by Rian Kelley
His breath shuddered across her forehead, followed by his lips in a soft, barely-there caress.
“You’re good for me, Ivy,” he whispered. His lips reached her ear and his tongue flicked out to stroke the sensitive curves there. Her nipples tightened. His cock stirred in response. “I’m going to make love to you,” he promised. “Slowly. I want to touch every inch of you.”
Ivy felt the tension begin to build again, a smooth slide from her chest to womb. She shifted restlessly and Jake brought his leg up to pin hers gently to the mattress. The thin spattering of hair on his thighs rubbed against her silky skin, causing a delicious tremor to start in her limbs.
“Not too slow, Jake,” she said. She sank her teeth into the tendon on his neck and then sucked the flesh into her mouth. Jake’s breath came thicker. She skimmed her fingertips over his shoulders, traced the scalloped edges of his spine and then filled her palms with the tight cheeks of his ass. She tried to pull him closer, to shift so that his burgeoning length was between her thighs, but he wouldn’t allow it.
“Let me love you first,” he said.
Ivy wasn’t deterred. Her hands grew bolder, following his cheeks to the sensitive skin of his thighs and then further still, until she had his balls cupped in the palm of her hand. She squeezed lightly, stroked deeply so that her fingers played along the ridge on his shaft, and lifted her lips so that she could graze that sweet spot below his ear. Jake’s cock grew to an impossible thickness. His breath hit the back of his teeth and his whole body clenched.
“Ivy, no,” he grunted.
Ivy felt the moistness gather between her thighs. She moved her body, trapping his erection against her belly, rocking against him so that the friction she created centered on his crown.
“Condom,” he gasped.
But those were in the bathroom. And if Jake wasn’t going to let her pleasure him with her
mouth, then she would do it like this. She increased pressure and pace, felt his hands fall away from her shoulders and gather fistfuls of sheet as he fought off what she was determined he would have, what she wanted to give—an orgasm as powerful as the many he’d given her.
She moved then, sliding down his body until his shaft was between the cradle of her breasts. It shattered the last of his resolve. He loved her breasts, lavished attention on them every chance he got, and she knew that this was probably somewhere on that bucket list. She tightened the channel she’d made for him and felt his hips jerk reflexively.
He was flushed, engorged, and as they moved, his seed began to spill from the velvet tip and bath her in a heated pool.
Jake was watching too, his jaw clenched, heat surfacing in his cheeks. The fire in his eyes turned liquid and seared hers when he found her gaze. When he was finished, when Ivy had milked him for all he had, Jake lifted a hand and smoothed his semen over her breasts.
“That was not enough,” Jake mumbled. Ivy was spread over his chest, his hands tangled in her dark hair. As his testosterone calmed he began to fill with recriminations. “You didn’t come,” he said. He never made love to a woman without her coming first and coming often.
She lifted her head and gazed into his eyes. Hers were soft, sincere. “Sometimes, Jake, you have to let a woman give. It’s what we do. What we need to do.”
He detected a slight irritation in her tone and remembered how she had coiled away from him in that moment, when he had pulled himself from her mouth and made a play to regain control of their progress. Damn, that had been a screaming success. He’d wanted to return the focus to her, but she’d been so determined. And he’d ended up coming anyway. Neither of them had gotten what they wanted. Because he had tried to control the outcome.
“I didn’t let you have that,” he said.
“You did, for a moment,” she conceded, and a smile curved her lovely lips. “I want to know that I move you as deeply as you do me.”
“Sweetheart, there’s no doubt—“
But she interrupted him. “I need to give equally. To be a partner,” she impressed upon him. “You want me to trust you, Jake, but that’s a mutual necessity.”
And he knew she was right. But she was asking the impossible, because it wasn’t her he didn’t trust, but himself. And so he always held himself a bit aloof in the clinch. That, too, was becoming impossible. He’d never been so challenged before. He’d never wanted to give in so badly. It would have been a glorious freedom, to tumble head first into Ivy and thoroughly enjoy himself, but what would that have done to her? If he’d lost all restraint, bucked against her as that wild rush built, he would have hurt her.
It was unacceptable. The thought had shaken him and he had removed himself from her mouth, from temptation.
He felt her fingers at his hairline, stroking his temple, and opened his eyes.
“A man’s passion should never be fully unleashed,” he told her.
“Bullshit.”
“What?” It wasn’t her language that surprised him, but her simple and confident reply.
“How old were you when you crashed that car?”
“Seventeen.”
“Don’t you think thirteen years is enough time spent behind bars? I mean, no one was hurt, Jake. You said so yourself.”
“It wasn’t just the car.” Though that had been his wake-up call. “I was on a self-destructive path. I had a history of bad decisions. Out of control behavior.”
“How much history can a seventeen year old have?”
She sat up, facing him, and pulled the sheet over herself demurely. And that really bothered him. He didn’t like her covering herself from him. He didn’t like that she felt she had to.
“Plenty, if you start young.”
“Don’t you think you’ve matured some over the years?” she challenged and her tone was becoming not a little antagonistic.
