The end of that sentence depended on what “things” he was referring to, but one word seemed to fit most of what was going on around us right now. “Intense?”
“To say the least,” he agreed. “I guess I…” Another pause, and then he seemed to brace himself, though he didn’t move away for me. “I need to know that I didn’t…push you, last night.” He cleared his throat. “Here.”
I considered that a moment, trying to make the connections he was implying, but it wasn’t until his grip on my chin tightened the slightest bit that what he meant clicked in my head. “Do you think you forced me last night?”
“I didn’t think so at the time,” he said. “I mean, pressed you a bit, yes. But how I perceived it and how you did aren’t necessarily the same.”
He was worried that he’d forced himself on me. The thought actually blew my mind. “Were you forceful? Yes.” Eli opened his mouth to respond, but my fingers on his lips stopped him. “But you didn’t do anything I didn’t allow or participate in fully, Eli. And if you had, well, I’m not a fragile flower, you know.” One side of my mouth twitched. “You’re not walking funny this morning, which is a good sign that I wasn’t resisting.”
Relief mingled with his amusement. “I have no doubt you can take care of yourself, Beautiful. I just…didn’t want you to have any regrets. I pushed pretty hard, pretty fast.”
I settled myself a little more firmly against him, more accepting now that I knew what had been on his mind. “If I remember correctly, I’m the one who kissed you first.”
He tucked his head down close to mine, his breath washing over my neck. “And that was all it took to rip through any control I’d ever hoped to have with you.”
Goose bumps washed across my skin, and my nipples pressed hard against Eli’s chest. He had to feel it, just like I could feel the sudden firmness against my belly, but he didn’t move to take this any further and I thought I knew why. Eli was dominant in bed, and I was a dominant female. Out of everything we’d done together, that was what had stood out. He’d taken control, and despite my body’s reactions, he needed to know for certain that if it happened again, I would be okay.
Chances were, it would happen again. And chances were I’d enjoy it just as much as I had the first time.
“Look, Eli…”
His nose trailed across my skin, and my knees threatened to buckle. “Yes, Beautiful?”
I’d never thought I’d like being called that, but in Eli’s deep, drugging voice? With that hungry tone? Oh yes, I did.
I forced myself to remember what I’d been going to say. “I…” Shit. I cleared my throat to stop my voice from cracking. “I’ve never really been into being controlled.”
He stilled against me, even holding his breath. His heartbeat kicked against my hard nipples.
I found myself sliding my hands up and down his biceps, soothing him with my touch. “Sex has always just been a function—something I needed, found, over and done. But…”
Come on, Nix, spill it.
“But you gave me something last night that I didn’t know I needed. Desperately. Exactly when I needed it.”
Eli released his held breath, and his head came up, those golden lion’s eyes meeting mine. Our positions from last night were reversed—him against the wall, me pressing him into it—but his hands were on my hips, gripping me tight, and the push of his hard erection was getting more urgent every second.
I smiled up at him and indulged myself by pushing my fingers through the silken strands of hair falling over his eyes. “I have no idea how all of this is going to play out. But for now, what I do know is that I wouldn’t mind what happened last night happening again.” And then I pulled one of his hands from my hip and moved it to my breast.
“Holy shit.” Eli squeezed just enough that I knew he was testing my weight in his palm. Enjoying the feel of me. I was definitely enjoying the feel of him. In fact, I suddenly found myself desperate for his bare fingers on me, on my nipples. My clit, those calluses rasping my sensitive skin in ways I knew would set me off with very little effort. “Eli.”
He must’ve heard the need, the hunger in my voice. A pinch took my breath. God, my nipples ached for him. “Do it again.”
Eli rolled my tip between his finger and thumb, his intent eyes watching the smallest of reactions, learning what I liked, what pushed me, heightened my desire. “Your eyes are like green fire,” he whispered. “And every time I do this”—he pinched—“they get even hotter.”
Talk about blazing eyes… I grabbed the side of his head and pulled him down to me. He paused just as our lips touched, his breath filling my mouth. And then it was his tongue, our lips sealed together. The power of his kiss shocked me. It had been like this last night, yes, but somehow I’d thought that was because it was the first.
