Chapter Twenty-Three
Twenty-Three
I sink down between his knees and pull him from his underwear.
My mouth goes dry at the sight of his cock.
He’s huge, as I should have gathered, but still—it’s a shock.
Warm, velvety, and so hard it looks sore.
He wraps one hand around my upper arm, and when I take him between my palms, he squeezes me tightly. “Clementine.”
“Can I touch you?”
His nod is accompanied by a rugged exhale as I brush my fingers over his length once and watch him twitch.
When I do it again the little bead of moisture at the tip of his cockhead drips down the side.
One day, I am determined to make him beg as I did for him earlier, but not tonight.
I’m too eager. After all these weeks of fleeting glances and chaste kisses and quiet yearning, I’m craving a version of him that’s wholly unrestrained.
I lower my head to lick him once, and feel his thigh tense below my hand. I brush my fingernails across the fine dark hairs there—strong and athletic. Legs I can imagine diving, bare, into a summer ocean. Hiking past gnarled trees…
I’m about to suck him into my mouth when it dawns on me—
This is the first time in my life I’ve ever fantasized about a man’s body—his quads no less—in a nonsexual manner. I am literally engaging in a sex act, thinking about weekend date activities. Usually you’re in that ocean or on that hike fantasizing about this moment. Not the other way around.
“Clem?” Tom murmurs, a little hoarse. “You can stop, if you want. You know that, right?”
When I tip my head up and peek through my mess of blond hair, our eyes meet. And his expression takes my breath away. The care of it. The force of his wanting battling his concern. I can’t take it—
“Your body short-circuited my brain,” I admit shakily.
Tom is the kind of man who’s never too cool to laugh. He laughs with all his teeth—dimples, mouth open, head tipped back. He laughs the way he sings, with his whole heart.
“That’s happened to me a few times with you.” His hand sweeps up my neck, even as his eyes caress my tits and waist and knees. My cheeks flush and that weight between my legs doubles.
As if sucking on him will somehow ease the ache in my core, I angle the tip of his cock gently into my mouth.
Tom releases a pained groan and I press my lips a little harder.
My rhythm picks up, and though I need both my hands, I think I’m doing all right.
Tom’s fingers have scraped gently over my scalp and tethered into my hair.
When strands find themselves tangling in my wet fists and sticking to my full cheeks, Tom scoops all the strands into one hand and holds them for me.
He doesn’t yank back or force me down, like previous men I’ve done this with. He’s merely offering to be my hair tie.
And I should have seen this coming: that eliciting such severe pleasure in him—as evidenced by the grunts and rare whimpers he releases and the way his glorious leg muscles tense under my palms every time I lick him softly—would be a fast track to my own demise.
I’ve never been this wet in my life. My core is swollen and pulsing, my underwear drenched.
“Clementine.” He groans as I drag my tongue over his shaft. Then, huskier, “ Baby .”
I can’t imagine winning any trophy, any prize, that could feel better than this.
He’s thick, and too long for me to take deeply, but I swirl my tongue over him as I work my hands, until Tom lets out a broken breath that tells me he’s close. Hand still in my hair, he brushes his other thumb gently over my lips where I’m stretched so full of him.
“Your mouth,” he rasps. “ Fuck.”
I work my hands and mouth faster in tandem, even as tears gather in the corners of my eyes. With each downward stroke he bucks up toward me, and when I trace one hand lightly over his balls, he groans quietly. “I’m going to come.”
I work my mouth faster, harder, careful of my teeth and not to choke on his thickness, until his whole body tenses, his lower abdomen contracting under the barely there light, and then he releases, groaning roughly, gripping my head and jaw with as much restraint as he can manage until the splash of him hits the back of my throat and I swallow eagerly.
I milk him until I’m sure he’s finished, and when I sit back on my heels, trembling, I wonder how few touches from him it would take for me to fall over the edge, too.
He sits up to stroke his fingertips soothingly over my chin and my swollen bottom lip until his jaw strains. The gesture is so sweet, so gentle—his touch is divine. “You don’t want to know how many nights I’ve pictured that.”
His voice, even holier. I am a believer. I am reformed. If that’s the kind of worship he sings about, I will gladly be on my knees morning and night. I press my chin into his hand, dipping my face until I’m kissing his palm. He murmurs my name and I whimper his back to him.
He’s pulling me toward him, eyes hungry once more, when the bus shudders with the opening of the luggage compartment outside.
“ Shit ,” I hiss, scrambling from him like he burns to the touch. I stumble to the floor and throw my tank top overhead, and then pull my jeans on. The seam of them against my still-pulsing clit is like some kind of medieval torture, and I try not to squirm.
