But when I slid my tongue past his teeth, he groaned and opened for me, falling back against the couch cushions and bracing my hips with his powerful hands while our tongues tangled.
I ripped at his tie and got it free, then flung it over my shoulder before fumbling with the series of buttons closing his shirt and getting enough of them undone to free the hollow of his neck. As soon as it was available to me, I lowered my lips to that spot, kissing and licking him there until his Adam’s apple bobbed seductively.
A crack of thunder sounded, and Snoopy whimpered and burrowed closer to us. Ethan groaned and picked me up, carrying me into my bedroom and kicking the door closed behind us. When he sat down on the edge of the bed, it was with me straddling his thighs, his hardness pulsing against the apex of my thighs with a seductive heat.
“Touch me,” I begged, continuing my quest to free all the rippling muscles of his chest and abdomen, my voice harsh and raspy.
“How?” His hands clenched against my hips, as if he needed to brace himself. “Where? Tell me what you want.”
“I want you.” It was the only coherent thought I could form, the only words my brain could come up with.
“Show me,” he said, his words almost inaudible over the frantic pounding of my heart.
I sat back, straddling his thighs, frustrated and frantic for more. But the heat in his expression soothed my battered nerves.
He reached for my hand with one of his own, guiding me to take his other wrist. “Show me what you want,” he repeated, more strongly this time.
But other than not Hayes, I wasn’t sure what I wanted.
I hesitated, my desire warring with my uncertainty and my insecurities.
Maybe I wasn’t ready. Maybe I was rushing into Ethan’s open, willing arms before I should. Maybe I was just using him to fulfill a need, to help me prove to myself that Hayes hadn’t ruined me beyond repair, that I could handle being touched by a man as long as it wasn’t Hayes.
Except…that wasn’t entirely true. Because I wanted Ethan. I wanted all of him. Everything he could give me.
“We don’t have to do this,” Ethan said, breaking through the fog filling my thoughts. His eyes were filled with so much concern it felt like a sharp stab in my gut. “You don’t have to—”
“I want this,” I cut in. “I do. I want you.”
“You have me,” he said, and he made it sound as if there was so much more involved in those words than simply the physical.
But right now, I could only think of the physical side of things.
Touch.
Sensation.
Heat.
Allowing my thoughts to travel anywhere else would be too much. Too soon.
Too real.
He was right about that, whether I wanted to admit it or not.
“Show me what you want, then,” Ethan said.
My pulse pounding in my ears, my breathing shaky and shallow, I guided his hand to my breast. His large palm settled over me. He gently squeezed, and I closed my eyes with a soft sigh.
“More?” he asked.
I nodded.
He squeezed again, a bit harder this time, and my nipples hardened into tight balls.
I breathed in harshly against the sensation, allowing my head to fall back.
Ethan raised his other hand and covered my right breast with it, gently rolling his palm over my sensitive raised flesh.
“I want your mouth on me,” I said.
“Over your clothes?”
I shook my head and reached for the hem of my top. He helped me lift it over my head, and I tossed it to the floor. His hands settled on my ribs, and he pressed his lips to the curve of my breast that was visible just over the top of my bra. My hands shook as I reached behind me and undid the clasp, but everything about Ethan was sure and steady.
He was a rock. My rock.
My eyes trained on his, I dropped the straps and let them fall from my arms.
Then he lowered his gaze and studied me—not just my bare breasts but the scar on my abdomen, the hint of my tattoo that was visible over the top of my pants, the minor dip in my waist, the slight bump of my lower belly, the one Hayes had hated, the one that had never flattened no matter how many crunches I’d done over the years—all the imperfections that made me me.
“You’re so beautiful,” Ethan said just before he crushed his mouth to my breast.
He swirled his tongue around my nipple and suckled my taut nub, all the while rolling my other nipple between his thumb and forefinger so gently I almost couldn’t feel it. He kept one hand on my hip, holding me steady, keeping me grounded as my breathing turned ragged.
“More,” I pleaded. “I need more.”
“More how? What do you need more of?”
I needed more of Ethan, but I said, “Harder,” because I couldn’t quite figure out how to vocalize what I truly needed. The thought of putting it into words was enough to terrify me, and I didn’t want there to be any fear involved in this. I wanted to lose myself in him. To forget all about everything that was wrong in my world, in my life, and only focus on the here and now.
He gave me what I asked for, lightly scraping one nipple with his teeth and rolling the other between his fingers with more pressure, and the insistent pressure building between my thighs turned to liquid heat.
A sharp crack of thunder split the silence that had been filled with only our breathing and moans, followed by a long, low rumble that seemed to go on forever. The entire house shuddered and reverberated from the intensity of the storm, which only added to the electricity pulsing between us. The lights flickered and then went out, but it didn’t matter. We didn’t need our eyes to see; our hands and tongues could see for us.
He shifted his attention to my other breast, and I collapsed back against the pillows, dragging him down with me.
“More,” I pleaded, and I undid the button and fly of my jeans, dragging them down my hips before guiding his hand to my slick heat.
