30. Cali #3
I don't know why that gets me. But it does. It's such a small thing, but it's one more way he thinks about me first.
When he's sheathed, he takes himself and drags the blunt, thick head of him through my slickness, once, twice, until I'm whimpering all over again.
My eyes flutter closed in anticipation. But then, to my surprise, a rough hand grabs my jaw and wrenches it up off the pillows.
"I don't fucking think so," he growls. "I want you looking at me when it happens. I want you to remember every second. Remember who you're with."
"Yes, Ronan," I gasp, forcing my eyes open, dragging myself up out of the hazy pleasure to find his. Half-gray, half-blue, burning black at the center. "I'm looking. I'm with you."
He nods savagely.
Then he shoves into me.
Under any other circumstance, a man his size, moving like that, would hurt. But I'm so wet, so ready, so shamelessly gone for him that it doesn't hurt at all. It just feels like being filled. Completely. Like a puzzle piece I didn't know was missing sliding home with a click I feel in my heart.
"Oh, God," I whimper.
"Not God," he corrects as he seats himself all the way in and goes still, letting me stretch around every impossible inch of him. "Me."
"You," I gasp in agreement. "Ronan. You."
"Now, you're starting to understand."
He withdraws almost all the way out before reversing course and sinking back in. He watches me the whole time, grinning as I sputter and groan.
But I get a little bit of revenge when I clench down around him and his face goes taut before an angry, defiant growl rips out of him.
We're both each other's sweetest torture.
The strokes begin. His eyes never leave mine. It's the most attention anyone has ever paid to me in my entire life, and it's happening while he's buried inside me.
"Look at you," he murmurs, dragging his hips against mine in a slow, filthy grind that hits somewhere I didn't know existed. "Taking all of me. Like you were built for it."
"I wasn't," I pant. "I definitely wasn't."
"Oh, yes, you were." He kisses me hard, tongue lashing against mine. "You just didn't know it yet."
And then he stops talking and starts moving like he means it.
Each stroke forces me up the bed and he follows, one hand braced by my head, the other gripping my hip like he owns it. Maybe he does. Right now, I'd sign whatever he put in front of me.
"Ronan," I gasp. "I'm close. I'm close again."
"I know. I can feel it." He grinds down into me, hitting that spot over and over. "Give it to me. Right here. Looking at me."
I hold his eyes like he told me to. It's harder than anything. I want to close them, throw my head back, but he wants me looking, so I look. And that's what does it. Watching him watch me. The patience. The care.
I dig my nails into his back to ground myself as I erupt, clenching around him so hard he groans and stops moving for a second, just to feel it.
I'm still shaking when he pulls out of me. I make a small, sad sound at the loss.
"Don't worry," he says. "We're not done."
Then he rolls, taking me with him, and suddenly, I'm on top. He's flat on his back, hands settling on my thighs.
"Ride me," he commands.
"I— I—"
I've never been on top. Todd didn't like it. I don't know if I know how.
He must see the confusion on my face, because he says, "You know how. Just take what you need. I want to watch you please yourself for once."
I'm still nervous, but he seems to believe in me, so I do what he says. I sink down onto him slow, my hands flat on his chest, and take him inch by inch until I'm sitting on him, full, stretched, trembling. He hisses through his teeth.
"See? You know what you want. Fucking take it, Calista."
I start to move. It's awkward at first, then better, then good, then incredible. I find a rhythm, rolling my hips, losing myself in it.
I feel powerful.
I feel like a woman who takes what she wants.
Then his thumb finds my clit.
And just like that, I'm on the verge again.
"Keep moving," he orders, circling slow. "Don't stop."
The two things together—the skittering high of the clit pressure and the aching fullness of his penis inside me—are too much and exactly enough. I ride him harder, chasing it, until it happens all over.
I break apart for the third time and flop forward like my spine has lost the war against gravity. He grips my hips and holds me there through all of it, dragging every last second out of me until I collapse onto his chest, spent.
He's still hard inside me. I can feel it, patient, waiting, like everything else about him.
"You're going to be the death of me," I mumble into his chest.
"Not yet." His hand strokes down my spine. "I'm not finished, kotyonok."
Before I can protest that I have no bones left, he wraps an arm around my waist and rolls us both onto our sides, keeping himself buried in me the whole way, so we end up face-to-face on the pillow like two people who fell asleep mid-conversation and forgot to stop touching.
It's different, this angle. There's nowhere to hide and nothing to prove. My leg is hitched over his hip, and his hand cradles the back of my thigh, holding me open just enough for him to move in these small, deep rolls that don't chase anything at all.
As we fuck, he kisses me. It's as soft as his stroking. Teasing, tender lips. His hips work against mine in that unhurried, grinding tide, and I match the energy without thinking, the two of us breathing into each other's open mouths.
The heat builds and builds, the grinding deepens, and then he's there, too.
He shoves his face into my chest and groans, that iron control finally cracking clean down the middle.
I hold him through it, my fingers in his hair, his breath ragged and warm against my collarbone, and it's the most powerful I have ever felt—not the taking, but the being trusted with this, with the exact second a dangerous man lowers his guard.
For a long moment, neither of us moves. His heart is going like mine. His arm is a band across my back, unwilling to let even an inch of air in.
"You okay?" he mumbles up from where his face is still pressed into my chest.
I laugh deliriously. "Not even a little bit. But I'm the good kind of not-okay."
He raises his head and looks at me, grinning. "You'll stay," he says.
I nod sheepishly. "I'm not going anywhere."
I tip my head back to look at him. His hair's a mess. His eyes are soft in a way I've never seen. He looks, for once, like a man who feels safe enough to let go in the dark.
"Ronan," I say a moment later. "That country house. The lake."
"What about it?"
"I really want to go."
His arm tightens around me. "Then we'll go. Next weekend. I'll clear my schedule."
"Just like that?" I tease. "Aren't you, like, a big shot with lots of important meetings to attend."
"As a matter of fact, I am," he jokes back. "But compared to you, none of it matters."
I don't know what to do with a sentence like that. It's too much, especially since I know he absolutely means it. So I put my head back down on his chest, right over the scars, and I listen to his heart.