Off Base

by Tessa Bailey

  Both his hands spanned her torso as he leaned over her. His mouth a hairsbreadth from hers. She lifted her head off the bed, seeking his mouth, eager for him to kiss her again.

  His words brushed over her. “You want my mouth again?”

  She nodded and leaned closer.

  He dodged her lips.

  She made a sound of complaint and brought her hands to his shoulders. He plucked them off him and pinned them to the bed. Hard. He laced his fingers with hers and aligned their hips, his erection directly over her core. “I don’t know… seems like anyone will do. You sure you want me to kiss you?”

  He rocked against her, rubbing his hard length along the crotch of her yoga pants, knowing exactly what he was doing to her.

  “I want you to kiss me,” she insisted.

  “You sure?”

  She nodded.

  He pressed her wrists into the bed and brought his mouth against her neck, directly beneath her ear. She felt his words vibrate against her skin. “Don’t you ever kiss another man in front of me again.”

  She nodded even though a part of her rebelled at being told what to do. Cullen wielded total control over her and she reveled in it. For the first time she felt like she could let go. She was ready to submit entirely to a man, knowing that he would only deliver her pleasure.

  His mouth dragged down her neck in a trail of biting kisses. Lips, grazing tongue and softly nipping teeth. She whimpered, wiggling under him, out of her mind with need. He reached where her neck and shoulder met, his warm breath fanning in the hollow there for an agonizing moment. Anticipation zipped through her as she waited for more. She trembled, holding her breath for his kiss there…for the slight scrape of teeth.

  Finally it came. His teeth sank deep where her neck and shoulder met, marking her, claiming her. A choked gasp ripped from her as her bones liquefied and a rush of heat pooled between her legs. Her eyes flew wide and she gasped, positive no man had bitten her before. She had no idea she would like it so much. Had no idea she would feel it so deeply. He pulled back, laving the tender flesh with his tongue and feathering with his lips.

  Her head was spinning, chest lifting with ragged breaths as his hand closed around one breast, lifting the generous swell toward his dipping head. The gentle pressure of his fingers on her flesh made her moan. She arched, desperate for him to take her in his mouth. She ran one hand over the back of his skull, tugging him down with an animal sound that she didn’t even know herself capable of.

  The tip of his tongue lightly stroked her nipple. “You want me to kiss you here? Think you deserve that?”

  She writhed under him and almost came out of her skin as he dragged the rough pad of a thumb over the turgid peak. Her breast grew heavy in his hand. The one he neglected to even touch yet screamed for his attention, beyond swollen and achy.

  His warm breath gusted over the aching tip. Anticipation zinged through her, warring with frustration. She needed this. Needed him. Annoyance sparked along her nerve.

  “Maybe I should kiss other men,” she flung out.

  He tensed over her, his muscled shoulders turning to solid rock.

  “It got you here, didn’t it, Cullen?” she demanded. “Us here? Like this? Would you even be here if I hadn’t kissed that guy in front of you?”

  His hand slid down her belly to cup between her legs. She pulsed against his palm, her sex clenching for him to fill her. “You don’t have to go to such lengths. If you wanted me in your bed, why didn’t you say so sooner?”

  His hot, dark gaze fixed on her face as he lowered and finally claimed her nipple, drawing it in the wet warmth of his mouth as his hand slid under the waistband of her yoga pants, delving smoothly beneath her underwear to stroke along her crease.

  It was sensation overload. His teeth scored her nipple, and she screamed as he plunged one finger inside her. She came apart beneath him. Bright shards of colors exploded behind her eyelids.

  “That’s right, sweetheart. Come for me.”

  She nodded, unintelligible words tripping from her as he worked a second finger inside. “This is where I want to be, Huntley.”

  “Yes,” she breathed.

  His eyes locked with hers, dark and endless, peering inside her. He hopped up from the bed. She watched as he unsnapped his jeans and shoved them down over his hips, taking his briefs with them.

  Her mouth dried. He stood over her, his cock jutting out, alarming in its size.