No. Hell no. This was like drinking fire—his heat was on my skin, in my mouth, filling me up. Satin-smooth lips, the rough scrub of stubble. The heavy rush of both our breaths. That was all it took to have me climbing him, desperate for more.
A rough laugh echoed in my mouth as Eli pulled his away. “Hold up there, monkey.” His palms, somehow cupping my ass cheeks even though I didn’t remember them moving, squeezed me just like he had my breast. “Not this time.” Hunger darkened his words. “We’ve got some time, and I need a lot more than a quick jerk-off session.”
I did too—I was ready for him, so ready—but that didn’t stop me from whining when he lifted me away from his body.
Eli set my feet on the ground, his hands finding every nook and cranny as he glided back up. Gripped my hands and urged me to release him. A hard, quick, frantic kiss and then he stepped away from me. “Come on, Beautiful. I want to see you naked.”
I didn’t hesitate. Just took his hand and followed where Eli led me—straight to my pallet.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Eli —
I’d been sexually active for over a decade, but I’d never felt like I would come out of my skin at the thought of seeing a woman naked. Yet here we were.
I turned to Mikaela as I came to a stop next to the pile of blankets on the floor. I wanted her in a bed—my bed—but no fucking way was I waiting till we got back to the mansion and ran the gauntlet of the dozen people waiting for us there. Here and now was even more urgent than in a bed. The other could wait till tonight.
Maybe.
“I’ve been waiting for this,” I said as I reached for the hem of her T-shirt. “To see you naked. I can’t wait anymore, Mikaela.”
She gave me a secretive little smile that told me she enjoyed my words, the idea behind them. “As long as I get to see what’s under there too.” She nodded toward my clothes.
I pulled her shirt up slowly. “Is that even a question? Because I definitely prefer skin to skin to keeping my damn fatigues on.”
“Didn’t seem to bother you last night.”
She lifted her arms to allow the shirt over her head, and my breath caught at the sleek expanse of skin I revealed. Only the silky black bra she wore obscured my view, almost as soft looking as her skin. “Last night just proves anything you do turns me on,” I said absently. “Turn around.”
Mikaela turned slowly, obviously as ready to savor the moment as I was. There was no rush, no time we were definitively expected back. An extra hour—or two—was ours for the taking.
With a mischievous glance over her shoulder, Mikaela reached behind her and snagged the catch of her bra, opened it. Let the material drop from her body. My breath hitched. Going to my knees, I dragged my mouth down the flow of her spine, tasted her skin, taking in her scent, memorizing her. Memorizing every moment.
When she would have turned, I held her in place. “I had no idea when I nicknamed you Beautiful that you could ever be more gorgeous than that moment,” I said against the small of her back. Reaching around, I grasped the button of her fatigues and undid it. “Let your hair down for me, Mikaela.” I felt her stomach suck in as she trembled against me. And
then she stretched her arms up and began to release the long, silky length of her hair from the ponytail that held it.
Soft strands brushed my face as I pulled the zipper of her pants down. I buried myself in it and felt my cock swell in anticipation. “I want to feel this wrapped around my dick. Feel it trailing over my skin while you straddle me.”
Mikaela moaned my name.
“Elijah,” I told her, then stripped her pants and panties down to her ankles together.
A confused sound left her; then she tried to jerk around, too hampered by the tangle of clothes and my shoulders behind her hips to succeed. “Wait a minute.”
I chuckled under my breath as I worked to unknot her boots so she could step out of them. Here it comes.
“All this time you’ve been insisting on calling me by my given name, and yet the name you gave me isn’t even your full name, Elijah?”
Nudging at one foot to get her to lift it, I reminded her, “You did research on me, Mikaela. You know my full name is Elijah.”
She muttered under her breath as she toed off her shoes and kicked away her clothes. I heard “other things on my mind” amid various curses—why was she always cussing at me? But when she tried again to turn, I held her hips still and drank my fill of the gorgeous ass now bare right in front of my face. “What was that, Beautiful?”
