Chapter 20
Twenty
EMBER
H is lips are divine.
I focus on physical sensation, blocking out the war of thoughts and feelings in my mind and heart. Focus on the soft, wet slide of his lips on mine, the heat of his mouth, the tender delicate probe of his tongue. His hands in my hair, thumbs on my cheeks, temples. His powerful, thick thighs beneath me, brawny arms around me.
I close my eyes and lose myself in the kiss. Breathe his breath. Taste his tongue. Relish the hungry power in his hands as they scrape down my neck, clutch my arms, scour the line of my spine, grip my ass.
Guilt tries to make a break for it, bubbling up in my throat and threatening a panic attack.
I break the kiss and rest my forehead on his. "Sorry, I…I need a second."
Felix pulls back and carves a loose tendril of my hair behind my ear. "Okay." He tilts my head up, exposing my throat. "Can I do this?"
He ghosts his lips against my jawline, breath huffing hot over my skin, kisses my throat in a dozen different places, each kiss softer and sweeter than the last—and more arousing.
"Yes…" I breathe. “That's good. I like that."
He tugs the neck of my shirt aside and kisses my collarbone. The base of my throat. Up one side of my neck and then down the other.
"Felix," I breathe.
"Tell me what you want," he whispers. “Tell me what you need."
"Just…a little more."
"Where?"
I know what I want, but I'm scared to ask for it—scared I'll panic and bolt…and I do not want to run away. I want to be with him. I want to make love with him. Fuck him. Have sex. Whatever phrase you wanna use, that's what I want. And I will not let my fear and irrational, but understandable, guilt stop me.
Felix reads my hesitation for what it is. “Say the word and everything stops," he murmurs. "And the word in this case is 'wait.'"
He tilts me away a bit, creating room between us. Works his fingers under the hem of my shirt. His eyes find mine and search me, waiting, assessing.
He lifts my shirt a few inches, and the slow, hesitant way he slides it up triggers a memory:
Dutchie and I in the bed in the back of Pumpkin, parked in an RV campground in Bozeman, Montana, his fingers hesitantly guiding my T-shirt up.
Felix’s gaze holds mine, waiting for my objection.
I squeeze my eyes shut. "Fuck."
His hands vanish, rest on my thighs. "Hey, it's fine."
I shake my head. "No, it's not. It's not fair to you."
"Fuck that noise, Em. All I give a shit about is you. I want to make you feel good. But only if you’re okay with it. If it's too hard, then we wait."
"The problem is that I'm pretty sure it'll always be too hard. I don't want to wait. I want to do this with you. I just…"
"What, Ember?"
"I'm having…I don't think flashbacks is the right word. Just…memories." I seize my courage. Exhale sharply. "I want this. I'm not going to let the past dictate the future. I promised Dutchie I'd let myself move on, and I'm going to keep that promise—for him and for myself.” I reach for him, find hot skin and hard muscle. "I just have to…face my feelings. Stop running from them."
“Tell me what you need from me, Ember." His eyes are serious, intense.
"Just…kiss me. Kiss me and don't stop."
His answer is a rough, ravenous growl that sends goosebumps shivering over my flesh, sets my stomach to flipping and my thighs to clenching. He frames my face and claims my mouth, rakes his tongue through my lips. I open for him greedily and whimper at the fury of his kiss; I glory in the firm swell of his bulging biceps and the hard slab of his abs. Devour his tongue, let desire well in my core, give myself over to it.
My whimper sets him off—when he hears it, his hands tighten in my hair and he tilts his head to deepen the kiss. I explore the round hardness of his shoulders, the rippling field of his broad, muscular back. My fingers dive up into his hair. Down to the waist of his shorts, dip under the elastic…discovering he's commando under the shorts.
And god, those shorts. They're short and tight, barely containing the tremendous girth of his thighs—yes, I said girth. His thighs are girthy. It’s fucking hot.
The shorts cling to the boulders of his ass.
There’s nothing under them but him. All of him.
Raw, feral need for Felix boils in my veins.
More—I need more.
I need him. Need skin-to-skin contact.
I need an orgasm I didn't give myself.
I need to feel him lose control, knowing I brought him there.
I need him to take me. To make me his.
I need to make him mine.
You don't deserve this. Dutchie was your husband and he's dead. You should be in mourning, still. Where's your grief? How can you move on so fast? The voice is cruel and nasty. The voice is my own.
I grip Felix's sides and push the voice away, shove my tongue into his mouth—his surging growl of desire scorches the voice into nothing.
With his mouth on mine, his tongue dancing with mine, Felix sweeps his hands under my shirt to explore my back, skipping over my sports bra strap. Under my shirt, up to my shoulders, back down to my waist. To my belly.
Up.
I lean back without losing his mouth on mine, lift my arms over my head—he grants my request and removes my shirt. I break the kiss only as long as necessary—the second the fabric is past my face, I slash my lips over his again, fuse them to his, whimpering and then gasping as his hands rush roughly up my stomach to cup my breasts over my bra.
