40. TESSA
TESSA
His kiss was fierce and demanding, his fingers threading through my hair as his tongue pressed to mine.
I melted into him, my fingers sliding through his silky strands, drawing him closer as need coursed through me like wildfire, settling between my thighs, where an unbearable pulse started to drum like a heartbeat.
Blake’s palm found my breast, drawing a gasp from my lips.
Which made him stop for a second, his features falling into worry, perhaps that this level of intimacy was too much after my past.
“It’s okay.” I nodded, pressing his hand to my breast.
It took him a moment to accept the assurance, but when he did, his touch sent sparks racing across my skin.
Wrapping my arms around his neck, I pressed my body to his, feeling his desire press against my thigh. I rolled my hips slightly, drawing a groan from deep in his throat and matching it with one of my own.
Our kiss grew desperate in a symphony of sighs and gentle bites, of exploring tongues and shared breaths.
In all my years of fantasizing about kissing Blake—that quick drunken moment, I decided, didn’t count, not when I’d been too shocked to respond —I’d never imagined it could be like this: raw, uninhibited, years of tension finally unleashing in a storm of sensation.
Standing on this terrace, with the city lights in the distance and gentle bubble lights floating over the space, I felt like we were in a magical garden.
His hand slipped beneath the fabric to caress my bare breast, and I arched into his touch, needing to feel him, all of him, all over my body.
This was sweet torture, my body electric with pleasure but aching for more.
When his hand traveled down my stomach to my waistband, I let out a soft whimper against his lips.
I didn’t protest when he broke our kiss to slide my shorts and underwear down my legs or when he knelt before me, his eyes sparkling with promise as he waited for me to step free of them.
My pulse, my need, everything quickened at the intensity of his gaze.
He rose to claim my mouth again, his hands possessive as they explored my breasts, thumbs circling my sensitive peaks. My fingers mapped the planes of his chest, tracing the defined muscles beneath his shirt.
“You have no idea how long I’ve dreamed of this,” Blake breathed against my skin, trailing kisses along my jaw and down my neck. In one smooth motion, he tugged my tank top up, exposing my breasts to the cool night air.
His mouth found my nipple, the wet heat of his tongue drawing a moan from my throat as I cradled his head, back arching while he lavished attention on each of my breasts.
All the while, his eyes stayed locked on mine, sharp with desire, and then he lifted my hips and placed me on the edge of the terrace, the smooth stone cold against my ass.
The railing at my back was the only barrier between me and a long-ass drop, but I couldn’t focus on anything except Blake kneeling between my thighs, his soft lips pressing kisses near my sensitive flesh. So close to where I wanted them to be that the pulse in my sex throbbed harder.
My fingers tangled in his hair as realization hit me. The city lights. The terrace. He might not have planned for this to happen, but he was re-creating that scene from the romance novel he’d found in my townhouse, where the heroine was pleasured against a backdrop of city lights.
And luckily for me, Blake didn’t live in the heart of the city; he lived on the outskirts, on the tallest building for miles, making me feel free to enjoy what was about to happen.
Blake opened his mouth and hesitated, holding my eyes for one second before, finally, he swiped his tongue up my sex in a long, torturous lick.
The ache between my thighs intensified, becoming almost unbearable.
“You taste like heaven, Cupcake.” His voice was rough with desire.
“Blake …”
Pressing his hands on my inner thighs, he spread me wider, his gaze hungry as he took in the sight of me. “Gorgeous.”
Another slow stroke of his tongue had me trembling, especially when he reached that sensitive bundle of nerves and began tracing lazy circles. When he slipped a finger inside me, I clutched the railing behind me.
“Tell me what you want, Tessa.” His demand was both gentle and hungry.
“What … what do you mean?”
“Tell me how you like to come.”
He was asking for my preferred position, I realized.
“I …” I swallowed as he licked me again, my shoulders pressing to the hard railing behind me. “I’ve only done it with my vibrator.”
His eyes snapped up to mine.
“You’ve never come with a guy before?”
I bit my lip, shaking my head. With anyone else, this admission might have been mortifying, but Blake’s expression looked … honored. His mouth rose on both sides, and then he stared between my legs with an all-new intensity.
“I get to be your first.” He licked circles around the most sensitive part of my flesh, his technique masterful, alternating between gentle suction and careful strokes that had me fighting to keep still.
“Oh God, right there,” I pleaded as he found a particularly sensitive spot. “Just like that …”
“Do you know what I’ve imagined doing to you, Tessa?”
