by Skye Jordan
He was breathing hard as he ran his tongue over his lips with a hum of pleasure. “God, I love the way you taste.” He turned his head and kissed a path along her thigh from her knee toward her sex. “I love the way you moan.” Instead of lavishing attention on her pussy again, he turned his head the other way and kissed the opposite leg from her knee to her sex. “I love the way you lift into my mouth, like you crave the feel of my tongue.” He blew on her, hot and soft, and Avery felt her sex open, felt wetness slide inside her.
With one hand fisted in the sheets, the other in his hair, she propped herself up on an elbow. “Don’t tease me, Trace. I need you.”
Trace pushed to his feet, then eased over her, laying his body on hers. She smiled as she sank into the mattress, then laughed as he rolled to his back, taking her with him. She sat up, straddling his hips, and reached for the waistband of his jeans. But her hair fell into her eyes, and when she lifted a hand to push it out of the way, Trace gripped her waist and lifted her until her thighs flanked his shoulders.
“Show me how badly you need me,” he said, his tone demanding as he gripped her hips and pulled her pussy straight to his open mouth.
Avery gasped at the sensation rocketing through her sex, and she bowed backward. “Oh my God . . .”
Her fingers curled around his wrists, holding on as he ate at her pussy the same way he ate at her mouth, creating a frenzy of shock waves through her body.
“Trace, Trace, Trace . . .” She had no idea why she kept repeating his name, but it tumbled out of her mouth among moans and mewls of ecstasy. Her orgasm rushed forward, and she couldn’t keep her body still. She had to move, had to rock to meet Trace’s mouth until they found the most insanely perfect grind. She’d never felt anything so wickedly good in her entire life. “God . . . Trace—”
The orgasm peaked, shuddering through her like an earthquake. She cried out while Trace kept licking and kissing and sucking two more mini-quakes from her.
“Oh my God . . .” She fell forward and rolled to her side, muscles limp, vision blurred.
Trace pushed her to her back and lay half on top of her, half on the bed. He pressed his face between her chin and her shoulder and kissed her there with a rough, “You blow my mind.”
Avery was breathing hard, her head filled with shards of light. She was pretty sure he was the one who’d blown her mind, but she couldn’t get the words out. His mouth traveled lazily over her shoulder before he tilted her face toward him and covered her mouth with his.
But this time his kiss was languid and deep, and even though the rigid, denim-clad line of his cock pressed hard against her thigh, he just sank into the kiss as if he weren’t dying to be exactly where Avery had just come from.
Still floating, she slid one hand over his shoulder, down his arm, his chest, then wedged it between them so she could stroke him. He was so thick and hard, and the way his needy sound rolled from deep in his chest sparked something elemental inside Avery.
But just as she closed her fingers on the tab to his zipper, Trace closed his hand over hers, threaded their fingers, and pressed their joined hands to the bed alongside her head. “Uh-uh,” he murmured, soft and quiet. “Not yet. I just want to be for a while.”
She let her other hand sift through his thick hair. “Be?”
He turned his head and rested it against her chest, his ear over her heart. “Be. Just . . . be. With you.” He made an inpatient sound in his throat and repositioned his thigh so that his cock wasn’t rubbing against her leg. “I want to touch you. I want to taste you. I want to inhale you. I want to crawl under your skin and nest.”
Avery laughed. “You’re already there, handsome.” She sighed. “Already there.”
They fell into silence. Silence while their breathing returned to normal. Silence while they touched each other. Silence while they lay skin to skin. A comfortable silence. A sweet silence.
“Are you getting up at four again tomorrow?” he finally asked, kissing a path between her breasts.
“Unless I’m given incentive to stay in bed.”
He rolled to his hands and knees and hovered over her, grinning with that sexy little glint in his eye. “I might have the knowledge and the equipment necessary to provide such incentive.”
She slid her free hand down his body and stroked his erection. “I know for a fact you have both.”
