Behind her post-orgasm flush, Stella’s cheeks go rosier. She rolls her eyes. “Of course, they were.”
I shrug, my grin irrepressible. “Can’t say I mind all that much.”
Stella bites down on her smile. If she’s more embarrassed than she’s letting on, she hides it well when she takes the condom from me and tears the wrapper.
She holds up the opened packet like it’s a golden ticket, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s exactly what it is. “I get to put this on,” she declares, still catching her breath.
“Anything you want,” I agree, nodding.
Her green eyes light up. “So glad you see it that way.” With her free hand, she presses into the middle of my chest, and it’s all the hint I need. I flip onto my back and take her with me.
Naked, she straddles me. Hair wild. Skin flushed. She is the most erotic sight I’ve ever seen.
Pinching the condom wrapper between two fingers, she uses the other eight to tug at the pants and boxers that are still somehow in place. I grab fabric and lift my hips before kicking myself free of the last of my clothing.
“Whoa…”
I look up to find her staring down at my cock. My smile is sinful.
She blinks. Blinks some more. Without taking her eyes from my erection, she holds up the condom again. “I’m not sure this’ll fit.”
Chuckling, I settle my hands on her thighs and caress her with my thumbs. “It’ll fit.””
She frowns and bites her bottom lip. “I’m not sure that’ll fit either.” She nods down at my dick. I can attest it’s never been this hard in my life. And, holy fuck, if her attention isn’t going to its head.
I’m so turned on, I’m dizzy.
“It’ll fit, too.” I run my splayed fingers higher on each thigh. “I promise.”
She shivers under my touch and I watch her swallow.
I love Nervous Stella.
Her gaze flits back to mine. “I guess I’ll just have to be brave.”
I love Brave Stella. So damn much.
She pulls the condom from what’s left of the wrapper, and I see her hands are trembling. I cover her hands with mine.
Damn, they’re trembling too.
“We’ll be brave together.”
I guide her hand to me. She grips my shaft and my back arches off the bed at her touch.
“What do you have to be brave about? That thing’s not going inside you.” But before I can answer, she pumps me once, and I squeeze my eyes shut.
“I’m afraid I won’t even make it inside you before I come,” I admit through gritted teeth. I gently push her hand away, and with as little contact as possible, I roll the condom down.
When I open my eyes again, her smile is almost giddy. “Really?” She sounds utterly amazed.
I gawk. “Are you out of your mind? Yes, Stella. Yes.”
She blinks down at me with a joyful kind of relief. “I thought—I thought I was the only one who couldn’t keep it under control.”
My glare is immediate. “Uh, no.” My grip tightens on her thighs, emphasizing the toll just being near her takes on me.
She licks her lips and smiles coyly down at my brick-hard cock. “So if I did to you what you just did to me, you’d c—”
“In about .3 seconds,” I grit out through clenched teeth. Even the thought of her putting her mouth on me has me grabbing her by the ass. “Quit torturing me.”
Stella looks surprised. “Lark, I’m not torturing—”
“You are.” And dammit if I don’t also love Torturing Stella.
She leans down, her breasts brushing my chest, and I expect her to plant her mouth on mine. Instead, she kisses my brow.
“Your frown is sexy.”
I groan. It doesn't help that her wet pussy is nestled on the base of my cock, her slickness teasing my balls.
Then she brushes a kiss against my jaw. “Your growl is sexy, too, Lark Bienvenue.”
The hand that isn’t squeezing her ass comes up to cup one breast. Two can play the torture game. When I pinch her nipple, she sucks in an inhale through her nose and closes her eyes for just a moment.
“Mmmm.” She covers my hand with hers. “Your fingers are sexy too.” When she strokes her breast around my possessive fingers, I nearly weep.
“Stella—” I’ve never begged for it in my life. I’m begging now, and I don’t give a shit. Two might be able to play the torture game, but she’s leagues better than me.
She dips lower until she’s centimeters from my mouth. Her tongue darts out and sweeps across my lips, pleasure jack-knifing through me at her boldness. “And you taste good.”
