Chapter 21 #2
He had already been so close, and Tiana worked him with a slow, deliberate rhythm, the wet heat of her mouth creating a low suction that seemed to reach all the way into his bones.
Occasionally she’d glance up, and every time their eyes met he wanted to say something—thank you, you’re perfect—but all he could manage was a strangled moan and the ragged sound of his own breath.
She alternated pressure, sometimes languid, sometimes hungry, her hand wrapping around the base and twisting in perfect time with her tongue, her other palm splayed possessively on his thigh.
The way she moved was never tentative, she owned this moment, and she owned him.
His release was building with a speed that scared him.
He could sense the whiteout at the edge of his vision, so he reached down, fingers threading through the wild halo of her curls, and gently eased her mouth off him.
She blinked, then grinned up at him, lips glossy and slightly swollen, looking more like a goddess than any human woman had a right to.
He pulled her up and flipped her so she was flat on her back, the pillows catching her head, her hair fanned out like a crown.
Niko hooked her fingers in the band of her underwear and slid them down her legs.
He then moved between them, parting her thighs with his hands.
He paused to take her in, the quiver in her stomach as she waited, and the way her breath caught when he kissed the inside of her knee.
Niko moved with a patience that felt both reverent and wicked, as if worship and mischief had joined forces in his hands and mouth.
He kissed his way up the insides of Tiana’s thighs, pausing, drawing lazy spirals with his tongue against her skin until her legs tensed around him.
He memorized every tremor, every shiver, every subtle shift of her hips.
When he reached her center, he tasted her with a gentle, exploratory stroke, barely parting her at first, then delving deeper, letting his tongue play along her folds in a maddeningly slow circuit.
Every time she gasped and tried to move against him, he anchored her with steady hands on her thighs, teasing her with light, fluttering flicks, or drawing her into his mouth and holding her there until she whimpered.
He loved the way she responded to him, the way her back arched, the way her hands knotted the sheets, and the way her breath turned ragged and urgent.
He loved it even more because Tiana was never the type to give up her control easily, yet here she was, totally unguarded, letting him take her apart piece by piece.
He alternated between broad, flat licks and quick, pointed flicks, delighting in the way she squirmed, the way her thighs tried to clamp his head in place, the way her voice, normally so poised, broke into pleading.
“Please,” she cried, the word thin and desperate, her hand reaching for his head, threading through his hair, pressing him closer. “Please, Niko.”
He continued at his pace, not allowing her to rush him, bringing her to the edge again, feeling the tension build and build, only to let up at the last moment, holding her just shy of release. He did this again and again, until her entire body trembled.
“Fuck, please,” she whimpered in desperation, and it made his own need ache. His cock throbbed painfully. “Please, please, please.”
That, more than anything, was what he craved, this moment where her pleasure was so fierce she begged, where her surrender was total.
He slid two fingers inside her, curling them until he found that spot that made her see stars, and at the same time, he closed his lips around her clit and sucked, his tongue vibrating in quick, relentless motions.
She shattered. Her back arched as her orgasm ripped through her in pulses so strong he felt it through his tongue and fingers, wave after wave, her nails digging into his scalp as she rode it out, pressing her sex into his mouth.
He didn’t let up, not until her cries faded into soft, breathless moans and she lay spent and boneless on the sheets, sweat-slick and glowing.
As he began kissing his way up her body, three words came into his mind that were very inappropriate to say. They started with I, ended with you, and had love in the middle.
He knew he couldn’t say those words to Tiana, she wouldn’t believe him.
He wasn’t even sure how he was so certain himself.
But he was. He loved the woman who deserved all the love in the world and was born without anyone who loved her.
His heart broke for her. He wanted to show her love, stability, family.
He loved the woman who was clearly scared to open up to him but was brave and trying.
Who had pushed him away but then researched and made his favorite dinner to say sorry.
The woman who opened up to him and got scared and rushed off to bed.
But then couldn’t sleep, so she came into his room and was vulnerable again.
How could he not love this woman? He couldn’t tell her, but he could show her.
Tiana’s breathing slowed, but the shudder of her release still lapped through her body in aftershocks.
Through the haze, she felt the heat of Niko’s mouth trailing up the inside of her left thigh, pausing at the tender junction where her leg met her hipbone.
His lips closed in a gentle suck that melted her boneless against the mattress.
He lingered there just long enough to let the anticipation build, then moved on, tracing a reverent line from hip to belly, a slow detour to her navel, before zeroing in on the fine, sensitive skin just beneath her breast. By the time he reached the peak of her breast, her nipple was diamond-hard, each brush of his tongue sending pulses straight to her core despite her body’s spent state.
Niko was never hurried. Even now, as his steel shaft pressed hot and insistent against her thigh, he lavished her with lazy, exploratory licks, drawing circles around her areola before sucking her nipple between his lips and drawing it tight.
He flicked it with his tongue, a teasing rhythm that made her hips undulate against him.
Her body trembled from overstimulation, but she wanted more, she wanted all of him.
She clutched his hair, anchoring herself to the world as he lavished attention on her breasts.