I moaned as his tongue continued its sweet torture, the tension inside me building to unprecedented heights.
“I’ve dreamed of your mouth filled with me.”
His words sent an unexpected thrill through me. I’d never experienced this kind of talk before, but I loved it.
“I’ve dreamed of being deep inside you.”
He punctuated this confession by thrusting his tongue inside me, and I felt myself clench around him. I could feel his smile against my flesh before he returned to his earlier rhythm, licking and plunging his fingers inside of me.
“Ohhhh …”
The pleasure built inexorably as he devoted himself to my satisfaction, letting me rock against his face as I chased my release. I couldn’t believe this was happening, that after all these years, I was about to experience my first orgasm with a guy.
Best of all, that guy was Blake.
What a sight we were right now. Dark, handsome, and muscular Blake kneeling before my spread thighs, his face buried in my sex. Moaning, I felt my legs begin to tremble as I held his head to my sensitive flesh, riding a wave that was about to crash over.
When it hit, it was overwhelming. I fisted his hair, thighs quivering as my back arched against that cold bar while wave after wave of pleasure crashed over me.
He groaned against me, the vibration only intensifying the sensation as he continued his movements, drawing out my pleasure until I was gasping.
When the last tremors subsided, he pressed a final kiss to my inner thigh before standing.
“That’s what I wanted to do the night I kissed you, Tessa.”
Wow. Two years of hurt, rewritten in one orgasm. Who’d have thought?
I stood, smiled, and reached for his waistband, wanting to return the pleasure he’d given me, wanting to show him how much this—how much he—meant to me.
His hand caught my wrist, gentle but firm, and my heart stuttered.
“Tess, I …” The words seemed to catch in his throat.
Something flickered across his face. Fear? Uncertainty? But that didn’t make sense.
“I thought you wanted …” My voice trailed off as I watched him struggle for words. The silence stretched between us, heavy with everything unsaid, and in that silence, my hopes began to crumble.
Oh. The realization hit like a shotgun to the stomach. This wasn’t some romantic breakthrough. This was just sex. This was him getting caught up in the moment, maybe finally acting on some long-held fantasy, and now he was stopping before it went too far, before it meant too much.
Just like that night, when he’d kissed me. And after, when he wasn’t caught up in the moment anymore, when I’d reached out to him, he pulled away.
This time hurt so much worse.
“I get it,” I spat. “Just getting it out of your system. Well, congratulations. Consider that box checked.”
He jerked back as if I’d slapped him. “Tessa, that’s not?—”
“Save it.” The burning in my eyes had nothing to do with desire now. “I’m not some naive girl anymore, Blake. I don’t need you to let me down easily or make up excuses. This was just scratching an itch, right? Simple curiosity about what it would be like?”
My stomach clenched with pain and nausea, my heartbeat accelerating until I broke out in a cold sweat, and worse, my lungs felt like they couldn’t get enough air.
“Tessa—”
“Thanks for the orgasm,” I cut him off, my voice sharp enough to draw blood. “Now get out of my way. I have a bag to pack.”
I made it all the way to my bedroom before I vomited, this time shaking on the bathroom floor. It felt like all my symptoms came crashing back, all at once.
BLAKE
What had I done? Of all times to surrender to temptation, I’d done it right after Tessa had shared something incredibly intimate with me. What was wrong with my twisted head?
I shouldn’t have let that happen. Couldn’t let it happen again.
And not just because I was damaged, my edges too sharp from past breaks to risk cutting someone as precious as Tessa, who’d already been through enough.
Not just because she deserved better than someone who’d stand frozen in the aftermath of her vulnerability, unable to be what she needed.
But because now that I’d had a taste of her, letting myself indulge in that single, devastating moment, I knew with absolute certainty that I wouldn’t survive when she inevitably pulled away, leaving nothing but echoes and emptiness behind.
She’d explained why she’d done it two years ago, but that didn’t change that it had happened. And that it would happen again. This time at a catastrophic level.
Maybe if I’d never met my foster mom, Sarah, I’d have been reckless enough to take the chance with Tessa, but some lessons brand themselves too deep to forget, and I’d learned mine well. The higher you let yourself soar, the farther you had to fall.
And Tessa. She’d be like surviving a fall from the moon.
I needed to reconstruct the distance I’d fought to create between us after my calls had gone unanswered.
But first, I needed to convince her to stay.
Her life depended on it …