“What’s the problem, exactly, Ivy? Am I not pleasing you?”
“No, you’re not.”
And that sank into his jugular. He actually felt the blood drain from his head.
“Not today,” he agreed. “But I intend to fix that.”
“I’m not talking sexually, Jake.”
“The hell we aren’t.”
“Well, we are, but I’m going a little deeper here. You want to explore the possibility of a relationship between us,” she reminded him. “You’ve pointed out how well we communicate, and I agree, we’re really good at it. So why throw up road blocks here? Why don’t you just tell me what you’re afraid of? Is it the physical aspect of getting that close to me? Or is it the intimacy itself?”
His body stilled. He felt caught but refused to examine it too closely. For him, it was always about safety—but what if she was right, and it was about keeping his distance? He turned the tables on her, remembering her hesitancy, her insistence on regarding them as an affair and nothing more. “Since we’re talking about intimacy,” he began, “why don’t you tell me what you’re afraid of, Ivy? Why insist we’re sex only? ”
She froze, her eyes shifted from his face and she shrugged uneasily.
“Now who’s not trusting?”
“I was afraid you’d hit me,” she admitted, and lifted her gaze. Her eyes blazed with the effort of meeting his challenge. “I know you won’t, because I know you better now. But that’s the fear that goes through my head whenever a guy catches my interest.”
He ignored the guy part, because that was definitely past tense as far as he was concerned, but he latched onto the violence and he felt sick.
“Did your ex-husband hit you, Ivy?”
She maintained eye contact and nodded. “He beat me.”
More than once then. Jake felt everything inside him tighten, like his whole body was clenching into a fist. His sweet, lovely Ivy.
“Not me,” he said. “I will never harm you.”
“I know. I trust you,” she emphasized.
“This is different. I’m a big man, Ivy. If I let all that loose on you, I couldn’t promise you I wouldn’t hurt
you. And it would kill me if I did. I won’t risk it.”
“Have you ever surrendered control to a woman, Jake?”
He shook his head. “And just a few minutes ago was the closet I’ve ever come.” It was like fading out. Like falling into that final dip on a roller coaster. Everything except climaxing had become unimportant to him. Almost. “It’s selfish and irresponsible.”
She stroked a finger down his chest, turning a dog tag. Jacob L. Emerson. He caught her hand and lifted it to his lips.
“I think you’re afraid of intimacy,” she asserted. “I think that’s what’s holding you back.”
“Control isn’t always about a fear of intimacy.” But her words resonated inside him.
“I know that. But this time--" She lifted her shoulders again, in a gesture that was more sadness than agitation “—that’s what it feels like.”
“We have to be clear on this, Ivy,” he pressed, pinning her gaze. “Are you going to be okay with that? If I never completely give you control?”
“I don’t know.”
And he heard the doubt in her voice and watched it shadow her eyes.
Chapter Fifteen
Jake didn’t give her long to think about it. Sometimes you had to show a woman how much she meant to you, and Jake could do that. He sat up and smoothed her hair back from her face. A small frown drew her brows together and Jake saw to that next, opening his mouth over the puckered skin and laving a kiss there.
“You’re trying to change the subject,” she accused, but her hands curled around his hips and she leaned into him.
“I’m showing you what I can give to you,” he said. “Maybe you’ll see it’s enough.”
“That’s not the issue,” she returned. “It’s what you’ll let me do for you.”
It was a matter of confidence, maybe, which Jake was beginning to understand in new terms, following her revelation about her relationship with her ex-husband. Or maybe it was a mix of both—it almost always was—and he had some adjusting to do even if he had no idea how he’d get to that place of surrender where Ivy waited for him. Just the thought made him break out in a cold sweat.
“Then really look at me, Ivy,” he instructed. “When you’re touching me. When I’m buried deep inside you. When you’re coming and breaking apart and I’m the reason for it.” Damn, how he loved to watch her orgasm, listen to the gasps he drew from her. The flush on her body, the way she bowed into his touch, desperate for him and that send off. His dick rose for the occasion and Jake picked up Ivy’s hand and placed it on his shaft. “And that’s just thinking about you.”
Ivy’s fingers swirled around his tip. “You’re a Marine first,” she said. “Discipline and honor.”
“Yes,” he agreed. Discipline had given him a good life, one with purpose. Honor became a personal code, one closely woven into his self-respect.
“How are you on adventure?” She smiled at him and there was a wicked gleam in her eyes.
“Definitely a top-ten item.”
“Do you have a bedroom bucket list?”
“Don’t we all?”
Her tongue stroked her bottom lip and the pressure in her fingers increased. “Tell me one of yours, Jake.”
“I will,” he promised. “But only after I’ve found a few of yours.”
“We already hit on one of mine the other night.”
That was a surprise to him. She had come, four times at his count, and they had tried a
variety of positions, but none of them had pushed the edge.
