Chapter 28
Poppy put the last glass into the cupboard and shut the door as AJ wiped down the table after dinner.
She watched his muscles ripple beneath his cotton t-shirt as his forearm swept across the wooden surface, and tingles spread from her core through her entire body.
Maybe it was the pregnancy, but her and AJ doing household chores together was a massive turn-on.
The close proximity of the kitchen meant there had continually been innocent brushes against one another.
The thing was, Poppy wasn’t interested in innocent.
Their naughty shower escapades had been weeks ago, and AJ hadn’t made any advances on her since then.
No kissing, other than on the forehead, which she didn’t count.
The only physical contact they’d had was his hand on her lower back.
She wasn’t sure if that was because she’d set boundaries of no sleepovers, and no more showers, implying no more sexy time, or if he wasn’t attracted to her, but she wanted to find out.
“Do you remember the shower?” she asked, her inner walls clenching at the memory.
His arm stopped moving, his back still facing her.
“The shower where we…where I…” she continued.
He turned around, his eyes filled with a fiery intensity she hadn’t seen since, well, since the shower. “Yes.”
“We haven’t done anything like that since then.”
He stared at her, nothing in his expression giving anything away.
Poppy knew that she’d have to come straight out and ask AJ.
Miss Carol always said never ask a question you don’t want to know the answer to.
Poppy had a feeling she knew why the physical portion of their relationship had come to a screeching halt, and she didn’t necessarily want to hear that confirmed.
But she knew if she didn’t ask, she would wonder.
And the good thing about AJ was he would never lie to her, something she’d never been able to say about anyone else in her life.
“I know we’re not in a relationship, so it’s not like we should have, but is the reason nothing else has happened because I’m pregnant?”
Poppy found herself holding her breath as she waited to hear his response.
She wasn’t sure what would be the best outcome.
Would it be best if he just wasn’t attracted to a person in her condition?
Or would it be better if he had just lost interest in her as a person and it had nothing to do with the pregnancy?
“Yes,” he confirmed as he moved to the other side of the kitchen, as far from her as he could be.
Her heart sank like the bow of the Titanic.
At least she knew now that their relationship from this point on was totally platonic, any looks she thought he was giving her were just projections on her part.
She could stop walking around like a silly schoolgirl with a crush, thinking this relationship was something it wasn’t.
It hurt to hear, but in the long run, it was for the best. At least, that’s what she was telling herself.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” Every word he spoke sounded like it pained him. “Or the baby.”
“Oh, I thought…so it’s not that you aren’t attracted to me?”
“I am very attracted to you.” He leaned back against the counter, his hands gripping the sides.
“You are?”
“Sometimes I can’t even think straight when I’m around you.”
“Oh, good,” Poppy sighed in relief.
“Good?” he repeated. “How is that good?”
“Because I thought it was just me. I thought I was making up…” She waved her hand between the two of them. "…this, whatever this is, in my head.”
His jaw tensed. “You're not.”
“You know I was cleared for all normal activity.” She watched his chest rising and falling in short pants. “You won’t hurt me, or Dylan.” She placed her hand on her stomach.
“Are you saying you want—”
“Yes,” she cut him off.
He took two steps, crossing the space between them, causing the kitchen to suddenly become like a vacuum.
His hands cupped her face so gently, his fingers trembling as he leaned down, covered her lips with his, and kissed her like he was drowning and she was his oxygen mask.
There was a desperation in the kiss that she’d never felt from him before and made her brain collapse inward.
His tongue swept the recesses of her mouth, like a man who’d survived a famine and nothing in the universe mattered except the taste of her, as if she alone gave him sustenance to live.
She responded by matching his intensity, clutching at the hem of his T-shirt and balling her fists into the cotton.
His kiss deepened with a hunger that felt both familiar and terrifyingly new, as though some boundary they’d tiptoed around had just been bulldozed.
Her whole body tingled, neurons firing like rockets shooting to space from the base of her spine to the tips of her fingers.
