Chapter 23 Harper #2
His lips find mine again, this time with no hesitation, no trembling restraint.
It’s claiming, slow and hot, filled with the kind of need that’s been buried for far too long.
I open beneath him instinctively, hands moving to his shoulders, his skin still damp beneath my fingertips.
The kiss deepens, mouth parting, his tongue sliding against mine with lazy, devastating control.
It isn’t rushed. It isn’t hungry. It’s indulgent.
Like he’s been starving for years but now has all the time in the world to taste every piece of me.
When he lifts me onto the edge of his desk, my legs part for him without thought.
The silk of my nightgown drapes loosely around my thighs, cool against my heated skin, but it’s what’s beneath that fabric, what’s pressed flush against him, that draws the first real groan from his throat.
His hips slide between mine, the only barrier between us the soaked linen of my underwear and the tortured strain of the towel still somehow clinging to his hips.
“Tell me how far I can go,” he murmurs against my throat, lips brushing the skin just beneath my ear. His voice is low, guttural, frayed at the edges in a way that makes my body clench.
The words send a shiver down my spine, but I don’t speak yet.
Instead, I lean back slightly, letting my thighs open wider around him, letting the fabric ride up higher.
My breath trembles as I feel the full weight of him press against me, hard and thick and barely contained by the damp linen that does little to hide what he wants.
“You already know,” I whisper, but it’s not teasing. It’s not even a challenge. It’s a confession.
He groans softly, his hand slipping up my inner thigh, fingers grazing dangerously close but never quite touching the place I ache for. The tension is unbearable. And perfect.
He presses his forehead to mine, our breaths mingling, his hand still resting just below the edge of my underthings like he’s daring me to beg. “You’re soaked,” he says against my mouth, like the observation is something sacred. “I haven’t even touched you, and you’re already fucking dripping.”
His words land like a spell, tightening every muscle in my body. I should be embarrassed, anyone else, I would be, but this is Sebastian. He knows every inch of me. Every fault. Every sin. There’s nothing left to hide.
Then he does something wicked, he rocks his hips forward, slow and precise, dragging the thick length of him along the center of my clothed core.
The fabric is soaked through, the pressure perfect.
I gasp, hips twitching, and he does it again, this time slower.
His cock grinds against my center, not inside me but close, and the friction has my toes curling.
He doesn’t break the rhythm.
Doesn’t tear the fabric away.
He just keeps moving, keeps watching me fall apart under the weight of his restraint.
“You want to cum like this,” he murmurs, lips brushing my cheek now, dragging down to my neck. “Don’t you?”
I nod, too breathless to lie.
His fingers hook under the waistband of my underwear, dragging them slightly to the side, but not enough to enter me. Just enough to expose the slick mess he’s made of me. His cock glides against my bare folds now, the heat of him grazing my clit with every slow grind.
“I want to fuck you,” he groans, voice strained with barely restrained need. “But I want this more.”
I don’t ask what this means, because I already know.
He wants control.
He wants build.
He wants to take me apart without ever fully taking me, because the tension between us is its own kind of worship.
He kisses me again, mouth slow and consuming, while his hips keep rocking and my hands grip the edge of the desk behind me for leverage. My thighs are trembling. My skin is flushed. Every drag of his cock against me sends sparks behind my eyes.
And just when I think I can’t take it anymore, when the pressure starts to build so tightly I can hardly breathe, I whisper against his lips, “Don’t let me fall.”
His hand cups the back of my neck, steady, grounding.
“I won’t,” he breathes. “But I’m going to take you to the edge.”
And he does.
Sebastian doesn’t speak. Doesn’t ask permission. Doesn’t give me a chance to catch my breath.
He sinks to his knees before me with the kind of reverence reserved for altars and ancient gods.
Not with urgency, not with shame, but with purpose.
Like worship. Like this is something sacred.
His fingers trace the outside of my thighs, the pads of them feather-light, dragging up until they hook beneath the silk hem of my nightgown.
The material rides higher with each pass of his hands, baring more of me to the cool air and his hot gaze.
And still, he waits.
I should be the one telling him to stop. I should pull my nightgown down, smooth my legs together, slip out the door before anyone hears. But I don’t. I lean back onto my palms, legs slightly parted, trembling from the ghost of his breath already hovering far too close to where I ache for him most.