He kissed her again, but it was still filled with sweetness and affection, not the passion and lust she was accustomed to, and she had to admit, that threw her off a little.
Pulling back, he broke the kiss and searched her eyes with a serious expression. Thoughts were churning in his head; Avery could see them getting batted back and forth in his eyes.
She lifted her free hand to his face. “What?”
“I just . . .” He gave a little shake of his head, then murmured in a voice that seemed more for himself than for Avery, “How in the hell did he let you go?”
Her stomach floated to her throat, and her chest squeezed. Yeah, she was in deep shit with this man. She really needed to check her emotions.
“We were young.” She shrugged. “Stupid. He was fulfilling his family duty to continue the military lines of his father, grandfather, great-grandfather. I was running away from turmoil and loneliness. We weren’t exactly thinking straight.”
He eased his lower body onto hers, twining their legs. “And then?”
“And then?” she repeated, her mind lost in ways to get him out of his jeans.
“You ran away, he joined the military . . . and then . . . ?”
She laughed. “Sounds like we ran away and joined the circus, which I guess would be an accurate description of our life a lot of the time—jumping through hoops, pretending I was someone I wasn’t, feeling like every day was high-wire act, with me waiting for that inevitable day someone showed up at my door to tell me my husband died performing unfathomable acts of folly . . . or, in his case, heroism.”
Her stomach clenched at the thought, far more of a conditioned response than a current emotion. She shook off those old fears. They didn’t belong to her anymore. They belonged to his fiancée now. And, in all honesty, Avery had a steadfast better-her-than-me attitude about David’s marriage. The failure of their own still ate at her. His betrayal still stung. But she didn’t want that life back. And she didn’t want David back either.
“He was deployed to Syria for his first tour and came back a very different man. We worked at reconnecting, went to counseling, but . . . Like I said, we were young. He didn’t understand my life; I didn’t understand his. He sucked at talking about it; I sucked at asking the right questions, giving him space, understanding his moods. And when we couldn’t bridge the gap, he started taking longer tours, which pushed a deeper wedge between us. He’d come home for a month or two even more distant, more complicated. We’d grow that much further apart. It was a lousy downward spiral.”
Trace pulled a pillow under her head, pressed a hand to her chest, and rested his chin there. “Why didn’t you leave sooner?”
“Because we were married,” she said with a what-kind-of-question-is-that laugh. “I didn’t get married just to hang around for the good stuff. I was in it until death did we part. I went into it committed five hundred percent.” She shrugged. “But you can’t force someone to love you enough to stay and fight.”
“You stayed and fought for eight years?”
“Eight very long, very painful, very lonely years.”
“I’m sorry.” His thumb skimmed her cheek, his gaze distant. “I can understand why you’re not interested in commitment.”
“What about you?” she asked. “Delaney said you were engaged once.”
His lips kicked up on one side, but the smile wasn’t humorous or even sweetly melancholy. It was jaded. Very jaded. “Yeah, well, my fiancée was about as committed as your husband. The second a whiff of trouble came my way, she bailed.”
Avery offered a sympathetic hum. She and Trace were kindred spi
rits in a lot of hidden ways. “Because of prison?”
“Well before that fully played out. She didn’t wait to hear whether or not I received a prison sentence.” His lips tightened and his brow pulled, creating a V of wrinkles between his beautiful, bright eyes. “About prison . . .” His gaze lifted to hers. “Is there anything you want to ask me?”
“That’s sort of a strange question.” Concern pulled at her lingering euphoria, and she pushed a hand through his hair and scratched the back of his neck the way he liked.
“You’ve never asked, and everyone’s curious. Most more in a morbid way than a hey-what-was-that-like way. Sort of like they’re looking for that shadow it left on my soul.” His gaze held hers pointedly. “Do you wonder?”
“I know we didn’t meet that long ago, and our pasts have been very different, but in a lot of ways I know you better now than I ever knew David. I feel like we understand each other. Like we’re on the same page. So, no, I don’t wonder.”
