Chapter 24 Joanie
Joanie
Kieran’s hips pushed against mine. His kisses were hot and urgent now, like he was unraveling.
I’d lost any attempt I could muster to control this reckless passion driving me the moment his cool hands had slipped under my dress.
His finger glided through my folds, parting me and rubbing my clit.
A needy whimper escaped me. There was no way to pretend even for a second that this wasn’t the most turned on I’d ever been.
He held still, and my hips betrayed me by grinding to relieve the ache where his finger massaged.
This wasn’t me. I didn’t do this. It wasn’t a big deal to me that I hadn’t done this before, but what if my inexperience was obvious to him? Still, I didn’t want to stop what had been put into motion. I’d been waiting for when it felt right, and nothing had ever felt like this before.
He slipped a finger inside of me and the world sharpened to nothing but the moment—my heart pounding in my throat, the heat radiating from him in the cool night air, the spicy scent of his cologne.
Good girls get good things. That’s what I’d always believed.
I’d spent a lifetime being good. I’d worked hard at school.
Never missed a practice session. It didn’t matter.
Life didn’t care about any of those things.
Sometimes you jumped in the air for a kick and everything fell apart.
I didn’t want to be a good girl tonight.
I wanted to be wild and reckless. All that mattered was his finger, curling and teasing inside of me.
The adrenaline pulsing through my veins was a high like I’d never experienced.
Not fear, but pure, unadulterated excitement.
I couldn’t stop the moans that fell from my lips.
Pleasure built up like an electrical storm thrumming under my skin.
The tense thread of lust building inside pulled too tight.
What was I doing? We were outside. Granted, it was dark and isolated; even so, this was crazy.
This man made me crazy. His hands skimmed my hips as he clawed down my underwear.
I fumbled with the button on his shorts, and he yanked them down, followed by his boxers.
My back hit the wall, and he lifted my thigh and wrapped it high around his waist. I didn’t have time to look down before he grabbed his thick shaft by the base and lined himself up against the hot throb between my thighs.
He dragged the head of his cock through my wetness and began pushing inside.
I swallowed my startled cry. He was thick and solid, like a hot steel rod impaling me. This would never work. He was too big. The stretch as he buried himself was too much.
“OK?” His voice was rough against my ear.
My breath hitched. “It won’t fit.”
He kissed my chin. “Just relax.”
He pulled my thigh higher around his waist, opening me, claiming another inch of me.
His other hand gripped my ass, and his fingers dug in as he spread me.
Pain seared inside as he eased himself into me.
With every sharp stroke he buried himself a little deeper.
Before I’d had a chance to adjust to this strange new sensation, he pulled out, and then he was thrusting into me in punishing strokes.
The fullness was overwhelming. It burned.
As amazing as it felt to be with him like this, it hurt.
His lips crashed down onto mine in a hot, lustful claiming, soothing my cries.
Our tongues glided and clashed against each other.
A charge of desire scorched through my body, making me feel more animal than human.
My whimpers joined the symphony of night creatures that chirruped and hummed in the moonlit courtyard below.
I was supposed to be seizing the day. Who would ever look back at their life and regret feeling like this?
His lips grazed my ear. “OK?” He gripped my face with his hands and searched my eyes. “Something’s wrong?”
“It’s good, but can you go slower?”
He pulled out gently, dropped to his knees, and lifted my leg over his shoulder.
His tongue touched my clit, probing, sucking, and feasting.
The sudden intense change in sensation after his searing thrusts was too much.
A cry escaped my lips, and I was so drunk with arousal I couldn’t help but grind against his face, riding his tongue, scraping against stubble.
He didn’t shift his eyes from mine for a second. “Do you like this?”
I raked my hand through his soft hair, pulling him closer. “Yes.”
His enthusiastic tonguing made my knees buckle.
It was a relief not to have the searing burn of him inside, but also I was desperate to be full of him again.
I’d never felt so empty. I gripped his shoulders, encouraging him to his feet so he’d kiss me again.
His mouth crashed down into mine and I tasted myself on his tongue.
Gripping my hips, he steered me toward the railing and wrapped my hands around the cool metal.
I was so out of my mind, he could have folded me like origami and I would have let him.
He pulled me into position and entered me from behind in one slow, claiming stroke.
The sudden fullness when I was so desperate made me cry out.
My back arched involuntarily, and he gripped my shoulder, holding me in place.
He drew back and began thrusting in a controlled, unhurried rhythm.
The slap of my ass against him with every intense stroke was the most indecent sound, but it drove this wild desire inside.
Harder. More. It didn’t hurt as much now.
The need to be as full of him as possible was all that mattered.
No one had ever told me that sex would feel like this.
This was wild and raw and reckless and nothing like I’d ever imagined.
His expert fingers slipped around to my clit, and his gentle massage sparked pleasure deep within my core.
My orgasm held me in its merciless grip, suspending me in the moment before a tidal wave, when the sea has receded and there is only calm and an endless stretch of sand.
“You look so sexy right now. This view . . . oh fuck.” He pulled down my dress straps and my bra. His large hands squeezed my breasts. “You look so good taking my cock.”
Such filthy words. No one had ever spoken to me like that before.
The pleasure at my core radiated to the base of my spine—a powerful shock of relief that spread in pulsing satisfaction.
My hands tightened painfully on the metal railing.
Electricity sparked from my toes to the crown of my head.
Hot, senseless ecstasy coursed through me and unfurled in slow contracting swells.
The ocean of bright stars overhead swirled and called to me to leave my body and float in the inky night above.
A stream of unholy, shuddering gasps left my mouth.
I collapsed, boneless, against the railing, and Kieran must have been holding me, because I was completely limp but somehow I didn’t hit the deck.
