Chapter 25
twenty-five
ASHER
Ashirtless Cade, wearing sweatpants that rode low on his hips, made me lose my sense of restraint in an instant.
I’d meant to take the physical side of things slow after he explained his feelings.
But the heat of his kiss was all-consuming. Allowing myself to taste and touch him without guilt had incinerated whatever well-meaning self-control I’d held onto until this moment.
In the hotel in Sudbury, I’d avoided staring at his bare upper body when he stepped out of the bathroom in that damn towel.
But here in my apartment, I had permission to let my eyes feast on the galaxy’s worth of freckles that decorated every inch of his skin.
“Fuck,” I said again. The sight of so much temptation reduced me to a single-word vocabulary.
I knew immediately that the single floor lamp’s worth of light in my living room could never do justice to the beauty that Cade was allowing me to see.
My first priority had been getting him into my room and flicking on the light switch so that I could see all of him.
At the end of my bed, I took in the desire written in his eyes and the looseness of his limbs.
“Still good?” Despite wanting this so badly, I needed him to feel safe in every moment.
“Yes,” he answered.
I climbed onto the bed, keeping hold of his hand so I could guide him to follow me.
“Can you lie down for me, sweetheart?”
Once I got him situated on his back, his head on my pillow and his left arm raised behind his head, I knelt next to his waist, debating where to taste him first.
Wanting another taste of his sweet lips, now red from the friction of our kisses on the couch, I leaned down and licked the length of his top lip, offering the same treatment to the bottom one.
Cade eagerly opened his mouth, allowing my tongue to sweep inside to tangle our tongues together until we lost our breath.
I slid my lips from his mouth across his cheek where the skin was reddened from the friction of my stubble. The color matched the marks I’d made on his neck in my living room.
Impatient for a taste of all the freckles that had been revealed since getting half naked, I decided that the best view of my precious Cade was going to be from above.
Shuffling down the bed until I was next to the firm muscles of his quads, I swung my leg up and over his body until I could press my ass down lightly on the thickly corded muscles. I made sure to keep my knees wide enough that I could access every part of his body that I wanted to touch.
Sitting back to let a little more of my weight push his lower body into the bed, my gaze traveled up from the frayed elastic waistband of his pants with the light track of strawberry-blond hair hinting at the path I’d be taking as soon as I got my fill of the skin currently on display.
His hands came up to rest on my knees, pinching the fabric of my sweatpants to hurry me along.
My thorough perusal of his cute-as-fuck belly button, well-defined abs, and chest had me unconsciously grinding the underside of my hard cock into the divot where his upper thighs touched.
A frisson of heat shot straight to my balls, the sensation like a hit of adrenaline that had me sucking in a broken breath.
Unable to devour him without checking in first, I tore my eyes from their wild counting of endless freckles to meet Cade’s gaze.
The sight of the pink hue of his cheeks, accompanied by the tightening curls from the perspiration on his forehead, made me want to puff out my chest in pride.
He looked wrecked already, and the current of heat that connected us had his chest rising and falling in quick succession.
“Goddamn. You’re so sexy like this,” I panted, desire to further debauch the man in front of me stealing oxygen straight from my lungs. “I could stay right here and look at all of you all night.”
I made a show of sweeping my gaze down his body, pausing to pay extra attention to the hard flesh of his cock that twitched with my eyes locked on its shape.
“I hope you’ll do more than look,” came a raspy whisper from his throat. “Can you. . . show me what you’ve been imagining? I like it when you take the reins.”
Had I not been sitting, his admission would have knocked me over. God, could he be more perfect? I’d wanted to make him feel good for weeks upon weeks, and now I would have that chance.
Cade was really going to let me take care of him.
“I would love to make you feel good, sweetheart.”
Sliding my gaze back to his, the pink of his cheeks had deepened to a rosy blush. The same blush his face took on after the first warm-up at practice most mornings.
Shit. I’d never be able to call out Zane’s meticulous exercise circuit without getting hard ever again.
“Yeah?” I asked, brow raised. “Is my Cade baby ready for more?”
“Oh shit!” he grunted, futilely humping the air, stretching the fabric of his sweats across his cock obscenely.
When his movement failed to yield him any relief, he rocked his hips side to side, causing me to shift further up his thighs until the underside of my cock pushed against his tip.
“Ash. Please,” he pleaded.
“Fuck. I love the way that nickname makes you wild, sweetheart. What do you want?”