“I taste like you,” I mutter, squeezing my two handfuls. “And I fucking love it.”
Her breath hitches, her bottom lip disappearing between her teeth, and I know I’m stepping up my game.
She pushes herself up to sitting and grips me again, and my breath hitches too. The last few minutes have been playful and agonizing and daring and exhilarating. But when she positions the tip of my cock to her entrance, my eyes find hers and time stops.
Because this isn’t playful. This is me. On the edge of being inside of her. And the look in Stella’s eyes tells me she knows it too.
This is no game.
This is real. For both of us.
Chapter Twenty-Three
STELLA
I freeze above Lark, seeing the look he’s flashed a few times tonight. One that seizes my heart in the most perilous way.
One that makes me take him inside me with exquisite slowness. My eyes never leave his as he fills me. As I move, he angles his head back, the muscles and veins in his throat arching out like he’s in the most blissful pain. But instead of closing his eyes, he holds my gaze like he’s seeing something just as incredible play out in me.
Maybe he is.
Because his beauty is holy. I’ve never witnessed anything like it. He’s proof that the divine exists and it’s benevolent.
When he’s seated fully inside me, I shut my eyes and just breathe. I can feel my heartbeat everywhere. In the tiny muscles surrounding him. In my eyelids. In the spaces between my toes. His fingertips glide over my thighs. First on the outside. Then moving in, sending tingles up each nerve, reawakening the heat he just banked inside me.
I open my eyes and find Lark breathing like a man who’s just felled a tree. Deep, slow lungfuls that make his chest rise and fall beneath me. The motion is a gentle wave I feel everywhere.
I lay my splayed hands onto his chest. Our eyes lock, and neither of us looks away.
It’s intimate.
The thought sends a thrill of something both frightening and oh-so-powerful through my body. And I clench.
“Jesus, Stella—” Lark hisses. His eyes squeeze shut for just an instant before he opens them again, the look in them molten. Desperate. And adoring.
And I melt completely.
Any defense I ever built—for him or any other man—turns to sand and washes clean away with that look in his eyes.
I have never in my life felt the way I feel now.
Is this love?
Holy shit. I think this is love.
His mouth quirks in the most arresting, sweet smile, and his right hand leaves my thigh. He reaches up and cups my cheek.
“You okay, baby?”
I don’t trust myself to speak. This is love. I know because I’d do damn near anything to protect it.
And I’ve only felt something this big one other time. When the labor and delivery nurse put Maisy in my arms, and I put my heart in hers.
It was scary then to know that someone outside of myself held such a vital part of me. But she was just a baby. What harm could she do? How could she hurt me so long as I protected her? Even now, if she tries to run away from me, I can still catch her.
My gaze sweeps over the man beneath me. He is almost twice my size. If he bolts, he’ll leave me in the dust.
And that’s just the way it is. Because, as I look down at him, fee
ling the patient sweep of his thumb over my cheek and the ready tears stinging my throat, I know I have just as much choice in loving him as I did in falling headlong for my daughter.
No choice at all.
He’s still smiling, but concern knits his brows. “Stella?”
I swallow hard and cover his hand at my cheek. “Fine,” I rasp. “Just enjoying the view.” It isn’t a complete lie. It’s also so far from the whole truth that it feels like deception.
His proud grin vanquishes the look of concern, and I laugh in spite of myself. It’s a wet laugh, one that has me blinking rapidly. I drop onto his chest and bury my face in his neck so I don’t get caught, and when his arms wrap around me, holding me so tightly, so completely, it’s everything I can do not to give in.
And cry with joy. Cry with sorrow.
Because, for better or worse, my heart is no longer my own.
Lark’s chuckle tickles my hair and his rough palms caress my back. I wrap my arms around him and hug him so tight, wishing this moment could last forever.
And then I feel it. His cock pulses once inside me.
I suck in my breath.
Holy Mother of God.
“Jesus, Stella,” he moans again. He sounds aroused and almost accusing.
