Fowl Play (Tuft Swallow)

28. Kodi

CHAPTER 28

Fuck.

That feeling.

It’s that feeling again.

My stomach is a witch’s cauldron of flip-flops and bubbles and butterflies as Brian’s mouth devours mine, his tongue bypassing my open lips and claiming me wholly. His body, hard with muscle–and other things–rams against me, pinning me against his ridiculously strong arm like a vice.

Fuck.

His scent, that intoxicating cologne he’s wearing, invades my senses, turning me to putty in his hands. My body, already warm with embarrassment, flushes again as blood rushes to all the places it normally ignores, particularly the ones in contact with his. My core pulses with it all: the close contact, the smell of him, the tight band of his forearm digging into the small of my back. I’m losing track of where I end and he begins, and the unrelenting passion of his kiss is blurring that line even further.

Fuck.

Before I realize what’s happening, my legs are widening and one of his is between them, and I’m slowly grinding into him to feed the insatiable ache that’s exploded between my thighs. How can I need him closer? He’s already so close, so tight against me that I’m having trouble breathing. His tongue swirls in my mouth, his lips clashing with mine as we both drink each other in like spring water in the desert. My head starts to spin, my world collapsing to two tiny pinpricks at the center of my vision until I remember I can breathe through my nose. I inhale like I’ve been drowning, so hard that my lips start pulling him in. Then I’m biting his lower lip as it sucks between my teeth, and we abruptly break apart on a gasp.

Fuck.

I can’t stop. I can’t stop. I dive back in for more, straining my calf muscles on tip-toe, claiming his lips like he claimed mine, and once again I’m tasting his tongue. Heat rushes to my core with every slant of his lips. My ears are buzzing, the noise filling my head until I realize it’s not coming from my head–it’s the vibrator, still racing away in Brian’s hand.

Fuck!

The realization snaps me out of my sex-crazed trance, and I jump back out of his grip. He lets me go, removing his arm from my waist to rub at his mouth, which is turning purple and swollen from my bite.

“Fuck, Kodi,” he rumbles, his sometimes-green, sometimes-blue eyes sapphire with lust.

I swallow, still panting for breath. I cross my arms around my exposed waist, suddenly so cold in the absence of his scorching hot body.

“Fuck is right,” I mutter, and his eyes flash.

His grip on the wand twitches, and the buzzing stops. The ensuing silence is deafening.

“Do we…talk about it?” His words sound thoughtful, calm, measured–but his gaze is anything but. There’s fire in the way he’s looking at me, and when I lower my eyes to take in the rest of him, I see the line of his erection pressing desperately against its denim prison.

My throat goes dry. I’ll be honest, I have never understood the impulse to suck a dick before, but in this moment, I want nothing more than to sink to my knees and release his cock. Touch it. Lick it. Devour it.

It doesn’t make sense. It isn’t logical. It’s madness. Pure, fucking instinct.

Words can’t explain this. I certainly can’t.

“No,” I breathe. A question furrows his brow, and I shake my head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“What do you want?”

I stand as still as I can, my chest still spasming with short breaths, willing my heartbeat to slow even a couple beats per second. What do I want?

What do I want?

“I…I don’t know,” I confess. “I’ve never–I haven’t…”

Recognition lights his features.

“Fuck,” he hisses again, and eases himself into a half-seat on the edge of the bathroom sink. He runs his fingers through his short hair, and my stomach sinks.

The butterflies turn back into caterpillars, and suddenly I feel like I might throw up.

“I’m too much work.” My voice is a broken, croaking thing. I wipe my face with my hands and find tears clinging to my eyelashes. “Aren’t I?”

Of course he wouldn’t be interested in fooling around with me. Not when I’m completely inexperienced. Not when I come loaded with the baggage of being a patient and Zeke’s rival. It’s too much–too heavy for something casual. Something temporary, fake.

Which is all this is. All this can ever be.

“What? No! No, that’s not it at all.” Hands grab onto my shoulders, and then his finger is tilting up my chin until my eyes meet his. “Kodi. Don’t ever let me hear you say that again.”

“What?” He’s so close, my focus needs to dart from his left eye to his right and back again, the fire in them smoldering, but still there. Like embers, shining back from the cobalt depths.

“Never. Say. You’re. Too. Much. Work. Again,” he repeats slowly, never releasing me from his gaze. Then he pulls me close to him again, but instead of kissing me, he cradles my head against his chest and rocks slowly from side to side. “You’re not too much work. And even if you were, Kodi, I…”

I curl into his hold, not breathing, waiting to hear what he’s going to say.

“I’m not afraid of work.”

He holds me like that, until the tears stop flowing, until my breathing calms. With a sniff, I pull away, and he tilts my chin up once again. Then he places a small, gentle kiss–just a press–to my lips, and wipes my cheek with his thumb.

“I think we need to revisit the terms of our fake relationship.”

I nod slowly, taking in his words.

“Yeah. Yeah, I think you’re right.”

This is where he’s going to finally say it. Tell me that this act isn’t worth it, that he’s never been interested in me as anything more than a patient and a business partner, and that we never should have tried this ridiculous plan.

“I think…I think I may want more than just kisses in public.”

My pulse races again. He wants what?

This can’t be. I couldn’t have possibly heard him correctly. Here I was thinking he was about to break things off completely, confess that this whole ordeal is getting too complicated to continue, and now he’s saying he wants more?

“Really?”

His eyes won’t let me go. “Yeah.”

I swallow. Those kisses…I’m afraid to admit just how much I enjoy the act. Even when no one is watching. Is he telling me that he enjoys it just as much?

I want to know. Want to tease him, to test it. Continue our improvisation, and see just how long he’ll keep saying yes.

Here goes nothing. “I think I might want more than just foot massages.”

The corner of his lips twitch upwards, and he tilts his head. “Is that so?”

“Yeah.”

“They’re not good enough for you?”

I shake my head, my heart pounding against my ribs. “Not even a little bit.”

His arms slide lower, and I settle into their new location encircling my waist. I raise my arms to his neck, clasping my hands behind his head.

“Then what, pray tell, would be?”

How far can I go? I think for a moment, looking around the bathroom. My eyes land on the vibrator.

“Oh?” He follows my eyes, and his eyebrows raise. Then he meets my gaze.

My face heats.

“Would you like me to use that on you, Kodi?”

Despite the way my heart leaps into my throat, I don’t answer right away. I think about it for a solid tenth of a second.

“Yes.”

“Where?” He growls.

The butterflies in my stomach once again emerge from their cocoons. “Not my feet.”

“Where, Kodi? Tell me where.” He leans down, touching his forehead to mine, the pain in his voice palpable as he says the next few words through clenched teeth. “You make the calls here, you understand me? This is your first time, you are calling the shots. I am not doing a goddamn thing unless you expressly ask for it.”

“But how do I know what I want?” I ask, shivering in his hold. How do I know what you want?

He pulls me in tighter. “You listen to your body. When it feels good, you tell me. When it feels bad, you tell me. And when it feels like everything in you will explode if I don’t focus all of my attention, and desire, and fucking everything into that one. Spot.” He takes in a shuddering breath, and I swear I can feel it directly in my core. “You scream my name until you fucking fall apart.”

Fuck.

“Okay?”

He opens his eyes, staring directly into my soul. My body is shaking with anticipation, every nerve alive and alert in his presence as I answer, “Okay.”

His voice is like liquid smoke when he confirms with me one last time.

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

Then he pulls me closer and presses a kiss to my forehead, his hot, hard body enveloping mine.

“Tell me what to do.”