  “Oh,” she breathed.

  She couldn’t even circle him with one hand. She instinctively scooted back on the bed. “I’m not sure that is going to work.”

  “Oh, it’s going to work, sweetheart.” He reached for her and grabbed the waistband of her yoga pants, sliding them off her in one smooth motion, leaving her naked. The urge to shield herself came over her, and she closed her knees, angling her legs to the side. “You trust me?”

  She did. Irrevocably. She trusted him. Cared about him. More than she should. For years now, she had harbored feelings for him. Desire, lust that she thought he could never reciprocate. But he did.

  His warm hands closed over her knees, parting her legs and coming between them again. This time there was no rasp of denim against her. It was bare skin to bare skin, his callused palms an erotic scrape running along the insides of her thighs.

  She was putty, ready and open for him. His fingers rubbed over her, and she was so wet her face burned with embarrassment.

  His husky voice fanned her lips. “See. Your body wants this.”

  He gripped that enormous cock and rubbed it along her crease. She moaned and tilted her hips, ready for him to push inside her. He dragged his plump head up to her clit and rubbed in fierce circles.

  She reached between them, dying to touch him. “Let me.”

  His hand drifted away and she closed her fingers around him, not surprised at his girth. She knew she would not be able to fully circle his erection in her hand.

  A hissed breath escaped him. She exulted in grasping this strong, gorgeous man, controlling him as he had controlled her with his mouth and hands. She guided the tip of him to her opening, teasing him there, granting him the slightest entrance before stopping and pulling him back out.

  “Enough teasing,” he growled, his hand clamping on her wrist. “I can’t wait.”

  “Then don’t.” She squeezed his cock and guided him in a little bit more, the head of him almost fully lodged inside her now, just in the threshold, already stretching her more than she had ever been stretched.

  “Let me get a condom—”

  “I’m on the pill,” she said, her voice breathless. She had been on the pill ever since she was seventeen. Her doctor had prescribed it to help with cramps and the occasional breakouts. “Are you … okay?” She winced, hating the awkwardness of that question.

  “I’m clean, but you don’t have to do this.” Sweat beaded the top of his lip, and she knew his control was slipping. “I’ve never been inside a woman before without a condom.”

  And that sealed it for her. She would be his first in this. Her heart swelled. She wanted to be the first woman to ever truly feel Cullen inside her. The first to have that with him, from him. “I trust you,” she whispered.

  Indecision warred on his face. She shifted her hips and tried to take more of him in. He held back, denying her.

  “Don’t you want inside me, Cullen?” She reached around him to grip his ass, digging her fingernails into the firm flesh, mindless in her hunger for him, urging him to drive deep. “With nothing between us.”

  He groaned and dropped his hand away from where he gripped himself. “Damn, Huntley … to know what it feels like to come inside you? To feel you milking my bare-skinned cock? Yes.”

  She didn’t have time to draw air before he buried himself deep with one clean stroke.

  She gasped and stiffened against the sudden invasion, her hands flying to his biceps. She was no virgin, but this definitely felt alien. She’d never felt anything like him. It w
as as though she was full of him, stuffed to the seams.

  He dropped his head against her shoulder, his voice rumbling against her skin. “You feel so good, Huntley. Amazing.”

  She inhaled a bracing breath, adjusting to the sheer size of him pulsing in her.

  He looked down at her. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. Just been a while.” She inhaled and exhaled several times. “And you’re bigger than I’m used to.”

  He grinned, the smile slow and sexy. “You’ll get used to it.”

  He bent his head, lifting one breast and drawing the nipple deep, sucking and scoring it lightly with his teeth.

  Her sex clenched, and she moaned at the sensation of his incredible hardness filling her, wedged so tight inside her channel that he felt like he was a part of her. As though there was no ending deciphering where he ended and she began. She arched her throat on a moan.

  “Ah, I feel that. See? You are milking my cock.”

  She tossed her head in a wild nod and worked her hips under him, willing him to move. “Yes.”

  “You ready now?” He pinched her nipple between strong fingers, sending an arrow of lancing sensation right to where their bodies joined.

