Chapter 30
Artemis
It feels like my first time: my pulse is too loud, my skin is too tight, my body treacherously keyed to him.
I’ve slept with enough people over the years to know that this is different.
This is… more. If I’m honest with myself, it was more the first time, but I was too scared to face it.
I thought if I fucked him and left, that it would cure whatever the deep and unreachable itch inside me is. And yet… that just made it worse.
The way he’s looking at me, like he’s offering me an out instead of the ruin that’s about to befall us, offering me the opportunity to climb into bed, roll over, and go back to sleep.
So wholesome. So foolish. Because now I’m awake, now I’m staring into his beautiful, expressive brown eyes, there is nothing else but him.
He leans against the door while his sweats ride low on his hips, and his taut black shirt stretches across his toned chest. His bare feet nestle into the plush, cream carpet, the softest thing in the room except his damn eyes. It is the single sexiest thing I’ve seen.
He’s effortlessly handsome, but there’s something else, a goodness, a kindness that shines out from inside him in everything he does. When I walk back to him, I tug his shirt, a silent instruction for him to come with me.
We stand next to the bed, staring at each other, like whatever’s about to happen between us is cosmic. I reach out to skim his cheek with my fingertips, and his breath hitches, but our eyes never leave one another’s.
“We don’t have to—”
I cover his open mouth with my hand, and the bastard licks it slow and indecent, like he’s tasting the idea of me.
“I was just saying. You’re tired. You probably haven’t slept in weeks.
If all you want to do right now is sleep, I’ll get over it.
” He looks down at his rod-hard dick making his presence known in his sweats, the outline of his length in the fabric making my mouth water.
“We’ll get over it, won’t we?” He’s talking to his cock like it’s a misbehaving dog he’s pretending not to spoil.
He hooks a thumb toward the en suite. “I can go take care of this, a little one-on-one time. Be back in like… what do you think?” He looks down again. “Four minutes?”
I close my eyes, tipping my head to the ceiling and counting to three before I open my eyes. “I despair.”
“I can see that.” He chuckles. “I like making you despair.” He boops my nose. “It’s cute.”
“I’m not cute.”
He rolls his eyes, his nod dripping with condescension like that David Rose ‘okay’ gif. “My point is.” He inches toward me, and his point is more than clear. “If you want to nap while I jerk off obsessively in the bathroom—”
My hand snakes around his throat, flexing against his soft skin, the way his pulse leaps under my palm almost undoes me. “Nope.”
He tries to swallow around the pressure in his neck which only makes me harder. I press my leaking cock against his. Even through our sweats heat radiates from both of us.
“Nope?” He manages to grind out around my hand, then tips his fucking head to the side in question. “You don’t want me getting off by myself in the bathroom?”
I growl, a possessiveness welling up inside me I’ve been trying to avoid. I press him against the wall, not realizing I’d walked him back a few feet to pin him there. When I cup his cock and squeeze, he groans. “This belongs to me now, Duende. You don’t get to get off without my say so.”
Fire blazes to life in his eyes. “And what if I do?” The challenge in his voice is pure gasoline.
“Hm.” I close my eyes for a beat, the thrum of his pulse fluttering under my palm. “Then it’ll be me that spanks you.”
He manages to grin at me. “I love when you threaten me with a good time.” He presses his hands into my shoulders and pushes me back, his palms hot against my shoulders as he shoves me—not far, just enough to say he can.
Then he steps up to me, lazily tugging my shirt over my head.
He moves to pull his own tee off but stops at whatever he sees on my face, then jerks his chin at me in invitation.
When we’re both shirtless, I pause. For a second, I forget air exists because he’s every temptation I swore I wouldn’t touch again.
I finally give in to the urge to cradle his neck in my hand and pull his face to mine for a deep and passionate kiss.
Goosebumps erupt over my skin, and every nerve ending on my bare chest explodes as it collides with his firm chest. Every time we’ve kissed, he’s melted into me, but something about tonight has him fighting back.
Instead of me gripping his hair and tilting his head, his fingers curl into my hair and pull tight. The nip of pain radiating across my scalp makes me moan, and he swallows it as he kisses me deeper.
I’m not used to being… owned. But that’s what he’s doing, owning me, kissing me like I’m his, possessing me, branding me with his tongue.
Hair still wrapped in his fist; he pulls my head to the side so he can access my neck.
His lips skim along my bearded jaw. His teeth nip at my neck, at the place where my control frays first, before his mouth travels down the length of my neck.
He grazes along my collarbone, making me shiver. Then he comes back up toward my mouth.