I move for the hallway, figuring I can jump into my bunk and pretend to be asleep until we arrive in New York—when Tom’s hands encircle my waist and he hauls me backward.
“Not so fast,” he growls.
He’s towering over me, all fully bare, six foot six of him, and without my shoes on my chin barely reaches his pecs.
“They’re getting back on the bus,” I breathe. “They’re going to—”
With ease, he presses me against the wall, and kisses me hungrily. His tongue licks at mine and I nearly convulse. I’m close to stripping so I can mount him. Through the flimsy tin can of a tour bus, I can hear Conor’s hacking laugh outside.
“I have to go.”
But he can’t hear me. He’s in a caveman-like daze.
His hand slides the zipper of my jeans down.
Each click is like a thrust. His fingertips skim over my low stomach and find my clit under my panties.
He grunts in satisfaction, rubbing me in light circles.
The sound I make in response does not bear repeating—it’s not ladylike or dreamy or hot.
I’m a horny creature from some black lagoon. One that’s ovulating, maybe.
When he finds my entrance dripping, his eyes shutter.
I actually can’t tell if he’s breathing.
But then he groans softly and uses my own wetness to make those circles on my clit even more decadent.
I claw at his shoulders, press every sensitive point on my body against his warm, heavy chest, and whine and plead and mewl.
A feral animal in need of many tranquilizers.
At the sound of Lionel’s high-pitched voice instructing someone to find Jen, my heart kicks up speed and Halloran handles me quicker.
I’m soaked from getting him off and weeks of fantasizing about moments just like this.
I know he can tell because his fingers are working a little harder to build friction than they should need to.
“So sweet.” The grit in his deep voice alone brings me halfway to orgasm. “Just as I knew you’d be.”
I suck on his tongue until he groans and then quiets himself.
We have minutes— seconds , maybe—until the entire band has climbed aboard and realizes I’m not in my bunk.
But the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse couldn’t rip me from Tom’s arms right now.
Not as he alternates pressure on my clit and those barely there strokes.
I’m pulsing and throbbing, dripping down my thighs.
His hand is magic. He plays me like his guitar—dexterous and with ease.
Driven by innate instinct and a punishing, raw need.
Seconds later I’m pulling my face from his to drive my head back into the wall as I come hard against his fingertips, my insides clenching around the emptiness—his fingers have remained on my clit the whole time.
When he coaxes me through another excruciating wave that rolls over my limbs and down my spine, Tom has to cover my mouth with his other hand to silence the avalanche of groans.
When I come to, his eyes are glazed and he’s completely hard again, pressing that thickness against my belly button.
We aren’t quite aligned because of his height, and I study his member openly, wondering how it’ll work when we have sex.
The thought is both daunting and surprising— when .
My concern must be plain across my still-dazed face, because he’s breathless as he says, “You’ll take me just fine. ”
Words don’t find me. He’s too tall and his voice too deep, and the things he says to me and the way he touches my body—I’m not equipped to handle this level of attraction. Nobody gave me an instruction manual. It’s all I can do to whimper in response, which earns me a devil’s grin.
When the luggage compartment slams shut from outside, Tom zips my jeans up for me and does the button with one hand. He runs his other over my cheek and into my hair, brushing some strays from my face. “You ought to get yourself out there.”
“Mhm,” I agree, though I don’t move. I know I’ve got mere seconds until they’re all back on the bus, but I’m glued to the wall. It supports my Jell-O body. The wall and I are one now.
An edge of a smile. “I don’t want you to, but if you wait much longer, they’ll be wondering why the two of us are crawlin’ out my room.”
He moves back to the bed and slips on his briefs.
Dark fabric around wide slabs of pale muscle and long, lean limbs.
Tom allows me to shamelessly study him as I continue to catch my breath.
He tosses his jeans into a drawer he’s designated for laundry, and then fishes those Trinity sweats from his suitcase.
“Come on, love,” he cajoles in that soft voice I pretend is only for me. “Off with ye.”
“I’m goin’, I’m goin’,” I lament, peeling myself from the wall and finding my land legs once more. My fingers comb a little self-consciously at my hair.
My hand is on the doorknob when his warmth envelops me from behind. All that delicious weight swallows me as he presses a soft kiss to the back of my head. My eyes flutter closed and I inhale his soap and sweat and foggy rain scent.
“I’ve not a clue how I’ll sleep tonight,” he murmurs into my hair.
“I’d sleep better next to you,” I admit. It’s easier to say things like that—to be brave, or at least, brave by my standards—facing the suite door.
His mouth is gentle against my ear. “No, love. You wouldn’t sleep at all.”