . . God . . .”
“Good?” he asked.
“So good.”
With a long, low moan—part relief, part need—he wrapped his arms around her, one at her hips, one at her breasts, and whispered, “Fuck me, Avery.”
That dark, feral tone shivered over her, and what started as a slow, careful rhythm quickly escalated into a frenzy of pounding hips, slapping flesh, heavy breathing, and moans of pleasure.
“Trace . . .” Exhausted, she paused, even though her body screamed for the orgasm he promised.
But Trace wasn’t having it. He tightened the arm at her hips, picked up the rhythm, and added power. Three perfectly placed thrusts, and Avery shattered. Her body shivered so hard, her hip muscle cramped. The pain blended with the pleasure to intensify the orgasm, while the strength of Trace’s last few thrusts slammed Avery against the banister.
The tremble of his strong body against hers, the guttural sounds of pleasure vibrating through his chest and into her back were the most intense, most beautiful, most real things Avery had ever experienced.
Trace grabbed the banister with both hands, his body wavering in the wake of his release. His hot breath bathed her back, and his sweaty forehead dripped on her shoulder.
An inexplicable smile spread across her face and filled her chest. So many emotions, past and present, combined to sting her eyes with tears again. Happy tears. Deeply satisfied tears. Life-altering tears.
“Holy fuck, girl,” he finally whispered, breathless. “That was wild.”
Avery laughed, curved an arm around the back of his neck, and pulled his head down for a kiss. The meeting of their mouths was solid and warm and lingering.
When she finally pulled out of the kiss, Trace eased from her body. Then, instead of taking the perfect opportunity to break away and disappear into the bathroom, he wrapped his arms around her and pressed his face to her neck. There he sighed, long and satisfied. Then just held her.
A torrent of emotions eddied inside her. Avery didn’t know how to feel or what to think. Considering this was supposedly nothing but a hookup, or whatever people called casual sex nowadays, this affection wasn’t how she’d envisioned the end of their tryst. And when all she’d ever known was a man who rolled over and fell asleep before Avery had even come close to finding satisfaction, she wasn’t sure what to do with this kind of emotion.
&nbs
p; To stem her automatic instinct to grab on and hold as tight as she could, Avery stroked a hand along his arm and tried for a light, “Somehow, even at twenty-five, I feel confident saying that I already know nothing in my future will ever top that.”
He chuckled, then pressed his lips to her neck and let the kiss linger, in no hurry to escape her. The gesture was so sweet, and her need to be wanted so strong, she closed her eyes against a hard squeeze in her chest.
Trace finally lifted his head and whispered, “Hold off on that premonition, sugar. We’ve still got all night.”
SIX
Trace floated from sleep to distant sounds he didn’t recognize. His body felt heavy, and fatigue held his eyes closed as his mind drifted. The delicious scent of yeast, cinnamon, and vanilla filled his head. Warm, loving smells he would forever associate with morning and Avery and the café.
He didn’t hear his dad talking to himself, which meant his father was still asleep. And that meant Trace could relax a little longer. A pinch in his shoulder had him shifting to find comfort. Instead he found confusion. He wasn’t in his bed. He wasn’t in a bed at all.
Trace forced his eyes open and sat up, propping himself up with his hands behind him. He squinted at the light spilling in the big window to his left, filling the small apartment above Wild Harts café with bright morning light.
“What . . . ?”
His memory returned instantly, and a hit of panic struck his chest. He scanned the small room for Avery but found no sign she’d ever been there except a second pillow beside Trace’s. They’d fallen asleep in the early-morning hours on the thin foam pad she’d laid down weeks ago for her late nights baking downstairs.
A flood of emotions rushed in—excitement, apprehension, confusion. Regret. Hope.
“Jesus.” He ran a hand through his hair and searched the floor for his phone. Scooping it up he squinted at the time. 7:00 a.m.? “Holy fuck.”
He’d also missed a few calls—one from his brother, one from his grandmother, and one from JT.
First things first: he dialed his grandmother. As he listened to the phone ring, Trace threw off the white sheet covering his legs, rolled to his knees, and groaned at the delicious aches and pains all through his body. He hadn’t fucked that hard or that long since he’d been a damn kid, and he was feeling every one of his thirty-three years right now. Of course, the twenty-five-year-old he’d fucked all night was already up and downstairs working.