“What?”
“You’re gonna kill me.”
I blink twice and press up so I can meet his gaze. “How?”
“When you do that.”
“Do what?”
He tilts his hips just a fraction, and, I swear, every muscle south of my belly button does the merengue. Pleasure is wrung out of every cell.
“Aah. Mmm.” Lark’s lips press together hard, and through eyes at half-mast, I watch him blink a few times. “That.”
I press up higher, bracing my forearms against his chest but keeping our bellies connected. My mons presses deliciously into his pubic bone.
I grind down and stars explode before my eyes. “Th-that?”
“Gah—”
His hands grip my ass, and this is not the gentle attention he gave my thighs earlier. His fingers dig into my flesh, and he thrusts up. My clit meets him full force, and inside me, his length finds a place of such sublime meaning, I lose all control.
“Oh, yes—” My words are little more than quaking breath. But it doesn’t matter because Lark understands perfectly. Either that or he has as little control as I do and all either of us can manage is to thrust and thrust again.
I have the fleeting thought that I truly hope it feels as good for him as it does for me because this has to be shared. I can’t be the only human on earth to know this rapture. But judging by the clenching of his jaw, the clamping of his hands on my ass, and the power of each drive into me, it has to be good. Mind-shatteringly good. World re-definingly good. Life-alteringly good.
Every thrust is a new height, a new stratosphere of heaven. And I must be climbing higher because the way I’m panting, oxygen is scarce. And I don’t care. Every inch of my body tingles. Every place where our bodies connect is dear.
Lark is so dear.
The truth of it is a revelation. The man sharing this moment with me is both so incredibly strong and so preciously mortal. For all he is and all he can do, he can also be hurt. His life is a sacred moment, and I want to bear witness to it.
Our eyes lock, and something passes between us that I can only decode in part.
He is meant to be loved. I am meant to love him.
I know there’s more to this divine secret, but before I can puzzle it out, the ecstasy of his thrusting takes over, commanding all of my muscles, foreshortening all of my breath.
And I am consumed.
Fully. Body and soul. Swallowed up whole in the bliss of this moment.
A moment that is made even more absolute because I get to watch Lark as he is overtaken.
And, my God. He is so beautiful.
I am floating, spiraling, soaring, and then his arms wrap around my back, and he’s crushing me to him, both of us chasing our breath, chests heaving, limbs trembling.
And I can’t help it. I laugh.
I’m in his arms, completely spent. Broken down and rebuilt like I never knew, and I am laughing like never before.
“Wh-what?” he asks, shaking with his own hilarity.
My only response is more laughter. How can I put into words that this is happiness in action?
I lift up to look at Lark. Laughter enhances his beauty a thousand-fold. His eyes shine. His broken-open smile is rocket fuel.
He reaches up and swipes a thumb at the corner of my eye. It’s only then I realize my lashes are wet.
Oh, jeez.
“You okay?” His voice is soft like worn denim.
I’m sure I blush. “Yeah… It’s just—yeah.”
His palm covers my whole cheek, his eyes holding mine. “You’re so damn beautiful.”
Yep, definitely blushing.
I don’t have time to fret about it, though. Because Lark lifts up, presses his lips to mine, and then with one thrilling motion, I’m on my back, his glorious body above me.
He kisses me twice more, easing his length from me as I shiver.
Lark brings his lips to my ear. “Be right back,” he whispers. And then I get to watch him rise and stride across my room to the bathroom.
“Holy Saint Maximus.”
Lark glares playfully at me over his shoulder. And wow. That glare? That shoulder? That perfectly chiseled behind—
Gulp.
“D-Did I just say that outloud?” I stammer.
“You did.” His smirk is positively sinful. Lark steps into the bathroom, leaving the door open and leaving me blushing ten shades of red. “And it’s Saint Paul.”
“Huh?”
Man, I’m so glad he can’t see me right now.
I scramble under the covers because after what we just did—and how deeply I felt—and then blurting out what I just blurted, I feel like I need coverage.