The lines around his mouth and etched into his forehead faded, and he seemed to breathe easier. And the look in his eyes . . . It made it hard to breathe. A soft, deeply affectionate, foundation-altering look she’d once seen in David’s eyes so very long ago, back when he’d still loved her.
“You’re so”—he shook his head—“so, I don’t know, wise or something. So mature for your age. Every twenty-five-year-old woman I know is worried about her nail polish and wants to talk about shopping.”
Avery laughed, long and hard. “You make it sound downright revolting. Those are important things to most normal twenty-five-year-old women. I’m not normal. I had to grow up fast when my mom left and my dad got lost in a bottle. Then Delaney took the low road out of town. And getting married sure didn’t solve anything. I ended up taking care of everything while David was gone—the bills, the house.” She sighed. “I think I skipped from sixteen to thirty.”
She threaded both hands into his hair and smiled. “Why are we talking about this crap when I could show you what I learned on the Internet?” She lifted her feet to his hips and tried to push his jeans down. “But you have to get out of these first.”
“Internet?” he asked with a laugh. “Were you surfing porn when you should have been making truffles?”
“I wasn’t surfing porn.” Her tone came out appropriately chastising. “It was soft porn. And it was for educational purposes.”
That made Trace burst out laughing. He wrapped his arms around her and rolled to his back. With his knees bent, clasping Avery’s hips between his, he said, “Don’t you worry, Cupcake—I’m going to want to experience every single thing you found interesting.” He pushed a piece of her hair behind her ear, and the sweet move softened her heart a little more. “But I get so little time with you alone; I want to just soak you in. Besides, I haven’t figured out what makes you tick yet.”
She stroked his jaw. “Well, when you figure it out, let me know. In the meantime . . .” She wiggled out of his vise and scooted down until she could reach his waistband, where she finished unfastening his pants. “I have some playtime on my mind.”
THIRTEEN
Trace closed his hands around hers before she managed to free his cock. He wanted her mouth around him in the worst way. Wanted to watch her watch him for cues as she practiced technique and went all out to please him.
Just the thought spread fire through his body. But first things first.
He sat up, sliding her off the bed and to her feet at the same time. Grabbing her waist, he lifted her against him and started for the bathroom.
She wrapped her legs around his hips, her arms around his neck, and looked at him with a quirky, confused little grin. “What are you doing?”
“Jumping in the shower. I’ve been working all day.” He set her feet on the ground by the tub and kept his arm wrapped around her waist as he reached down to turn on the water. Then he turned back to her, brushed her hair off her face with both hands, and cupped her jaw. “And I love seeing your gorgeous body all wet.”
She got that soft look in her eyes, the one that pinched his gut in the sweetest way; then she turned her head and kissed his palm. The same deep, pulling sensation he’d felt at the door that had kept him from leaving twisted inside him now, sweeter, stronger, more intense.
He dragged her mouth to his and kissed her with desire that doubled and tripled with each encounter. And like always, she opened to him, heart and soul. He could feel it. Feel the difference between what was happening with them and what had happened with other women.
Avery’s hands stroked down his sides and around to his ass. After a quick squeeze, she pulled his wallet from the pocket, set it on the sink behind him, and returned to their kiss as she slipped her hands to the front and worked his pants open.
She had a unique way of making his mind blur. He could completely let go with her in a way he couldn’t with other women. With Avery, he could just let things happen. He didn’t have to control the situation, didn’t have to orchestrate, didn’t have to plan his exit strategy before they’d even gotten fully naked.
Because he didn’t want to leave her.
And he didn’t want her leaving him either.
A warning bell went off somewhere in the back of his mind. One his instincts told him to heed. But Avery pulled out of the kiss, pushed his jeans off his hips and down his legs. And before the denim had even hit the floor, her hands moved on his cock, stroking and tugging and squeezing.