I gasp again at this touch, mouth hanging open as he grips the weight of my tits, thumbs brushing over the bumps of my erect nipples. "Fee," I breathe. "I love how you touch me."
I hope he reads this as the encouragement it is—more.
More.
“That works out,” he whispers, pulling away from the kiss, “because I love touching you."
His fingers slip under the strap at my back, pause, his eyes on mine. My response is to trail my fingers down his abs, shimmying backward on his thighs so I can hook my fingers inside the elastic of his shorts. He scrapes his hands up my back, taking the strap of my bra with them, palm calluses rough on my skin. The bra snags and strains at my breasts as he tugs the strap upward, and then with a sudden rubber band snap, the bra slips up past my breasts, which fall free with a swaying bounce. His eyes follow their movement greedily.
"Fuck, Ember," he breathes. "you're perfect."
“Touch me," I whisper. "Please."
I do not have to ask him twice. He cups them in his big work-roughened hands, kneading and squeezing them, letting them go so they fall and sway before lifting them again. My nipples are hard and erect and aching and his thumbs scrape over them, eliciting a gasp from me.
Felix leans into me, kissing my breastbone, the slice of skin between my breasts. Lifts one and kisses underneath it where it joins to my torso and then the underside, and then my nipple is in his mouth and I'm clutching at his head and arching my back as he trades one breast for the other, licking and suckling and then kissing and teasing around the circle of my areolae. I feel his arousal beneath me, a hard ridge sheathed behind his shorts and my leggings and underwear.
I want it.
I play with the hair at the back of his head as he continues to worship my tits, tipping my head back and just…wallow in the wonder of this, of his mouth on me, on the swell of arousal in my core. His hard cock beneath me begs for my touch, teasing me with each shift of our bodies.
Felix pulls away from my boobs, cupping them and gazing up at me with his palest blue eyes blazing with arousal. "Need more of you, Ember," he murmurs. "Need to watch you come apart for me."
"Please," I whisper. " Please , Felix."
It's all I can manage—my throat is tight with nerves and hot with desire, my flesh tingles and my nipples are so hard they ache, and my core is pulsing and drenched.
Felix stands up, twists to deposit me on the couch, sinking to his knees in front of me. Leans between my splayed-apart knees, wedging his big body between my thighs, cupping my tits and kissing my diaphragm, my belly. My navel. Nerves sing inside me—you'd think this was my first time, I'm so nervous.
He curls fingers inside the waistband of my plain, tight, black leggings and the black thong beneath them. His eyes go to mine, silently asking permission. I press my heels into the floor and lift my ass.
He strips my leggings and thong off inside out and tosses them away, and I'm bare for him, nipples hard, sex exposed and dripping desire, thighs wanting to close, breath coming in short, sharp gasps of nervous excitement.
He runs his hands up my thighs, burying them in the tender creases where legs meet hips, thumbs pressing in just above my sex. His touch carves over my hips and behind me, gathering my ass and pulling me to the edge of the couch. My legs hook over his arms and he holds me like that, ass hovering off the edge of the couch, thighs splayed wide. Touching soft, ghostly, questing kisses up my inner thigh, Felix teases me, kissing nearer and near my pussy before kissing elsewhere instead, until I'm crazed with need.
"Fee, please, fuck, stop teasing me."
He rumbles a laugh. “Mmmm…no. Not yet."
More teasing—kisses to my thighs, my belly, my pudendum, the delicate silk where my thighs meet my pussy, his beard scratchy in the most amazing way.
"Please," I whisper.
"Please, what?"
I push him toward my pussy. "Eat me out, Felix. Make me come. Please.”
He snarls, an eager, muffled sound as he fuses his mouth to my pussy, tongue swiping up my seam to flick against my clit. He lets out another hungry rumble, tongue delving between my nether lips, sweeping through the drip of my desire.
"Fuck, I love the way you taste."
"Mmmm," I breathe. "Fee!"
I feel a tremor building already—I give myself to it, trying to convince myself to relax into it. His tongue is quick and busy, flicking and probing, swiping and circling. The tremor builds into heat behind my navel and spasms in my thighs, an arching of my spine and contortions of my abs. I cry out as he sucks my clit between his teeth, and then the tremor cracks apart inside me and becomes a full body shudder; I drape my thighs around his neck, rest the backs of my knees on his shoulders, heels hooked over each other behind his neck, toes curling as he devours me to level after level of heady, delirious ecstasy.
"Oh fuck— Felix !"
I clutch at his head, dig my fingers into his hair and knot them in the silky, cool locks, hips helplessly rocking to the rhythm of his tongue. He runs his hands up my belly, toying with my tits as he plies me with his mouth, and all I can do is hold on to him as he works me into a frenzy unlike any other.