I tip my head back, inviting more, wanting more, no, needing more. I love the tender way he’s exploring my skin. “Duende.” It’s a whisper, a plea, a fucking prayer, for what? I’m not sure, dragged from somewhere reverent and unguarded, somewhere just for him.
We’re in new territory. And part of me loathes it, but it’s being drowned out by the part of me that loves being consumed instead of doing the consuming.
He falls to his knees, tugging my sweatpants with him, and as much as I’d love to flirt and foreplay for hours, it feels like we already have. I pull him to his feet, get him as naked as I am, and push him backwards onto the bed.
I don’t simply drop into place, I cage him onto the bed, planting one knee on the bed next to Xavier’s hip, then the other. Our bodies aren’t touching yet, but the heat hovers, simmering between us. My hands sink into the mattress as I straddle him, my breath ghosting his chiseled features.
“Gotta say.” His tongue slips out to wet his bottom lip. “The loom is sexy as hell.”
I can’t help chuckling, but my eyes feast on him like he’s a three-course meal. “I can’t help it. You’re a sight to behold, Xavier.”
“Duende.” His brow wrinkles. “I like how that rolls off your tongue.”
“Duende.” I repeat the term of endearment.
He bends his knees, hips tilting just slightly to angle him open to me.
A silent invitation accompanied by a sexy tip of his head.
I lower my weight, slow, controlled, dominant but hopefully edged with tenderness.
I want him to see, to feel that this time is different to the time I plundered him over the couch downstairs.
My chest brushes his, making us both suck in sharp breaths, as our bodies align. As amazing as doggy style can be, there’s something more intimately amazing with missionary. Chest-to-chest. Thighs-to-thighs. Mouths-to-mouths. And hands… everywhere.
He lets his palms caress my biceps, his fingers skim down the planes of my shoulder blades and back as my weight settles beneath his thighs.
While he explores my skin with one hand and the other gets tangled in my hair, I pull one of my hands bracing either side of his head and cup his jaw, then I sweep my lips against his.
He grumbles while I reach for the bedside drawer to get a condom and lube, wriggling impatiently beneath me while I glove-up. He glowers at me like he’s two seconds away from doing it himself.
When we’re both ready, he shifts his hips a little. His knees bend and fall open, ankles hooking behind my thighs to pull me deeper to him. My chest heaves with effort, and we haven’t even done anything yet. The intensity pulses around us.
With one hand holding Xavier’s thigh, stabilizing my downward angle, my hips lower as I gain entrance to him. Sliding inside his tightness takes my breath away.
We pause for a pregnant moment, a heartbeat suspended between us. Just… breathing, watching each other, waiting, not daring to hope for more and yet my tense muscles plead for it.
My weight’s supported by my forearms as I drive inside him in a smooth, rolling motion. The slow, deliberate slide stealing every coherent thought I’ve ever had.
Not to be outdone, Xavier meets each thrust with a lift of his own hips as we work up to a filthy rhythm. What starts as languid, tentative strokes quickly burns into something hotter, something deeper, something more demanding.
Our foreheads brush as our heavy breaths are shared, neither of us daring to look away or close our eyes.
“Don’t stop. Artemis, please. Don’t… Don’t stop.” His words raw and breathless, whispered pleas against my lips as his thighs tighten around my waist.
I shift my weight so I can cradle his face with one of my hands, stroking his cheek with my thumb as I thrust so deep inside him, I can’t tell where one of us finishes and the other begins.
“Fuck.” It’s a guttural groan that’s dragged from somewhere inside him. His cock is trapped between us, every thrust stroking him, driving him to absolute wildness the way thrusting my dick into his ass is doing for me.
I’m too close, and refuse to come alone, so I wiggle my hand between us to help stroke him to climax. He opens up under me so fucking well as I claim him.
“Duende.”
His brows quirk in question.
“You take me so fucking well.” My voice breaks on the sentence. I grunt as I hurtle toward the edge. “It’s like you were made just for me.” The way he clenches around my length as I thrust is enough to tease stars at the edge of my vision.
I push deeper, his back bows, bringing his hips toward me. Another thrust tears a sound from both our throats as he detonates between us, his release painting our stomachs.
“More.” His strangled moan as his whole-body shudders is enough to drive me over the edge. The pleasure hits so hard my vision stutters. Our breath tangles as I empty myself into his ass, his name a gentle whisper against my lips.
Something inside my chest doesn’t crack, it rearranges, and I know without question that after tonight, things will never be the same again.