  “Yes,” she panted.

  “What? What is it you’re ready for?”

  “Your cock … moving, fucking me.”

  “With pleasure,” he growled, pulling out and pushing back in. Still controlled. Still steady. He kept it up, creating an even tempo of friction that had her writhing and moaning beneath him.

  “What? What do you want, Huntley?”

  “Harder.”

  His eyes darkened. “Hell yeah,” he muttered, like it was all he was waiting for her to say.

  His hands seized her hips and his pace increased. He pounded into her, the headboard rattling against the wall with his every thrust.

  She shouted his name and clawed his back. His grip on her hips tightened, fingers hard and deep on her flesh.

  He lifted her pelvis until her ass was up off the bed, his cock diving deep, hitting the spot that shattered her. She came, her body jerking violently. He continued to hammer into her, relentless as a machine.

  “Oh, that’s beautiful. Come for me again, sweetheart.” His hands slid from her hips to grip her ass. He massaged the rounded swells as he drove in and out of her.

  It wasn’t possible. She never orgasmed like this. With Jackson it had been rare and never more than one a night. This didn’t happen.

  “I can’t … I never…” Her voice cracked.

  “Yes, you can. You will.” His voice stroked over her like a physical caress.

  She started to tremble as he pumped in and out, his big hands kneading her bottom in a way that got her hotter and made that invisible fist tighten and twist low in her belly. She was close again, and strange little animal sounds tore from her throat. She lifted and rolled her hips, her movements becoming clumsy in her desperation.

  Another climax swelled up inside her, starting deep, curling her toes into the mattress. She lifted her hips and the tension in her core snapped. Delicious sensations shot out to every nerve ending before ribboning back to where he hit that sweet spot again and again. She gulped back a cry. Holy hell. She could hardly find the right spot when she was working to get herself off.

  He knew where to find it. Knew every place to touch. Knew exactly what to do to make her body sing. One hand left her ass to find her clit, his fingers rubbing and pinching as he slid in and out of her.

  That’s all it took. She shattered, coming again, quivering under him as his pace increased to a frenzy, their bodies smacking loudly. “I told you. That’s it, sweetheart.” His breathing changed—his movements becoming less graceful, urgent as he drove to his own release.

  He cursed, surging deep and holding himself still as he came inside her. “Oh, Christ,” he panted.

  He gave another short thrust, his hand splayed on her belly in a way that made her feel marked, her body owned and well used in a way that was wholly new and not unwelcome.

  He removed his hand on her stomach and slid free, dropping on his side, breathing heavily. Euphoria clung to her, leaving her slightly cloudy-headed.

  So this was what she had been missing.

  The instant the thought entered her head, she wondered how she would ever go without it again. Without him. Euphoria or not, she wasn’t blind to the weirdness factor. She’d just had mind-blowing sex with her good friend. Oh, and he happened to be her brother’s best friend.

  Would he get up and leave now? Would they resume their friendship like this never happened. She held very still beside him, not sure how to react. What did one say in a situation like this? Should she get up and put on her clothes—

  His arm reached out and wrapped around her waist, hauling her close, tucking her to his side. She darted a look at his face. His eyes were closed, but she knew he wasn’t sleeping. Yet. She waited several moments to see if he was going to say anything.

  After ten minutes passed on her digital clock, she sucked up the nerve and broke the silence, asking, “Have you eaten yet?”

  His mouth curved slightly. “No.”

  “I have leftover spaghetti.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Smiling, she slid out from his arm and rose. Bending, she snapped up her discarded shirt.

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  Pulling her shirt over her head, she looked down over her shoulder at him, arching an eyebrow in question.

  “I’ll just be undressing you again later.”

  Heat flushed through her as his words rumbled over the air. Well, that answered the question if he planned on leaving any time soon.

  Turning, she headed into the kitchen, a ridiculously wide grin on her face.

  Chapter Nine

  Cullen should have left the moment they finished, but he was far from having his fill of her. He wasn’t going anywhere. Maybe ever.