Yet, the moment before my climax bursts, he pulls his mouth away, grinning up at me with a mischievous glint in his ice chip gaze, beard soaked with my essence and glistening in the afternoon sun.
"Felix!" I hiss through gritted teeth. "Please, fuck, please—don’t stop now! I was about to come."
"I know."
It's all the answer I get.
Grinning at me, he trails a fingertip down my seam. Fits it between my lips. Delves inside me. Withdraws. Traces down my slit again. Delves inside again. Withdraws again. And again—a single push of his finger into me.
"Fee!"
He turns his hand palm facing up, dipping his long middle finger inside me, curls it, withdraws until just the tip of his finger is snugged between my pussy lips, and then presses in again. I gasp at the delicious intrusion of just his finger, and now I'm craving the fullness of his cock inside me.
The memory that plays in my mind as he toys with me and teases me with that one middle finger, is me on my knees in front of him, his thick hot hard cock sliding into my mouth, and the wonder on his face and in his voice as I give him pleasure.
And I want that again.
I want to taste him.
I want to make him wild. Make him lose all sense, all control.
I want to ride him.
I want to lie beneath him and take him inside me.
I want to be on my hands and knees for him, screaming as he pounds into me from behind.
I want to be taken. Owned. Set free.
For now, though, all I can do is shudder and shake as he ever-so-slowly builds me back up the mountain of ecstasy to a shuddering, shaking, tremulous orgasm, all with a single finger.
And…stops.
Again .
“Felix! Goddammit!” I whimper, hips bucking, every part of me—mind, body, and soul—desperate for the rush and relief of release. "Please, for the love of god, Fee, let me come, please!"
“You're not ready yet," he grumbles, words whispered against my sex.
"I am!" I snap. "I'm ready. I'm so ready. Please!"
"I love it when you beg."
Irate, desperate, and delirious, I grasp at his face. Stare into his eyes. “Felix Crowe, I swear to fucking god. Don't play with me!"
He just grins, nipping the sensitive skin of my upper inner thigh sharply enough that I gasp in shock. "Felix!"
"You wanna come, Ember?" he asks.
“God, please!"
“Then trust me."
I growl in frustration. "I'm trying."
He slips that finger back inside me, and then adds a second, and then his thumb presses against my clit and his mouth is questing beneath my navel, dipping kisses lower and lower, and then his thumb is gone and his mouth is there suckling my clit and his fingers are plunging in and out of me with a come-here curl that does something insane to me, makes my belly flutter and my blood burn and my skin tingle and my pussy tighten around his fingers.
I can't keep still, now. I clamp my thighs around his ears and lift, quaking as an orgasm like no other mounts within me. It's titanic and wild, sun-hot even in this growing, nascent form. My hips buck and dip, my thighs quake, and small breathless screams rip out of me as Felix plunges his fingers in and out of my clamping, pulsing channel while suckling and tonguing my aching, throbbing clit.
"Fee! Oh god, Fee! FEE !"
He growls wordlessly as he thrashes my clit with his tongue, the sound one of pure male aroused enjoyment, eager and hungry. His left hand slides and stutters over my flesh on its path to my breast, squeezing it with delicious, ungentle aggression while his right hand squelches inside me and his tongue swirls and flicks my clit.
This time, as I quiver and gasp my way to the edge of climax, Felix doesn't stop.
He sustains the pace, fingers drilling and slicking in and out of me, tongue flicking and circling, hand squeezing my breast and pinching my nipple just this side of too hard.
"Fee!" I whimper. "Oh—oh—oh, fuck, fuck, fuck, Fee! YES ! Oh god, yes, oh god, yes!" I writhe and arch off the couch, crushing his face to my sex and clamping down on him with my thighs as I detonate.
My scream is loud in my own ears, a wild shriek of ecstasy, utterly without reservation. There's no holding this back, no keeping it in. Felix keeps me going, pushing me to a second climax hard on the heels of the first, and my scream dissolves as my lungs run out of air, and then all I can do is gasp for breath and thrash and buck and mewl.
"Fee!" I push him away, or try to. "I can't— I can't…"
"One more, baby. Come for me one more time."
“Oh god oh fuck—” I tangle my fingers in his hair and hold on so savagely it’s a wonder I don't rip his hair out by the roots, but he only growls again, feasting on my clit like a starving man at a banquet. "Felix, I…oh god, ohmigod, I'm—I can't, I…oh FUCK !"
Another throat-searing scream tears out of me as a third orgasm shatters me completely, every muscle tensing and contorting as the climax boils me alive from the inside out, white heat occluding my vision and sizzling in my veins, forcing me to curl in on myself as my scream goes ragged and trails off, tears streaming down my face, sobs wracking me.
Felix guides me through the last of the orgasm, slowing me to panting whimpers with soft kisses to my clit and gentle caresses of my breasts and delicate thrusts of his fingers, until I'm boneless and limp.
Darkness rises up and snatches me, pulls me under.