“My middle name.” I hear the squeak of Nanna’s old bathroom faucet and water running. “It’s St. Paul. Not Saint Maximus.”
I knew he came from a big, Catholic family in New Iberia, so I’m not too surprised. “So, your name is Lark Paul Beinvenue?”
“Nope.” The water cuts off. “It’s Lark St. Paul Bienvenue.”
Okay. Surprising. “That’s different.”
I hear his chuckle before the bathroom light switches off and he emerges. I forget everything about saints when he walks back into my room in all his glory.
“So, I like to tease my mom that it’s her fault I’m such a bastard,” Lark says, wearing a wicked grin and, of course, nothing else.
I’m pretty consumed with the nothing else factor, so his words make zero sense. And my brain fails me again with another, “Huh?”
His smile shifts from sinister to amused as he pulls back the covers and climbs in beside me.
When Lark takes me in his arms, I need a minute.
Because, wow.
Has cuddling ever felt this good before? If it did, I’m sure I would have kept doing it. With someone. Right?
Trying to soak in the cuddle and wondering why I’ve lived so long without the cuddle is almost too much for me to process, but one disconnected thought manages to rise to the surface. I draw back to look at Lark.
“Wait. You’re not a bastard,” I say, frowning.
His smile is a wild creature. Like the heritage horses that live in Kisatchie Forest. Miraculous. Beautiful. Real.
And as quickly as I spot it, the joy behind his smile gives ground to something a little sad. Ouch. I don’t like seeing that.
I press my hand to his chest. It’s an unconscious act of comfort, but I can feel the beat of his heart, and, wow, do I like being this close to him. But—
“Lark, you’re not a bastard.”
His heavy, rough hand settles on my cheek. His fingertips tuck mussed hair behind my ear. The touch feels lovely, but the look in his eyes does not. If I had to give it a name, I
’d call it guilt.
When he says nothing, I try a different tack.
“My catechism isn’t very good. Most of my spiritual knowledge comes from Pen.” I roll my eyes. “Explain to me about St. Paul.”
The left side of his mouth quirks. Beneath the covers, he shifts, wrapping one leg over both of mine, pulling my hips closer.
Yeah, that feels amazing too.
“You’re in luck,” he says, his voice deep and lazy. “My catechism is outstanding. I can teach you anything you want to know.”
I want to know you.
I don’t say this aloud, of course. Instead, I tease back. “Show me what you got.”
His tongue peeks out and licks his amused smile. “St. Paul was the most important convert in Christian history.”
This sounds familiar. “He was a Roman, right?”
Lark nods. “Originally Saul. He was a Roman citizen and Jewish pharisee who persecuted Christians until, while on the road to Damascus, he was struck by a vision that knocked him on his ass.”
“Go on,” I encourage.
“He was blinded by this crazy bright light, and God asked him ‘Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ and in that moment, he saw the error of his ways, converted to Christianity, and became one of the greatest theologians and the author of about half of the New Testament.”
This I didn’t know—I’ve never given Biblical matters much thought—but I like that Lark knows this stuff and he’s sharing it with me.
“Really?”
His smile warms. Lark seems to take in my whole face for a moment. Then he leans in and presses a slow kiss to my lips. It’s sweet and chaste, but, still, a torrent of tingles bounce their way into my middle.
He pulls back. “Really. Some of the more recognizable and oft quoted passages belong to him.”
For some weird reason, I like the idea of hearing Lark quote scripture. Hell, I’d like to hear him quote the Tax Code too if I’m being honest. “Like what?”
He licks his lips and seems to think but not for long.
“Like the reading you hear about love at almost every Christian wedding.” When he says it, something shifts in his look and in the way he speaks. Like this is a source of boredom.
Or burden.
“What about love?” I hear myself ask. I’d be lying if I said my heart wasn’t beating a little faster. And not in an I’m-so-excited kind of way. More like can-he-already-tell-that-I-love-him and will-he-think-that’s-a-bad-thing?
Dream House Page 28