  As soon as the fanciful thought entered, he pushed it away. This wasn’t anything but sex. Great sex. But just sex.

  She sat close beside him, their thighs touching, as he ate spaghetti in front of the TV. They found a The Walking Dead marathon and settled in to watch. He loved looking at her expressive face. Even though she had seen this episode, she still covered her mouth and jumped at all the scary parts.

  “So gross! Cannibals.” She wrinkled her nose at his bowl of spaghetti. “I’m glad I already ate.”

  “Ah, c’mon.” He held up a marinara-coated meatball. “You don’t want a bite?”

  “Ick! Get it away.” She leaned far to the side, laughing as he pushed his fork at her. “You’re going to drop it on me!”

  He stuffed it into his mouth. Chewing, he latched onto her waist and tried to kiss her with a mouthful of saucy meatball.

  She shrieked and tried to wiggle free. “Stop! Don’t!”

  He managed to plant a kiss on her cheek, leaving a smear of marina. She wiped it with the back of her hand, laughing.

  “Okay, no more,” he promised, grinning at her flushed face.

  The show came back on and they settled side by side again, offering various opinions.

  “I’d be one of the first to go,” she said with utter sincerity, shaking her head over her inevitable demise.

  “No way. You’d have me, and I’d have explosives.”

  She laughed and sent him a look. “You know bombs are loud.”

  “So?”

  “Well, that would draw more zombies.”

  “Not if I kept killing them all,” he shot back.

  She shook her head, clearly unconvinced at his logic.

  “Look,” he said. “All I’m saying is that I can rig a bomb with a rubber band and household cleaning products. And I can do it fast enough for us to get away.”

  “Arrogant much?” She snorted.

  He shrugged. “I know my strengths.”

  “Still. I think a tank from the base might be handy to have.”

  He nodded. �
��Yeah, except they’re gas guzzlers, and I’d imagine we’ll have to worry about fuel.”

  They continued on with their hypotheticals, talking in easy camaraderie until the episode came to an end. It was like every other time they hung out except different. Better. Because there was an easy intimacy between them. He could touch her arm, brush the hair back off her shoulder and she didn’t flinch.

  “I need a shower,” she declared as the next episode started up.

  “Go ahead. I’ll clean up.” He grabbed his plate, feeling her stare on him and fighting the wince. To anyone looking in they would appear almost … domestic. Hell.

  “Thanks.”

  He heard the shower water start as he loaded the dirty dishes into the dishwasher. Finished, he turned off the TV and headed for the bathroom. Outside the pink-and-green floral-print shower curtain, he slid off his briefs and pulled the curtain back.

  She jumped and yelped like he was one of the zombies they had just finished watching. His gaze dropped, skimming her body. The full breasts with berry-tipped nipples made him instantly hard. He’d had no idea she had such beautiful breasts. Stepping inside the shower, he bent his head and drew one in his mouth. She yelped again, her hands flying to his head. Warm water sluiced over them, making her flesh warm and slippery-sleek in his hands.

  He feasted on her breasts, his hand cupping her between her legs, rubbing where she was already wet from a combination of her desire and the shower water.

  He backed her into the shower wall, pausing to squirt some body wash into his hands. He brought his hands back to her body, lathering her and massaging everywhere. Breasts, ass, her clenching sex. She closed her eyes, head rolling against the tiled wall. Her blonde hair trailed darkly wet over her shoulders and down her back.

  She came, screaming his name, her chest heaving. He lifted one of her thighs, bringing it up to his hip, poised to enter her, but suddenly she broke away and dropped on her knees.

  He looked down at her, water sluicing over her. She looked like some sea siren, her ripe mouth at the head of his cock, her blue eyes dark and heavy-lidded, begging for him to ruin her.

  She took in his engorged head, rolling it past her lips. She sucked his wet cock into her mouth, as much as she could take. Her slim fingers fisted the base of him that she couldn’t swallow. He flattened one hand against the shower wall and fisted his other hand in the wet tangle of her hair.