He drew back and grinned, breathless, the lower half of his face glistening with her. “Fuck, you are so sexy,” he murmured, voice raw and gravelly.
She didn’t answer. Words would have sounded ridiculous, even to her own ears. She was reduced to a collection of sensations, the rasp of his stubble against her skin, the velvet drag of his tongue, and the pressure of his thigh between her legs, coaxing her open, open, open.
He shifted his weight, bracing his forearms to either side of her head, while his hips nestled between her legs.
He slid his engorged cock along her slick seam with leisure, drawing a line from her pleasure nub down her opening, nudging at her but never quite entering.
She hooked her ankles behind his back, trying to force the issue, but he just exhaled a breath of amusement.
“Impatient,” he teased, then drew back and did it again, slow and deliberate, like he was tasting her with more than just his mouth.
She let out a strangled plea, “Niko, please.”
He gave her a look, heavy-lidded and wholly predatory, as he lined himself up at her entrance.
Then the energy shifted, he brushed a hair off her forehead, and his thumb traced her cheekbone, then her jaw.
When his eyes met hers again, she saw a vulnerability she’d never seen before.
Emotion deeper than the Pacific Ocean. She felt his stare through not only her physical body, but her soul.
She reached her hand up and touched his face, and as she did, he leaned his cheek into her palm and sank into her in a single thrust. The fullness of him made her gasp, and her vision blurred around the edges.
He was almost too much. Almost, but not quite.
He stilled, giving her time to adjust, then continued to press in gently, inch by inch, going as slow as she needed to accommodate him as he pressed soft kisses to her mouth, her jaw, her cheek, her face.
Soon, the burn faded to pressure, then to pleasure, until she felt herself spasm around him, drawing him even deeper.
When he began to move, she could feel every twitch of him inside her, every tremor in his thighs as he held himself back, refusing to unleash all at once.
He pushed in and out of her with exquisite patience, not slow but steady, each thrust controlled, measured, and utterly devastating.
She felt herself beginning to unravel, the previous climax nothing compared to the need rising inside her now, primal and unstoppable.
She wasn’t expecting him to change the angle.
It took her by surprise when he hitched her left leg over his shoulder.
The new position made her open wider than she thought possible and made him rub against a spot inside her she’d never known was there.
Her hands scrambled for something to anchor her, digging crescent moons into his shoulders.
He bent down, folding her in half, and pressed his mouth to hers in a hard, desperate kiss that barely let her breathe.
Words tumbled out between their kisses, not full sentences but fragments, her name, his name, please, fuck, yes, don’t stop, never stop, please don’t ever stop.
He was everywhere, his tongue in her mouth, his cock inside her, one hand tangled in her hair and the other trailing down her side to her hip and then back, drawing her closer and closer until their bodies felt like a single organism.
She felt him swell inside her, felt the sharp intake of his breath as he tried to hold back. But he was losing, and she knew it, and she wanted to take him with her over the cliff’s edge.
“Come with me,” she whispered, her nails raking down his side.
He shuddered and thrust into her hard, once, twice, three times, and that was it,. The third time was the charm. Her body contracted around him, and her vision went white as she came. She felt him pulse inside her, filling her with heat, lost to everything but their shared oblivion.
Losing all perspective of space and time, at some point Niko collapsed on top of her, crushing her to the mattress, and the weight of him was perfect.
She wrapped her arms around his broad, sweat-slicked back, unwilling to let him go, not even for a second.
His breath was hot against her neck, his heartbeat hammering in sync with hers.
For a long moment, the only sounds in the room were their ragged breaths and the distant patter of rain against the window.
Finally, when the trembling in her limbs dulled to a pleasant afterglow, she realized she was holding him too tightly and loosened her arms.
“I’m crushing you,” he murmured, lips pressed to her collarbone, and started to rise.
She shook her head. “No, no, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.” He rolled onto his side, bringing her with him, bodies still tangled, but he slid out from inside of her.
She snuggled up to his chest, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
As if they’d been doing that same routine for fifty years.
Just like the kiss, her head on his chest as she koala-bear-style snuggled to his side fit perfectly like the missing puzzle piece in her life.
One arm wrapped around her, and his hand traced lazy designs on her hipbone, the other cradled her cheek, his thumb grazed her jawline, as he ran his fingers through her hair.
She felt exposed, raw, and, strangely, safe.
“Can I stay in here, with you, tonight?” she whispered, the question out before she could stop herself. It had been something of a compulsion.
He was silent for a moment, his jaw clenching, as if the question had thrown him off balance. She braced for a rejection. She should have remembered this was not real.
He inhaled through his nose. “No.” His voice was hoarse.
Her heart stuttered. It shouldn’t hurt, after all. They weren’t anything, but it did. She tried to pull away, but his arms tightened around her.
“This bed sucks,” he said. “We’re sleeping in the main.”
He sat up, scooped her against his chest in one effortless motion, and stood. As he carried her down the hallway, she buried her face in the curve of his neck, inhaling the scent of sweat and sex and something indefinably Niko.
She’d never felt so safe before. So much like she belonged. She’d never felt like she was home.