His mouth is unbearably close.
I can feel the heat of it, can see the way his lashes lower as his eyes lock on the slickness glistening between my thighs.
“Do you want me to stop?” he murmurs, voice deep, rough, already frayed.
My response is a breathless shake of the head.
“No,” I whisper. “Don’t stop. Not now.”
He groans, a sound so guttural, so broken with need it feels like it’s pulled straight from his core. His hands tighten at my thighs, anchoring me in place as his mouth finally, finally descends.
The first pass of his tongue is torturous, slow, almost experimental.
He tastes me like he’s never tasted anything before, like I’m something sweet and decadent, meant to be savored over hours, not seconds.
A gasp rips from my throat, and I clamp my teeth down to keep it from turning into something louder, more dangerous.
He flattens his tongue and drags it up the length of my center, pressing into me with a rhythm that immediately has my hips twitching against him. His grip adjusts, one hand splayed against my lower belly to keep me still, the other sliding around the back of my thigh to keep me open for him.
It’s maddening.
Each flick of his tongue is more deliberate than the last, targeted, devastating, paced to unravel me one trembling inch at a time.
The fire building low in my stomach starts to coil tighter, heat pulsing through me as I brace harder against the edge of the desk.
His stubble grazes the inside of my thigh, the friction a sharp contrast to the wet slide of his tongue.
It’s too much. Not enough. Perfectly ruinous.
And he knows exactly what he’s doing.
He moans into me, low, vibrating directly against my clit, and I nearly fall apart.
“Sebastian-” I breathe, barely able to form the syllables.
He growls against me in answer, and the sound alone nearly pushes me over the edge. His lips wrap around the sensitive bundle of nerves, sucking with gentle, agonizing rhythm, while his tongue teases, circling again and again until my thighs are trembling and my fingers ache from gripping the wood.
I can’t stop the sounds escaping me. Whispered cries. Hitched breaths. Desperate, broken pleas I didn’t know I was capable of making. He drinks down every sound like it feeds him, pulling me closer, licking deeper, refusing to let me go.
When the orgasm takes me, it doesn’t just crest, it crashes.
Hard.
My entire body clenches, then dissolves, every nerve sparking to life as white heat floods me. I convulse against his mouth, trying to stay silent, trying not to scream as wave after wave drags me under.
He doesn’t stop.
He keeps licking, gentler now, coaxing every last shiver from me, until I collapse fully back against the desk, chest heaving, soaked in sweat, silk tangled around my hips.
Finally, he rises.
Slowly.
And when I see him, his lips wet, flushed with want, eyes blown black with restraint, I nearly fall apart all over again. He places his hands on either side of me, caging me in, his body a wall of heat, his cock still achingly hard and barely restrained beneath his linen towel.
But before either of us can say a word, we freeze.
Laughter.
Voices outside the door.
Too close. Too loud.
I panic, breath catching in my throat, and for a moment, Sebastian’s only response is to gently lean his forehead against mine. Our bodies remain tangled, our scent heavy in the room, the evidence of what we’ve done unmistakable in the air.
If anyone opens that door, we’d be ruined.
But he doesn’t let go of me. Doesn’t step back. He brushes his thumb across my cheek, gently tucking a strand of hair behind my ear like this moment is normal. Like he didn’t just kneel for me. Worship me. Devour me whole.
When the voices fade down the corridor, I finally speak, voice low, unsteady.
“Sebastian…”
His name falls from my lips like a secret I should never say out loud, but even now, I don’t regret it. Not when he looks at me like that.
His eyes trail down, slow and deliberate.
Past my parted lips, my heaving chest, and lower, to where I’m still sprawled over the edge of the desk.
My legs open, thighs trembling, skin flushed and slick from the way his mouth had kissed me like worship and violence all in one.
I hadn’t even realized how soaked I’d become until the air hit me and made me feel it, just how shamelessly I’d fallen apart beneath him.
“Say the word,” he murmurs.
His voice is gravel, thick and wrecked from holding back. There’s a tremor in his hands, and it isn’t from uncertainty, it’s from restraint.
“I’ll lock the door. I’ll take the towel off.” His eyes darken, and I swear I feel the promise of him slide into me even though he hasn’t moved. “I’ll lay you back and fuck you so slow the walls remember your name.”
My breath stutters.