A lightning strike of pleasure bolted through his shaft, his balls. He groaned at the pressure gathering at the base of his spine as he stepped out of his jeans.
Fuck the warning bell.
He turned Avery toward the shower, holding her arms to steady her as she stepped over the tub edge. Then he followed her in where he wrapped her tight from behind, pulling her close and burying his face against her neck.
Heaven.
All her warm, soft flesh up against him made him groan. Made his hands roam as the hot water bathed their bodies, caressing her flat belly, her trim waist, up her ribs, pausing to cup and squeeze her breasts.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured against her neck, kissing her there, then letting his hands slide down her body again. He wanted her so badly, he felt like he wanted to slide under her skin. But he wanted more than their wild and passionate sex. He wanted more of Avery. So he slowed down. Way down.
He purposely explored her body with his fingertips, stroking every curve, every dip, every swell. He cupped her ass and parted her cheeks, snuggling the length of his cock between the soft mounds. The billowy pressure automatically forced his hips forward, and he slid easily along her hot, wet skin.
Avery’s moan coincided with his as she arched her back, forcing her ass back to meet his thrust. The delicious pressure spilled through him, and Trace growled, wrapping one arm low on her hips. Avery twisted enough to pull his head down, treating him to a searing, wet, hungry, openmouthed mating of tongues.
He groped for the liquid soap on a ledge, pulling out of the kiss to pour a generous amount in his palm, rub his hands together, and slide them down the front of Avery’s body.
But she wasn’t interested in getting clean or being pampered. Her blue eyes glinted with a determined and devilish spark as she slowly lowered to her knees. She scooped some body wash from his hand, rubbed it between hers then closed all ten fingers around his cock and slowly stroked base to tip.
Sensation exploded through his hips and up his spine. He clenched his teeth around a curse, planted one hand against the tile to keep his balance. “Fuck, Avery . . .”
Her smile grew. Turned even hotter. And she lowered her gaze to his cock, just inches from her nose where she stroked and squeezed, varying touch, strength, and technique. Just when he thought it could get no better, she let one hand dip to his balls and rubbed. The other continued to work his cock until the fingers of his free hand were in her hair and his body trembled.
“God damn . . .” he growled through clen
ched teeth. He wanted to tell her to stop while hoping she’d never stop. Then Avery’s hands slipped from his body, leaving Trace throbbing, dizzy, and more than a little on the wild side.
She leaned sideways, allowing the water to rinse his body, then grinned up at him. “I think you’re plenty clean now.” Her gaze lowered to his cock as if assessing. “You make me so hungry.”
Before Trace could catch his breath, Avery had his cock in her mouth, and the first stroke of her tongue over his head shot a jolt of exquisite current through his whole body, making him jerk. She slowly slid him deep, and opened her throat to tuck his head into the tight space. The combination of heat, wetness, pressure, not to mention the sight of her on her knees with his cock down her throat, had to be the most delirious thrill ever.
But it wasn’t enough.
He combed his fingers through her hair and said, “Suck, baby.”
Her lashes fluttered, and her eyes met his. Her mouth closed around his cock with gentle suction, and the tantalizing sensation stole his breath. Made his mouth drop open. Made an animalistic sound grind from his chest. His eyes fell closed, but he forced them open to watch the sexiest sight ever—Avery watching him, watching her, suck his cock.
“Fuck that’s so good,” he rasped, rocking his hips back and dragging his length from the heat of her mouth.
Avery immediately understood his need. She closed her eyes, gripped his ass with one hand, and pulled him into her, taking his cock all the way to the base, then adding suction as she moved back.
“Goddamn.” His voice was as raw as his need. And as Avery went to work with the same single-minded determination she gave everything that mattered to her, Trace cupped her head with both hands, blown away by the way she used her mouth to bring him pleasure. His fingers clenched and released as his excitement mounted, tangling in her hair.
Her low moan of pleasure rumbled over him and made him realize just how close to the end of his control he’d slipped.
