by Cherrie Lynn
Eli practically existed in a state of hardness for her, but with the heat of her hovering only inches away from him, separated only by his jeans and her pajama shorts, her panties, he was ready to rip the seams. He throbbed for her, needed to be inside her like he needed the next beat of his heart, but he couldn’t rush this for her. She’d been through enough.
As he drew her pert nipple between his teeth, his slid his fingers into her shorts, seeking and finding the frothy lace of her panties, touching her over the fabric. Fuck, so hot, so wet already. She didn’t make a sound, but her breathing quickened, her brow furrowing when he glanced up at her. Dropping her head down to kiss his mouth, she moved her hips, grinding against his questing fingers.
He would gladly spend his life giving this woman pleasure. She was so hungry for it, leading him to realize she’d had very little of it in her life. If he could, he would make up for it all. Pulling his hand back, he slipped inside her panties, skin to sultry hot skin. When she scalded the pads of his fingertips, it was Eli who growled into her kiss, their open mouths pausing against each other as they both absorbed the sensations buffeting them.
“Elijah,” she panted as he strummed the needy bud of her clit. He was so hard for her that he couldn’t take much more.
“Iris, unzip me,” he said, unwilling to stop what he was doing to her to handle the task himself. Her fingers were clumsy and trembling, but she was able to manage, and he groaned with relief at the brush of her fingers on his erection, the rush of cool air around his heat as she freed him. “Fuck, you feel good.”
“So do you.”
He paused to take stock. She was shaking hard against him, even her lips trembling where they hovered inches from his. He caught her gaze, held it. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. He caught her face gently with his free hand.
“Baby, if you say the word, I stop. Know that. I don’t care how far we go. There is no point of no return here.”
“I know,” she whispered, but he thought he sensed a relief flow through her, so she’d needed the reminder. “I don’t want you to stop.”
“Do you want my mouth here?” he murmured, stealing a kiss from her as he gave her clit a little circle with his fingertip. “I fucking love going down on you.” He could do it all night.
She nodded so fast that he chuckled, rising up to put her on her back. Hell, he’d love to pull her up to his face and let her ride his mouth, but she might not be ready for that yet.
Slowly, he slid her shorts and panties off her legs, over her dainty feet. She kept her legs bent shyly together, but when his hands went to her knees and rested there, she opened them for him.
The scent of her arousal went straight to his head, calling to animal urges he had to beat into submission before he let himself settle his head between her thighs.
This, this was his favorite view on fucking earth, and he’d seen sights all over the world. He could gaze up the length of her body, lick and suck her sweetness and watch her nipples harden, watch her breasts shudder with spasms of pleasure, watch her lips fall open and cry out in bliss. It was art. There was nothing like it, and any man who thought otherwise was a lost cause. He could reach up and tease her nipples or slide his fingers inside her or both. He could linger, savoring her, letting the scent and taste of her drive him insane, so that his first push into her body was such a painful relief that he almost came on the spot.
And Iris was so beautiful, so timidly silent while he seduced her into giving up control . . . she made him work for it. But when her thighs tightened by his ears and her staccato gasps filled the air, her hands locking around his wrists as she tossed her head on her pillow, the rewards were stellar.
The last thing he wanted to do was leave her as she floated back down from space after her orgasm, but he needed to scrounge up a condom fucking stat. Once he retrieved one from his bag and climbed back onto the bed with her, she was smiling dreamily up at him, no traces of apprehension as she noted what he held in his hand.
“Still sure?” he asked as he tossed the ripped packet aside and rolled the latex down, watching only her face. Biting that luscious bottom lip, she nodded, then held out her arms to him, somehow the sweetest, most trusting gesture he’d ever seen.
It wasn’t rocket science to make her feel good. Any bastard with half a heart or a brain could figure it out, and not hurt her to the point that she feared intimacy for years afterward. He couldn’t wrap his head around how anyone could look at what he saw right now and want to do that to her. How any man could want to do anything other than cherish her in whatever way she desired.
She gave a pensive head tilt as she studied him in return, her voice soft with worry. “What’s wrong?”
He realized she was waiting for him, arms out for him, and he was staring at her like a dumbass. Easing his weight down beside her, he drew her against him, collecting the feel of her fragility, the softness of her curves against the firm planes of his own. Her expression smoothed over as his hand went between her legs, still wet from his mouth and her orgasm, and he teased her back to arousal. When she tilted her hips toward him, he evaded her until she mewled and her breath came faster. She took one of his fingers easily, sighing in relieved bliss. But her brow furrowed as he tried two. Her inner walls gripped him, pushing against the invasion. He murmured encouragement, reassuring her he would never hurt her beyond what he could control. But he was big, and she was tiny. It wasn’t going to be easy for her no matter what he did.
Shifting over onto his back, he pulled her on top of him, back to their original position. This time, though, she gazed down at him uncertainly as her curtain of hair fell all around.
“I want you to have control,” he told her, hanging onto his own by a thread. Fuck, her smell . . . sweet and heady and suffusing his senses like a pink cloud of rapture. “It might kill me. But that’s okay.”
“It’s just that this is never how I imagined it.”