“What was it, Ivy?” He shifted her hand to his chest and tugged at the sheet that was covering her generous curves. Her breasts were gorgeous, full globes with dusty peaks and he remembered how she had positioned them earlier and brought him to a shuddering climax.
“You have to go first sometimes, Jake.”
“I just did,” he reminded her. He nibbled a path across her collar bone and up her neck and had to take the weight of her breasts in his hands. Her skin was so pale against his, soft against his calloused palms. “But you’re hurting, babe. And that’s our focus now.”
He rose up, his arm circling her waist as he drew her with him. His other hand cupped a butt cheek and spread her open. He moved his shaft between her legs, gliding between her folds without entering her, rubbing against her clit so that her head fell back and she gasped his name.
“You’re still wet.”
“A constant state of arousal,” she agreed. “I have an overactive imagination.”
“What have I been doing to you?”
“I think I’ll show you.”
She pulled his head to hers and opened her mouth over his. No preliminaries, she tangled her tongue with his, grabbed his hips in her hands and rocked against him. The velvet length of him worked her G and he felt her tightening, her body pulling against the sensual coil building inside her.
The kiss ended as abruptly as it began.
“I want more than this.”
“Anything, babe.”
“Lay on your back.” She nudged his shoulder with her hand, guiding his head toward the pillows. Then she straddled him, placing her knees beside his head. And Jake’s heart kicked against his chest. He forgot to breathe.
She lowered her mound to mere inches of his face and grabbed hold of the headboard. And his balls tightened. Sweet Jesus, he would die a happy man. Her smell enveloped him, a musky warmth that made his nostrils flare, his mouth salivate. He curled his hands around her hips. He wanted her flush against his mouth, but she resisted him.
“Taste me, Jake.”
Happy to oblige, he lifted his head and stroked her with his tongue, sinking into her depths for an extra long drink.
It pulled a keening gasp from her lips that shot straight to his dick.
He lifted his head, closing that small distance again, and buried his nose in her scent. He opened his mouth over her bud, and teased her with light nips of his teeth and stronger flicks of his tongue. She began to rock over him, lowering herself. He opened his eyes, watched the sway of her breasts above him, her knuckles whiten as she clenched the iron bed frame and threw back her head. And then he closed his eyes and tried to think about anything but what was happening right here, right now because the control she hated so much was slipping. He wanted to roll her over and thrust into her, feel that tight velvet grip around his cock and explode.
Her purr became a gasp and she began to shudder. Jake increased the pressure of his
tongue, increased the pacing of his touch.
And then in the middle of what was certainly a mind blowing orgasm, she lifted herself off and slid down his body. He was still stuck in that hazy nirvana she’d created as he watched her grab his cock, position him and then she sank onto him in one long glide, arching her back, clasping him with her thighs, and bringing that pulsing, clenching orgasm to him.
He thought once again about grabbing a condom, how impossible it would be to leave her right now, and then hoping she never forgot to take a Pill. They’d had that conversation. She was protected. Neither of them carried a STD. She had wanted, though, the extra assurance. She was less
sure of him then, though. Still. . .
“Ah, babe?” His hands wrapped around her hips. He was going to stop her but he didn’t have it in him. He lifted her and then brought her down the length of his erection. “Sweetheart. . .Ivy. . .You took a Pill?”
“Pill,” she murmured absently. “Check.”
“Because that’s all we’ve got going on here,” he finished.
“We have a lot more than that.” Her words ended on a breathy gasp. And that was it for him. He pumped into her, groaned as her orgasm tighten in spasms around his shaft, and came in a long burst that was deeply fulfilling.
He felt Ivy stir beside him. She had fallen asleep, still straddling him, with her head tucked against his shoulder. Jake had lifted her, slid gently from the velvet creaminess of her body, and stroked her back, loving the feel of her and the softening
of her limbs as she slipped into a deep sleep. Great sex. Amazing, hot, soul-defining sex and trust. She had soon adjusted her body, the solid muscle of his not a comfortable sleep, and turned so that their legs tangled, and her hand rested above his heart.
The next time they came together, it would be slow. He would kiss every inch of her skin and explore places he hadn’t yet gotten to. She would want him and in the end want for nothing.
“Hungry,” she said, her lips moving against his shoulder. It was a teasing touch that triggered a heated response.
Outside the windows, the sun was burning through the cloud cover. It had to be ten-thirty.
“I make a mean omelette,” he offered.
“I have two eggs and Cheerios.”
“What happened to that shopping trip?”
“I’m not a breakfast person.”
She stretched her body, shifting her legs and torso against him in a sensual rub. Jake traced his fingers down her back and let his hand rest in that dip above her hip. He loved her body, every silky, sculpted inch of it.
“That’s not good.”
She rolled back and rested her head on a pillow. Her eyes were still sleepy but they were open and offering. “I have yogurt and strawberries.”
Her position allowed him to gaze at her breasts unobstructed and Jake began to think about covering her nipples in the yogurt and licking it off of her. He felt his pulse kick up another notch.
She noticed and placed her hand, again, above his heart, measuring its beat with her palm. “What are you thinking?”
