Chapter 17 #2
Caitlin turns around slowly, and when she’s facing me, I frame her face with my hands, giving in and pressing a kiss to her forehead, lingering there as I feel her relax into me.
Pulling back to look her in the eyes, I move just a little closer, and when she doesn’t pull away, that feels like a victory too.
“But I only want all those things if you want them too. I only want to give you what you want. That’s why what you said matters.
Everything you say matters to me. Everything you think.
Everything you feel. It all matters.” I stroke my thumbs over her jaw, loving the way her soft skin feels under my calloused fingers. “You matter to me.”
“Why do you think you shouldn’t want me?” she asks, her hands coming to rest on my hips as she searches my face.
The question isn’t surprising, but it has discomfort washing through me, my muscles locking up tight and then releasing as the heat of her palms sinks into me.
“I’m a shitty bet,” I say, resisting the urge to fidget.
To pull away. To run. “I have no idea how to be in a relationship or what one would look like if I was. I haven’t had a real family since I was eight, and I’ve spent years going from one meaningless hookup to another because that felt like all I had to give.
” I sigh and then take a deep breath, focusing all my attention on her.
“You’re the first person who has ever made me want to try for more, and even though it feels selfish and it scares me shitless, I can’t make myself walk away. ”
“I’ve never had an orgasm,” Caitlin blurts out, then slaps her hands over her face, muttering, “Fuck.”
I understand her enough that this revelation doesn’t surprise me, and neither does her instinct to hide from this truth. But I don’t want her to hide. Not from me. Never from me. Circling her wrists, I pull her hands away from her face and kiss the back of each one. “Ever?”
Caitlin rolls her eyes. “I’m twenty-seven years old, of course I’ve had an orgasm,” she says, her tone laced with a kind of haughtiness, and that little bit of attitude makes me smile because there she is.
“I’ve had lots of orgasms. Thousands. Millions.
” She looks away from me then, and I can see the bravado drain right out of her. “But never…with anyone else.”
I nod, making a split-second decision. “We need to be more comfortable for this conversation.”
“We need…what?”
Winking at her, I bend down and wrap my hands around her thighs, lifting her straight up into my arms.
“What are you doing?” she stammers, her body going rigid even as her legs instinctively wrap around my waist. Between her center sliding right over me and the knowledge that I would be the first man ever to see her come, I have to have a quick and very stern conversation with my dick because it turns out I’m actually not that evolved and I can feel the heat of her through our fucking clothes.
In retrospect, picking up the woman I’ve been wildly attracted to for months was a very, very stupid idea, but I’m in it now.
I press a kiss to her jaw. “Taking you into the living room. This isn’t a kitchen conversation.”
She narrows her eyes at me as I settle into the giant green reading chair that sits in the corner of the room next to my floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, with her on my lap, her knees on either side of my thighs.
“What, exactly, is the difference between a kitchen conversation and a living room conversation? And have you actually read all these books?” she asks, glancing up at the shelves.
I scoff. “I’m not just a pretty face you know.
I like to read. It settles my brain down when I’m all amped from games or…
” I trail off and she just looks at me, waiting for me to finish.
Shifting a little uncomfortably, I glance up at the bookshelves and back at her.
“Or when I can’t sleep at night. I don’t… sleep much.”
At all. I don’t sleep at all.
She lays one of her hands over one of mine and squeezes lightly, a nonverbal acknowledgement of my little revelation, and I’m grateful for it because getting into my trash past is not on tonight’s agenda. “We like the same books,” she says, still studying the shelves.
I grin, settling my hands on her hips and tugging her farther up my thighs. “There’s nothing like a brilliant CIA analyst on a righteous mission to save the world.”
When she tries to move away from me, I lock my hands tighter on her hips to keep her right where she is. “No way, Princess, I want you close to me.”
Caitlin raises an eyebrow, and I know what’s coming before the word even leaves her mouth. “Why?”
Grinning wider, I lean in and kiss her throat, right over her hammering pulse, and when my tongue darts out and licks that spot, her sharp intake of breath is my favorite sound.
“Because I have a feeling you think telling me about the orgasm thing is going to make me want you less when, in fact, it just makes me want you a million times more than I wanted you before, and I’ve wanted you a whole lot for months, so the way I want you now is kind of unreasonable.
So unreasonable I need you to stay right here where I can feel you while you tell me your secrets. ”
She huffs out a laugh, casting her eyes to the ceiling. “Men,” she mutters, bringing her eyes back to mine. “You are literally all the same. Getting turned on by the idea of going where no man has gone before or whatever. So fucking predictable.”
Shrugging, I smooth back a piece of hair that came loose from her ponytail.
“I mean, I like to think I’m an enlightened sort of guy, but I can’t lie and say the idea of giving you orgasms when other men didn’t or couldn’t doesn’t do it for me.
” Taking a chance, I slide my thumbs just under her shirt, stroking over her bare skin.
“But not because of some weird manly competitive shit. Because everything about you does it for me.”
I lean forward again, and this time I ghost my lips over hers. “Talk to me, Catie. I really like the sound of your voice.”
She presses her hands to my chest, her body relaxing just slightly, as if the contact brings her some comfort. Then she nods. “Okay.”