He grinned. “You imagined it?”
She blushed, which he found amusing since she was sitting naked astride him. What was left to be bashful about? But he loved that about her and hoped it would never change. “Didn’t you?”
“Every fucking day, angel.”
Her eyes widened a fraction. “For how long?”
Damn, was she really going to make him admit it? Apparently so. “I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about you since the day you tumbled into my arms, Iris. But I never expected to be here, I promise you that.” He looked her over, the miracle of her. “I waited a long time for you.”
“But we really haven’t known each other for long.”
“I know.” He caressed her cheek and repeated himself. “I waited a long time for you.”
Thirty-one
She was too terrified to even entertain the thought that she’d found him. Him: the man she’d conjured up in her fantasies during the loneliest hours of the night, the one who would make her feel alive again, make her want again.
Elijah had done those things. The cruel twist of fate—there always had to be one, she supposed—was that he was the one man she wasn’t supposed to have.
Tonight, though, she could. He was here for her, he wanted her, had been waiting for her, too.
His body was so gorgeous, all stretched out beneath her, awaiting her next move as his green eyes watched her. At first she’d felt unsure when he’d pulled her on top of him, but now she felt free. The briefest memory of Jacob’s heavy body pressing down on her and sweating all over her had flashed through her mind, but she’d banished him from this place. Elijah had not made her feel trapped, nor cornered, nor coerced in any way. He hadn’t made her feel weak. He’d given her every bit of the power between them. He could never know what that meant to her.
But now that she had it, she didn’t quite know what to do with it. He seemed to see right into her head.
His hands went to her hips, the pressure so gentle she barely felt it. “Start like this,” he murmure
d, and slowly urged her down so that her clit brushed the underside of him, where he was so hard. She touched latex instead of his skin, but the smooth slide against her damp heat was delectable as he showed her how to move her hips.
“Ooh,” she said, closing her eyes and letting her body take over the motions, discovering that it already knew what felt good. Eli dropped his hands from her, but she caught them and brought them up to her breasts, needing the reassurance of his touch in this firestorm.
She was acquainted well by now with his hands, his mouth, and how they brought pleasure. But this slow tease awoke an aching emptiness between her legs that grew more desperate with each passing moment, begging to be filled. No amount of pressing closer to him assuaged it. He knew what he was doing, making her crave him like this. The only relief for this was to face her fears and take him.
“Fuck,” he groaned. “You’re going to feel so fucking good.”
His patience with her was extraordinary. Hers had run out at last. On her last forward slide, she lifted her hips slightly, and let the head of him nudge against her entrance. One of his hands went to angle himself better, and she found something incredibly hot about that. His eyes remained steady on her face, and her breathing spiraled out of control as she sank over him. “Oh. Eli.”
He answered with an almost inhuman sound that managed to form into a long rush of syllables. “Godfuckingdamn.” She would have giggled, but she was so hot, and so wet, and the stretch of him was so delicious that she needed the pain of it to keep her grounded. All the sensations combined, morphing into something bigger than she was, something that dwarfed her and all the silly little expectations she’d had for how this might feel. It was beyond anything she could have comprehended.
He was the one who pulled back. She fell against his chest, kissing him hungrily. “Don’t stop.”
“Give me a second,” he rasped. “I’m gonna fucking explode.”
That she did this to him only made her want him more. God, yes. She wanted to see this man fucking explode. All for her. His kisses devoured her mouth, plundering, taking. She welcomed it all. And when he said, “Take it, baby, put me back in,” her hands couldn’t move fast enough. His tip slicked through her greedy wetness, and she groaned as he pushed his hips up and parted her, easing in deeper than before. Pure bliss engulfed her.
“What do I feel like?” she questioned, thinking she sounded like a different woman.
“Sweet fucking satin oblivion,” he murmured. “I couldn’t remember my name right now if you asked me.”
“Elijah,” she assured him. Because he was all that existed right now for her, so she could remember for him.
“Oh, yeah. Are you okay?”
Far beyond. “I’m okay.” That he couldn’t remember his own name, but could remember to take care of her, made her glow of pleasure all the brighter, all the sweeter. And she appreciated so much his allowing her to take control, but thought she might benefit more from his expertise than her own limited experience. She trusted him to lead her. “Can I be under you?”
“You can be wherever you want.”
Instead of rolling her over, he wrapped his arms around her, sat up, got his knees under him, and planted her back to the mattress, all without letting her go or pulling out of her. The shift made her gasp, his depth hitting new angles as she gazed up at him. His eyes never left her face, the watchfulness somehow a comfort rather than a scrutiny. She’d never felt so cherished. She’d never felt like she was where she belonged until this moment.
It was a dangerous way to feel. But he moved, withdrawing slowly, and she couldn’t remember why. There couldn’t be anything dangerous here. Nothing could hurt her. This was heaven.
And she realized that he hadn’t given her everything, easing her through this, because when he glided back inside her, he gave her more of him. And more. The next time, even more. At last, he met her flush, fully buried in her, and her shaking wouldn’t stop. Her heart raced erratically, skipping beats. She might die. She didn’t care.