Slowly, my surroundings came back into focus.
The sweat began to evaporate from my skin and a great shiver ran through me.
Kieran was still moving inside me, but his strokes were wild and urgent.
He pressed his face into my upper back, pulling me in harder and faster.
His tortured groan filled my ears as he withdrew swiftly.
Wet heat hit the base of my spine. A strange silence wrapped around us.
What had just happened? One minute we’d been talking, the next ripping each other’s clothes off.
I’d been so overcome with passion that I’d lost myself.
I’d had sex for the first time, and that hadn’t been my intention when I’d woken up this morning.
It hadn’t even been my intention when I’d stepped onto this balcony.
Something had shifted inside of me the minute his lips had touched mine.
Shock at the intensity and speed of what had just happened held me rigid. Wet heat trickled from my spine over my bare ass cheeks. I moved to yank my dress down to cover myself, but he grabbed my wrists, stilling me.
“No. Don’t move, you’ll ruin your dress.” His voice was rough and breathless. “Wait here. One second.”
He disappeared toward the bedroom. I yanked my dress down, because there was no way I was going to wait bent over a balcony with my bare ass out.
The soft light of the bedroom made me blink after all that darkness, but I raced through it, down the hall and to the bathroom.
I shut the door and snicked the lock. I waited for the shower to get hot before I pulled my dress over my head.
In the shower, searing hot water pounded me, and so did the thoughts in my head. I’d had sex for the first time.
A knock sounded on the door. “Joanie?”
I didn’t know how to respond, so I didn’t. The shower was loud. Hopefully, he’d think I couldn’t hear him, or he’d get the message and go. I couldn’t talk to him, not yet.
Another knock. “Is everything OK?”
Heat and steam swirled around me in the silence.
Another knock. “Joanie?” His voice held a note of alarm. “Is something wrong?”
I could picture him outside, leaning against the bathroom door with his brows drawn and that world-weary expression he often wore.
I wasn’t trying to upset him. I just needed to process this and I did my best thinking alone.
That’s when my head was the most quiet. I’d got used to my own company over the past nine months.
“Nothing’s wrong. Don’t worry.” The hammering water muffled my cry.
I used the showerhead to soothe the swollen, burning throb between my thighs.
It had hurt, but at some point the pain had mixed with the pleasure and taken the edge off.
Maybe I should have told him so he would have gone easier on me, but it had happened fast and I’d made a split-second decision.
He wouldn’t have wanted the responsibility of being someone’s first time.
I’d spared him that extra layer of complexity.
“Can I come in?”
I rinsed the last of the conditioner out of my hair, savoring the mango aroma. “No. You can’t come in.”
“Why not?”
I turned the shower off. Residual heat wrapped around me like a soothing blanket. “Because I’m naked.”
“Good. I like you naked.”
Please. Give me a minute. “I won’t be long,” I yelled back.
“I need to know that you’re OK. Please.”
The desperation in his voice made my heart contract.
I didn’t want to play games or mess him around, but I needed the headspace.
This was overwhelming. I wrapped my hair in a towel, slipped on a fluffy bathrobe, and stepped out of the bathroom.
Kieran stood on the landing. His impressive inked torso was bare, but mercifully he’d put on a pair of gray sweatpants.
I tried to keep my gaze from dropping to the V of his hips. Of course he would wear his sweatpants this low slung. Of course he would look this good in them. A quiver of desire went through me. I’d lost my mind. He’d put some kind of sex spell on me with those abs.
“You disappeared.” His voice was soft.
“I needed to clean up.”
“I could help you with that. Maybe we could both—”
“No.”
Hurt flickered in his eyes. “No?”
“That was so quick and—”
“Passionate?”
“Reckless.” At least Ramirez hadn’t been around. We’d probably woken up the cows in the fields. I swallowed and lifted my gaze to meet his. “I’m sorry if I was . . . loud.”
“You never need to apologize for that.”
My body felt achy and exhausted. “I’m tired. I’d like to go to bed.”
His brooding gaze roved over me. “Can I tuck you in?”
“I can manage. Thanks.”
I got to the end of the landing before he spoke again in an uncertain voice. “Joanie, did I do something wrong?”
“You did nothing wrong. I promise. This just isn’t normal for me. I’ve hardly left my house for nine months.”
He ate up the landing with his long strides and planted himself in front of me.
“I get it.” He tilted my face to his with a finger under my chin.
“Listen, I know you have this opinion about me, but I’m going to prove you wrong.
My life revolves around training. I’m not a player like some of these guys on the team.
This feels fast and spontaneous for me too, but”—he cupped my face gently in his hands—“I really like you. Please know that this isn’t normal for me either. I never like anyone.”
I couldn’t help my laugh at his stoic expression. “You never like anyone?”
“People are overrated. But I like you. You’re the exception.”
And I liked him, but this was happening fast. Maybe having sex for the first time was more of a thing than I wanted to admit.
A wave of homesickness went through me. I wanted to sleep in my own bed tonight.
I wanted to sit on Dad’s couch with Ollie and watch Friends and listen to him tell me one of his crazy stories from his tour.
Dad always used to say, Never make big decisions at night. Mortimer Fox wasn’t exactly famed for his brilliant advice, but that one rang true. Tiredness fogged my brain. I needed to sleep.
I squeezed Kieran’s hand. “Can we talk in the morning?”
He pressed his lips together. “Is that what you want? You’re sure? Because I can listen now.” He held his hands up in mock surrender. “No funny business. I’ll make tea. I need to know that you’re OK.”
“I’m OK. Honestly.”
He kissed the back of my hand, and his eyes locked with mine. “I’m across the landing if you need me.”