He gave me more, his mouth following the path of his hand. He licked and suckled, used his fingers and teeth and lips and tongue in ways I’d never experienced before, until I was rocking up my hips to meet him, my toes curling into the sheets as I cried out.
It was only when he wrapped me up in his arms a moment later, cradling me against his chest and whispering soothing words in my ear, that I realized I was actually crying. Hot tears dripped down my cheeks and landed on his chest.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I’m so sorry.”
I shook my head. “No. Don’t be sorry. I don’t want you to be sorry.”
“I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have gone so far.”
“Ethan.” I tipped his face up to meet mine, forcing him to look me in the eyes. “I wanted that,” I insisted.
“But—”
“I wanted it,” I repeated. “I want you.”
And before he could come up with some other reason he shouldn’t touch me, before he could devise an excuse to keep his hands off me any longer, I shifted off his lap and reached for his belt so I could undo the buckle, drawing the leather free from the loops.
“Natalie,” he ground out when my fingers fumbled with his button and zipper, the hard evidence of his arousal pulsing against my fingertips.
I shot my eyes up to meet his gaze. “I want you,” I repeated. “You told me you’d give me anything you can. I want you to give me this.”
“You already have me,” he said as I lowered his pants and freed his length.
“I want all of you.” Because I was almost positive he already had all of me.
Before he could come up with any more arguments, I dropped my mouth to place soft kisses over his crown, licking up the salty precum leaking from the tip.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said. “I don’t expect you to—”
“I want this,” I cut in, just before sliding the pointed tip of my tongue along the ridged underside of his penis.
He let out a ragge
d groan, and I felt the mattress shift beneath us as he inched back to brace himself against the headboard. When I took his crown between my lips and slowly lowered my mouth over him, taking almost all of his length, a soft hiss of breath flitted through his teeth.
I kept waiting for his hand to fall on the back of my head, guiding me to do what he wanted, pushing me to take more of his length, forcing me into gagging on him—but it never came. Ethan kept his hands fisted in the sheets beside his body, allowing me to set the pace.
I felt almost drunk on the power he was granting me over him.
His cock swelled in my mouth, and his balls tightened in my hand. I knew he was close, so I kept up my pace until he pulled away from me, saying, “You’ve got to stop, baby, I’m going to come.” Then he hurried off the bed and stumbled to the bathroom, returning a few moments later with a warm, damp cloth that he passed into my hands.
Suddenly awkward and unsure of myself, I kept my eyes down as I cleaned myself off.
Ethan sat on the edge of the bed beside me, his weight causing the mattress to dip. “I shouldn’t have allowed that to happen,” he said slowly.
“Why not? We both wanted it.”
“What I want doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me,” I countered.
He sat there, the silence in the room heavy beneath the sounds of the thunderstorm raging outside.
I inched closer to him and reached for his hand. He allowed me to take it and twine our fingers together.
“I needed it,” I said slowly. “I need more of it.”
“I just don’t want to push you into things I want when you aren’t ready for them.”
“You’re not pushing me into anything, Ethan.”
“I’m not so sure of that.”
“Well, I am. Maybe that’ll have to be good enough for the both of us.”
“I want to give you what you need,” he said. “I want to take care of you, but I can’t put what I want first.”
“Not even if it’s what you need?” I said softly. “Don’t you count in all of this? After everything your father put you through—”
“Not even if it’s what I need,” he said, cutting me off and speaking into the dark stillness between us.
“But what if what I need is you?”
He didn’t have an answer for my question.
THE POWER HAD come back after about twenty minutes. By then, the storm had died down, so after I took a cold shower, I let Snoopy out of his Thundershirt. He followed me into my bedroom, and once I dragged on a pair of sweat pants and crawled into bed, he barked and jumped up to join me.
“You never sleep with me,” I muttered, even as I shifted to the side so he could squeeze in. That dog always slept in Carter’s room, even when Carter was with his mother.
I supposed all the storms we’d been experiencing lately were getting to him, though. He needed some companionship, and his boy wasn’t here to give it to him.
I needed some companionship, too, but of an entirely different sort. I couldn’t stop thinking about how good Natalie had felt beneath my hands, how soft her skin was, how passionately she’d responded to me. Not to mention the silky feel of her mouth on my cock. Fuck, but I’d never be able to forget how hard I’d come, how sweet she’d tasted, and how much I wanted to be inside her.
But that damned dog wouldn’t get still. He kept nosing at the blankets and squirming to get closer to me, until he finally worked his way beneath the sheets and shifted all the way down to the foot of the bed to curl up around my feet. When I moved my toes because his wet nose was up against them, he barked and bit them.
“Pardon me for trying to get comfortable in my own fucking bed,” I muttered. Not that I imagined I’d be very comfortable anytime soon. How could I be with the taste of Natalie still on my tongue and the memory of her silken skin imprinted on my brain?
He grumbled in response.
There wasn’t much chance I’d be getting to sleep for hours. My mind was spinning too fast, too many things screaming for prominence in my brain: all the ways I’d fucked up by taking things too far with Natalie, all the ways my father could fuck up both her life and my own, how the hell I could protect her from Hayes, whether I’d landed myself in serious trouble with either the team or the league by spouting off in the press conference, what all of this would do to Carter, and possibly most importantly, how the hell I could ever give Natalie what she wanted without hurting her in the process.