Mikaela stomped her foot, sending a gorgeous jiggle through her sculpted backside. When I leaned forward and sank my teeth into the fullest part of one cheek, she squeaked, then moaned again when I licked the abused skin.
“Nothing, Elijah.” How she managed to make the breathy sound of my name defiant, I couldn’t tell, but I heard it—and gave her a bite on the opposite cheek.
When I licked her this time, she shimmied her ass against my face. A surge of pre-cum leaked from my cock. Another followed when I smoothed my hand up her strong, muscular legs to cup the round globes and squeeze them.
The sweet scent of Mikaela’s arousal hit my nose, and this time it was me who moaned. Fucking A, I hadn’t even seen her bare breasts and I was already struggling to control my release.
It was going to be a long, long hour.
Sitting back on my heels, I urged Mikaela to turn with a hand on her hip. She did, slowly, giving me time to savor every new angle, every shadow and curve of her skin. When her breasts came into view, I sucked back of breath. Perfect mounds tipped with small brown nipples. Tight nipples. My mouth watered. “Perfect,” I told her, every ounce of my appreciation held in one word. “Beautiful.”
Mikaela shivered as her back arched, pushing both breasts toward me. “Stop talking and use that mouth for something more important, Eli.”
As if I would argue with that order. “Yes, ma’am.”
I snickered as she popped me upside the head for that ma’am, and then I was cupping her ass, urging her closer, and her breasts were in my face.
“Mikaela,” I groaned, rubbing my stubble in the valley between the mounds.
“Eli.” With hard hands she dug into my hair and guided me to one distended tip. I flicked my tongue out, tasting the pebbled surface, and then my control broke and I sucked it in, drawing hard. Mikaela shouted my name over the roaring in my ears as I sucked, as I dragged my teeth along her sensitive skin and lost myself in the pleasure of finally nursing at her breast.
She writhed against me—her breasts, her body, her hips—searching for that ultimate pleasure I planned to give her. Just not yet. I wanted to infuse myself in her skin, burrow so far inside her that she could never keep me out—and that was before I got my cock involved. I reveled in the feel of her beneath my hands, in the way her body trembled with need as I moved between her breasts, torturing both nipples fully, her cries of pleasure echoing in my head. I traced the line between her ass cheeks with a finger, top to bottom, and discovered she wasn’t shy about being touched there. Nor was she unaffected—wetness coated her thighs already. I growled as I teethed the nipple in my mouth.
Mikaela squeezed my head between her hands, pulling my attention up to her face. “Why am I the only one naked?” she asked, breathless.
“Because your naked is a lot more fun?” I nipped the smooth slope of her breast, then pushed to my feet. The way her eyes lit up as they zeroed in on the hand grasping my shirt rewarded me. No sooner was my shirt off than her hands were on me—touching, caressing, pinching, dragging the dull edges of her nails over my nipples. I grabbed her hands to still them.
“Let me get these fucking pants off first,” I said hoarsely.
Mikaela’s chuckle was throaty, sending a hard punch of need through my cock, but she backed toward the blankets to lie down. “Hurry.”
I shot her an incredulous look as I tore at the zipper keeping my straining dick hostage. Half a minute and my clothes were scattered across the floor. I stepped toward the pallet.
“I planned to take my time,” I said, gripping my erection, squeezing it.
“Yeah?”
That cocked eyebrow. Fuck. Everything about this woman made me hungrier for her. “Yes,” I growled, dropping to my knees. I planted my fists on either side of her body and prowled my way up. “I want a chance to explore. I want to taste every inch of your skin, especially between your legs. I want to lick and bite and mark you as mine.” I hadn’t meant for that last to slip out, but Mikaela didn’t seem to notice—she was too busy running her hands down my body to the part of me that hung, rigid, swollen, waiting to pleasure her. I grunted as her fingers closed around my straining length, took a second to breathe, to find control, before continuing. “I still want that, but fuck if it’s going to happen this first time.”