When he pulled back, the pad of his thumb brushed her cheek, and he searched her face for permission once more.
She only had to nod, once, it was barely perceptible, and that was enough.
AJ’s hands slid to her hips, and, with ease, he lifted her as if she weighed nothing and deposited her on the kitchen counter.
The cold granite bit through the cotton behind her thighs, but the heat of his body eclipsed everything else.
He stepped between her legs and kissed her again, this time with more control, slower, like he was savoring the anticipation.
His palms found their way under her shirt, skimming up her ribcage, and she arched into him with a moan that was half-plea, half-warning.
He peeled off her shirt, and his hands drifted lower, dragging her pajama bottoms and underwear with them, until she was bare and exposed on the countertop.
He knelt between her legs, and he looked up at her with eyes so dark and intent that she thought she might combust. He pressed his mouth against the inside of her thigh, reverent and patient, and she quivered with pleasure.
The heat of his breath fanned her sex, he was slow about it, almost maddeningly so.
He discovered every inch of her with his lips and tongue, a cartographer obsessed with details and borders of her most delicate flesh.
His fingers splayed against her inner thigh, holding her wide open as he circled her clit, first with a feather-light touch, then deeper, harder, until she was whimpering and clutching at his hair for leverage.
He licked her with an intensity that bordered on worship, and she realized, distantly, that she was crying, though whether the tears were from hormones or relief or pleasure she couldn’t have said.
Her inner walls pulsed against his tongue as he lapped up her sweet juices.
He brought her to the edge once, then twice, each time pulling back just as the wave crashed, drawing out her pleasure into a kind of sweet agony she’d never experienced.
She tried to plead with him, “Please, don’t stop,” but the words melted into incoherent sound.
When she finally did come, it was blinding and raw, a full-body, tectonic event that left her gasping for air and clutching the edge of the countertop.
Her entire body exploded with piercing pleasure, as tingling eruptions of bliss spread from the top of her head to her toes.
His hands held her thighs spread wide apart as he flicked her pleasure button at the top of her sex with the tip of his tongue, driving her to places of unrestrained orgasmic indulgence until it became too much.
Her hips jerked away, and he began to place featherlight kisses on her sensitized nub as she floated back to reality, and only when she’d returned to her senses did he stand up, his face slick with her release and his eyes shining with awe and satisfaction.
Poppy reached for him, hands shaking, and tugged at his waistband until she’d freed him from his jeans.
He was already hard, his tip flushed and leaking, and she stroked him once before he caught her hand in his, halting her.
He searched her face again, as if double-checking for regret, for withdrawal, for anything other than want.
She surged forward and kissed him, tasting herself on his lips. “Please,” she whispered. “I want you.”
AJ removed his shirt, then pushed his jeans down and off. She waited, her hands gripping the counter, the anticipation of what was to come surging through her, her arousal building once again.
When he was free of his clothes, he picked her up, and her legs wrapped around his waist. She thought he was taking her to bed, but instead he took three strides to the couch and lowered down, her legs straddling him on either side.
His eyes roamed her upper body as his hands moved up and down her thighs.
She slid her hand down his chest, over the ripples of his abs, which quivered at her touch, then wrapped her fingers around his thick shaft.
He hissed as his head fell back and his fingertips dug into the flesh.
She rose up, positioning herself above his rock-hard erection standing at full salute.
Using his engorged crown, she rubbed up his tip and down her opening.
He swelled in her palm, and his chest rose and fell in ragged pants.
She knew he had never given a partner this much freedom with his body. To allow her to set the pace and to control the experience emboldened her. She leaned forward and whispered against his ear, “I’m so wet, so ready for you. Do you feel my pussy pulsing for you, trying to pull you inside me?”
He groaned, and she felt his dick jerk in her hand. She lined herself up and slowly sank down on him. When she thought she’d taken him completely, his hands moved to her hips, and he pulled her down further with a force that stole her breath.