Torturing us both, I made a slow circle of my hips, letting more of my length slide over his cock, his tip pushing up against my balls.
“Something. Anything. Just more.”
He tossed the words into the air blindly.
Giving in to my own impatience, I bent down to press deep kisses to his lips before moving my attention to his collarbone and shoulders.
I nibbled along each side of his clavicle before settling in the small hollow in the middle, tonguing and sucking the divot, relishing the salty taste created by his heated skin.
“Mhnph. . .”
A muffled whine echoed behind his closed lips.
That wouldn’t do. I wanted to hear all the sounds Cade would make as his body flooded with pleasure.
Enticed by the possibility of making him lose control, I shimmied my knees toward the end of the bed, lowering my chest and stomach fully on top of Cade.
The groan I released as his hard cock flexed against my abs was transmitted directly into his sternum, as I refused to part my lips from his skin for even a second on this descent.
“Oh, ohh,” Cade gasped, rutting up into my stomach muscles with a few quick thrusts before I dropped my full weight on him to keep him still.
I hated to cut off his movements when it sounded like he’d found a sweet spot of pressure for his aching length, but I had so much more of his body to explore before either of us started racing towards the finish.
I licked and kissed my way over the constellations of freckles that decorated each inch of his skin, seduced further by each new arrangement of the faint dots.
Worshipping the slight rise of his pecs and the rippled muscles of his abs kept my mouth busy while I cradled and rubbed the toned muscles that stretched over his ribs.
When I reached his belly button, I pressed my face deeper into the muscles of his stomach, thrusting my tongue inside and swirling it around. My ministrations in the tight space were a preview of what I dreamt of doing to other parts of him.
My light grip on his lower ribs had him wriggling as though I’d discovered a ticklish spot. Tucking that piece of information away for later, I quickly slid my hands to the waistband of his sweatpants, letting my fingertips flirt with the elastic on the inside.
Tilting my head up so I could see his face, I belatedly realized that Cade had gently wound his fingers into my hair so that they brushed against my scalp each time his body shivered in pleasure.
Lifting his waistband an inch away from his skin, I searched his face for any hesitation or uncertainty. His gaze flitted over my features, to my neck and shoulders, his breathing picking up as he took in the picture I made with my mouth four inches from his cock.
“Ready for me to take these off?” I kept my voice as soft as possible, containing the need I felt for more of him.
The last thing I wanted was for him to feel pressured.
I wanted his assurance for each new step we took together. As much as I wanted all of him at once, we had endless nights ahead of us for exploring each other.
Sliding his hands from my hair, he brought them to rest partially over mine.
“I’m good. So good.” He bit his plump lower lip. “But um, can you take yours off too? And uh. . .”
Cade’s ears flushed as though a volcano of heat erupted into his system with his question.
“For sure, sweetheart. I’m all about fair play,” I winked, hoping to ease some of his embarrassment. “But what else did you want to ask?”
I punctuated my words by dragging my fingers over his hipbones and rubbing the stubble on my chin into the wiry hair of his happy trail.
“How can I tell you when you’re doing that?” he whined, tightening his core and pushing up to rub himself against me.
“Try for me, please?” I encouraged gently.
Undeterred by his words, since he was actively enjoying my movements, I combined the light caresses of my fingers with the rough scrape of my facial hair.
“Um, I’m just worried that I won’t know how to. . . you know, make you feel good too?”
His fingers flexed on top of mine.
I wanted to reassure him. But I also wanted to show him how good we could feel together.
Letting go of the fabric, I slid my hands out from under his fingers to push myself up onto my knees.
“There is no way you could touch me that wouldn’t feel good,” I replied, bringing my hands back to his waistband and sinking them under both pieces of his clothing left between me and a naked Cade.
I tilted my head in question as I slowly lowered the fabric over his hips.
He nodded, letting out a shaky breath.
Right when I reached the thickest part of his neat patch of hair above his cock, I continued my thought.
“Whatever we do together is going to be spectacular, I promise you. . .”
I quickly pulled his sweatpants and underwear up and over his hardness, the swift movement causing his cock to slap lightly against his stomach, before I finally slid back to the edge of the bed to free his legs and feet.
Moving back to palm his thighs in sinuous circles, I looked from his beautifully formed cock to his wide-eyed gaze.
“Because it’s you and me, together. Nothing could top this, letting me kiss and touch you just now. We’re going to start learning each other inside and out, Cade baby.”