“‘This first time’?” She caught the fluid at the tip of my cock and brought it to her lips.
“Holy shit.” I watched her tongue dart out, take it in—and my control shredded apart.
Sitting back, I tore at the foil packet I had grabbed from my pocket. I didn’t want it, didn’t want anything between us when I finally got inside her, but I wouldn’t put Mikaela at risk. Slowing down just long enough to roll the condom on without tearing it, I scooped Mikaela’s thighs across my arms and scooted close. My cock bobbed, smacking against her lightly furred mound. “I need inside you, Mikaela. Let me in.” A hard swallow as I fought not to beg, but it was useless. “Let me in.”
I didn’t recognize my own harsh voice, but Mikaela understood. Slender fingers delved between her legs and spread her lips open for me. She tilted her hips, and her wet entrance slid along the backside of my cock. “Come in, Elijah.”
I didn’t wait; I couldn’t. I set the head at her opening and pushed, slow and steady, feeling her swollen body give way with the pressure. Mikaela’s eyes closed, her mouth opened, and her hips pushed up, her body seeking more and more until I hilted inside her and my balls slapped the seam of her ass.
Like heaven. She felt like heaven gripping me tight.
Scratch that. I doubted even heaven could feel this good.
I dropped to my elbows, my lips nuzzling one still-hard nipple. “You really are perfect,” I murmured. Mikaela clenched around me, and I groaned into her skin. “So tight, Beautiful. You’re so tight and hot around me.” Experimentally I pulled back, feeling her close behind me, then forced my way forward again. She didn’t let me in easily, but neither did it seem to hurt. No, she arched her pelvis, reaching for me just as she had the first time. I sucked hard on the nipple against my mouth.
Mikaela cried out. Her nails dug into my shoulders.
“Do you need more?” I asked her. I pulled back, thrust forward again. “Is that what you need, me filling you up, Beautiful? Feel how we fit? How you glove me just right?” I growled as I repeated the action.
Mikaela’s hand slid over my mouth, and her eyes popped open. “Stop talking.”
I bit at her palm. She dropped it even has her hips lifted to me again. “Why should I stop talking?”
Her breath stuttered at another thrust. “Because I want this to last, Eli. I need—�
�� Her body jerked beneath me as I caught her clit with the root of my cock. “I want this to last,” she whined. “I can’t hold back if you…”
“If I say all those dirty things to you?” I finished, a dark chuckle escaping. Pressing deep, I circled my hips, catching her clit again. Mikaela’s knees came up, her legs locking behind me as she teetered on the edge. “Is that it, Beautiful?”
“Yes,” she cried. “Yes, damn it!”
Pulling back, I set up a savage rhythm designed to bring her to climax as fast as I could. And fuck, I wouldn’t be far behind her, if at all. “Remember what I promised you, Mikaela? Multiple orgasms.”
Her eyes flew open, and I could see the denial on her lips, but her peak hit, hard, before she could voice it. She squeezed around me, and it took force to keep up the pounding, push through her tight muscles. I wrung every last drop of pleasure that I could from her release before finally allowing my own to take me.
And in the sweaty, breathless aftermath, I shifted to one side and whispered in her ear, “Give me two minutes and I’ll do that again, Beautiful.” Then, glancing down our bodies to where my cock still lay inside her, already hardening, “Make that one.”
Chapter Thirty
Nix —
I’d wondered if Eli intended to hide our relationship, if that’s exactly what it was, from his family or mine. He answered that loud and clear when he walked me in the front door of the mansion in front of God and everybody. His hand was on the small of my back and his body language screamed, Mine!
If I hadn’t been well and truly fucked, I might have punched him. As it was, I could barely find the strength in my legs to wobble up the front steps.
“About damn time.”
I barely refrained from rolling my eyes. Levi was striding across the foyer, the strain around his eyes more than just impatience. I made a mental note to get Maris alone and ask how Abby was doing. There wasn’t much I could do to help except get X off their backs, but just in case…
Assassin's Game (Assassins Book 4) Page 19