And he looked so confident, so in control, so patient, though she felt the fine tremors in his muscles, too. She could caress his arms and feel the vibrations beneath his skin. Their breathing was in rhythm, rapid and warm in the limited space between them.
“What do l feel like?” he asked softly.
She wasn’t the dirty lyricist that he was, and she couldn’t remember her name right now, either. “So big. I feel you everywhere. You make me aware of every cell in my body.”
He gave her a wolfish grin, slowly withdrawing again as lightning raced along her nerve endings. “Good. Now I’m going to light them all up.”
And he did. Gently at first, to give her ample time to acclimate to the feel of him moving through her. Faster, once her fingernails began to dig into his back, urging him on. Teasing once she began to pant, pulling out to rub her clit until she begged to have him back. Only he would start the cruel, rapturous cycle all over again. She somehow recalled Sara’s words about being surprised what might come out of her mouth when he was giving it good. Even in her limited experience, she knew Elijah Vance gave it good. But she bit down on her words, bashful, flushed and wonderstruck.
He didn’t have any such qualms.
“I want you to come,” he told her roughly, sounding in that moment more like his stage presence—hard and ruthless and demanding of his audience, watching the mess he was making of her with an intensity she almost wanted to hide from. So open to him, every part of her exposed. His eyes glanced down at where he disappeared into her over and over again and she nearly went up in flames; she wished she could see, too. His thumb circled her clit, everything he was doing blending into one sweet, glowing ache that built brighter and brighter, so bright it blinded her. She closed her eyes, fists clenching on the covers, his beauty too much for her to take right then.
“Elijah,” she gasped, tossing her head.
“You’re ready, baby girl. Come on me before you kill me.”
Whether it was simply timing, or his words, she didn’t know. It didn’t matter. Her thighs tightened. Her heels dug into the bed and she pushed up her hips, positioning herself just so, just so . . .
Iris’s hand slammed down hard over her mouth to trap the cry that might wake anyone within five miles, but it tore loose anyway. Her body shook in wracking waves of ecstasy as he caught her hips, holding her to that one glorious spot, ravaging it, sending her higher even when she thought if he didn’t stop she might die, but she surely would if he did. Somehow her heart kept beating through the physical and emotional battering it took.
She reached blindly for him as she came down, and he was there, lowering himself over her again. She wrapped her arms and legs around him and held on. She’d found her release, but he hadn’t yet. His strokes were selfish and artless now. “So good. Fuck.”
He pushed deep and stilled, loud, throaty growls hot and gusting against her right ear as she felt him pulsing inside her. That she did this to him filled her with an overwhelming sense of power. This strong man, lost in her, pouring himself into her.
This was how it should have always been.
POWER WAS SUCH A FRAGILE thing. Strong and indestructible one moment. Cold, useless ash the next.
Iris watched him sleep and envied the peace that came over him when he lay wrapped in dreams. It was so unfamiliar to be here beside him, but she wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Despite her exhaustion, her soreness, her utter depletion, she hadn’t closed her eyes all night, and it must be close to dawn.
It wasn’t that he’d made her feel unsure or as if she’d made a mistake. The only regret she had was that she hadn’t waited for him. She’d never been surer about anything, and nothing that had happened here tonight between them could ever be wrong. It was what they faced in the days to come. Every minute with him was precious, and she didn’t want to spend them all sleeping.
As if her inner turmoil finally broke through and reached him through slumber, his eyes cracked o
pen. Caught, Iris tore hers away, embarrassed to be caught staring at him.
“What’s up?” he asked drowsily, inching toward her and offering his arm. She scooted closer and settled on his chest, exactly where she had been in that other world, the one that had ended when he had opened her eyes to a brand new one. Eli drew the covers snug around her, wrapped her in his arms, and waited for her to answer.
She didn’t really want to hit him with her heaviness when he was half asleep, but she needed so much to talk. “Don’t know. I’m feeling so many things.”
He pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead. “Happy?”
“So happy.”
“Scared.” He didn’t even make it a question.
“So scared.”
“I know how you should feel. I know how I want you to feel.”
“How’s that?”
“You should feel beautiful. You should feel strong. You should feel courageous, and loving, and loved.”
He did it; he broke the dam inside her, the one that had been teetering on the verge of collapse all night. She turned her face into his chest, her shoulders shaking with emotion as his skin soaked up her tears and he held her fiercely, his mouth pressed into her hair. She wanted to feel all those ways he wanted for her, but she didn’t. Not yet. Maybe someday. That elusive someday that would never come, because of fear and secrets and betrayal. Things that were no fault of hers, but still ruled over her.
“Tonight was everything I wanted it to be,” she told him softly.
“Then why are you crying your eyes out on me, love?”
“Because everything else is so messed up.”
With profound gentleness, he tilted her chin up and stroked the clinging hairs away from her damp face. Nothing in his expression showed panic or disappointment or dread at the sight of her tears, but neither did it show sublime happiness, either. “Things are pretty fucked up,” he agreed, then exhaled a weary sigh. “Maybe what’s most fucked up for me is that you were generally happy until you met me,” he finished quietly.