I’d already allowed things to go too far. I should never have given in. But how could I tell her no when she asked me for what she wanted? The truth was, I didn’t think I had the strength to deny her anything.
I lay in bed staring up at the ceiling for what felt like hours, but I couldn’t sleep. I doubted I’d ever sleep again. Snoopy seemed just as restless as me, but maybe he was simply picking up on my own nervous energy and the electricity still in the air following the storm. But then a soft knock sounded at my bedroom door, and my heart turned over in my chest.
I froze, debating what to do.
“Ethan?” Natalie called out timidly. “Are you awake?”
Snoopy barked like a lunatic in response, jumping down to the floor and scurrying to the door, so whether I had intended to answer her or not, I couldn’t feign sleep now.
I threw off the covers and glared at him on my way across the room to answer the door. In the dim light of my lamp, I could just make out the anxiety creasing Natalie’s brows.
That felt like a punch to my gut. I wanted to kiss her tension away. But I was probably the cause of it. Or at least one of the causes.
I forced myself to keep my arms at my sides, my hands to myself.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said after a pregnant pause.
I should never have touched her. I should have kept my fucking hands to myself. I’d probably hurt her leg, or maybe her lung, or lord only knew what else. “Are you in pain? We still have more of your meds some—”
“I can’t sleep because I need to be with you,” she cut in, and all the air whooshed out of my lungs in a single breath.
“You need…” I couldn’t make myself finish the sentence because every nerve in my body was screaming to do things with her I had no business doing. More than we’d already done.
“I need to be with you,” Natalie said, smooth and calm. “I need you to hold me.”
Well, hell. I couldn’t very well deny her that. In fact, I didn’t think I could deny her anything. I’d been trying to slow her down, but that wasn’t going very well so far. I nodded curtly and backed up so she could slip past me.
Her hand trailed along my abdomen as she entered my bedroom, just a brush of her fingertips over my T-shirt, but it set every nerve ending in my body on edge. Especially when it combined with the sweet, delicate floral scent of her hair.
Just like that, I was hard enough to pound nails again. I closed my eyes, trying to get my dick under control.
But her scent was all around me. It wasn’t just her hair. It was her. And now that I’d had a taste of her, I was like an addict—one taste would never be enough.
“You didn’t put on your brace,” I said.
She shook her head. “Didn’t think I’d need it.” She must have recognized my thoughts on the matter, because she pressed on before I could interrupt her. “I was careful—held on to the stair rail and everything.”
“What if you need it in the morning?”
Natalie sat on the edge of my bed and shrugged. “Maybe Snoopy will go get it for me.”
“More like I will.”
She bit her lower lip, which drew my eye and made me think about how those lips tasted. Then she held out a hand for me, beckoning me closer.
I was powerless to stop my feet from closing the distance between us. When I took her hand, she drew me down onto the bed beside her, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes, not even when I tried to tip her chin. “Natalie…”
“Please,” she whispered. “Let me stay with y
ou. I need your arms around me. I need you to hold me.”
My stomach in knots and my heart in tatters, I did the only thing I could: I pulled down the sheets, shoved Snoopy out of the way, and settled Natalie in my bed beside me. She rested her head on my shoulder so the sweet scent of her hair tickled my nostrils. Snoopy nosed his way under the covers again and curled up around my foot, and Natalie settled a hand over my stomach. Within minutes, they were both asleep.
But I lay awake for hours.
Because now, if Hayes’s lawyers tried to come after me saying everything I’d claimed that asshole had done was all a lie and it was only because I’d wanted to get Natalie in my bed, there wasn’t much I could say to dispute it. Maybe that wasn’t what had been behind it initially—but here she was. In my bed. Curled up around me with a post-sex glow.
I might have just destroyed my own credibility.
If that fucker got off because I’d given in and taken things to another level with Natalie, I’d never be able to forgive myself.
AFTER EVERYTHING I’D been through with Hayes, I never imagined I’d desire another man’s touch, let alone trust any man enough to experience a sexual relationship again. But that was exactly what I wanted with Ethan—and I wanted far more than we’d done so far.
In my group therapy sessions, I had discovered that some of the women had completely lost all sexual desire due to the ways in which they’d been abused. Just the thought of experiencing something of that sort again took them straight back to the worst moments in their lives, and they fell into a downward spiral once again. They thought it was safer and better for their mental and emotional stability to be alone.
Others had seemingly gone the opposite direction, becoming addicted to sex, sometimes in almost perverse manners. Nothing they did was enough, and all of it left them feeling worse than ever before. There seemed no way for them to climb out of the pit, no way for them to move forward in a relationship that was built on trust and mutual respect, and certainly not love.
There didn’t seem to be many who fell in the middle, and almost none of them had what could be considered a normal, healthy sex life. Maybe they wanted one, but they couldn’t quite manage it. Only a small handful ever successfully got into monogamous relationships with decent partners, and fewer still maintained those relationships for very long.
Rain Dance (Tulsa Thunderbirds Book 5) Page 16
