V #3
Determined to not behave as cluelessly as before, I immediately unbuttoned my collar and cuffs when Gunner broke the kiss.
I tossed them to the floor, yanked my tie free, and unbuttoned my trousers.
I felt less mechanical this time and, if only because I was no longer thinking with just my head, more seductive.
But I suspected the dark was a great source of my empowerment.
My hand fumbled and snapped the brace over my shoulder when Gunner laid bare his own chest. His braces hung at his sides, and his trousers were slung dangerously low on his slender hips. The hard planes of his chest, the fine black hair traveling south from his navel, his perfectly sculpted arms….
Gunner slid his hands under my braces and pushed them from my shoulders. “You look like you need assistance,” he stated.
“Smelling salts.”
“Come again?”
“Seeing you like this. I need smelling salts.” I pressed my palm to his flat abdomen to stress my point.
Gunner got down on his knees before unbuttoning my shoes. He looked up at me while tugging my trousers and drawers down and helping me step out of them. “Like how?”
“You’re teasing me.”
“A bit, yes.” Gunner ran his hands up my bare thighs, leaned close, and bit the skin. “Do you want me to stop?”
I swallowed but still felt as if I were choking. “N-no. Never.”
Gunner put his mouth on my prick and swallowed its length with what seemed like shocking ease.
I cried out and knocked into the bureau with a start.
Gunner managed to keep his hands on my hips, preventing me from landing on my backside.
I grabbed the back of his head, but couldn’t figure out if I was trying to push him away or press Gunner forward.
“C-Con—” I bit my tongue short of saying Gunner’s name. He didn’t need to know how often I thought it, whispered it, when I was alone in the dark with nothing but my hand and memories.
Gunner pulled off with a wet, obscene pop . He stared up at me, face stoic, eyes alight. “Say it.”
I could have asked.
Told him to clarify.
But I knew.
“Constantine.”
Gunner got to his feet, his movement fluid like a cat, the rumble in his chest like its purr. He towered over me, cupped my face in his big hands, then leaned down to whisper against my mouth, “Again.”
I swallowed. “Constantine.”
He kissed me, and I could feel his smile—taste it, even.
Gunner maneuvered me to the edge of the bed, and once I’d sat, he stepped back and finished unbuttoning his own shoes and shucking off his trousers.
He took my shirt, as I’d just removed it, threw it somewhere into the dark, and used his long, wiry build to push me down.
And then it was like a pinwheel—a whirligig—a kinetic art display of skin and hair and teeth and tongue that even those impressionist fellows in Paris wouldn’t be able to accurately portray on their canvases.
I dug my fingers into Gunner’s back. He growled, thrust against me, and bit my neck in response.
The pressure, the moist heat, the exposure—it was a chaos my body reacted to without permission, without thought.
I yelped and bucked my hips against Gunner’s.
Gunner let up on my neck, kissed the sting, then took my jaw into one hand.
He was so gentle, so intimate, when he held my face.
“Have you been with anyone? Since Arizona,” he added for clarification.
Thankful for the dark, now more than ever, that hid the flush I felt ignite on my cheeks, I said, “No. That is—I’ve been busy.”
“Busy.”
“I’m a federal agent.”
“Yes, you are.”
“There’s always crime.”
“Always.” He didn’t smile, not exactly, but those blue eyes caught the bit of light spilling in from the hall and they shone like buffed and polished gems. Gunner sat up on his knees and asked, “What would you like?”
I followed his motion onto my elbows, took in the definition of his chest and the black hair I itched to run my fingers through, the muscles of his thighs, and erect prick that was, astonishingly, my doing. My mouth was dry, and I felt I had to peel my tongue off my palate just to speak.
“There’s—” I cleared my throat. “There’s Vaseline in the nightstand.” I tilted my head just a little to the left in indication. “I bought it the other day.”
Gunner leaned over me, opened the drawer, and removed a tin.
He sat back, popped the top off, and dipped a few fingers in.
He set the tin aside while rubbing his fingertips together, smearing the Vaseline.
Gunner moved closer, nudged my legs open, kissed me, and pressed a slick finger to my backside.
I jumped, broke the kiss, and smacked Gunner’s nose with my chin. “Oh God. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
“Are you okay?”
“Perhaps we should try something else.”
“What? I just— no . I want this.”
But Gunner had narrowed his eyes, and those tiny wrinkles in the corners spoke volumes. “I don’t think you’re ready.”
“I’m twenty-nine-years old,” I protested.
“Age is irrelevant.”
I clenched my jaw and ground my teeth so hard, it hurt. I could feel tears pricking my eyes—the sort associated with frustration, anger, humiliation. “I’m not incompetent, Gunner.”
“I never said you were.” He leaned over me, took my jaw, and held tight when I tried to wriggle free. “If you’re so nervous you jump at a finger, it won’t be good. For either of us.”
“What use am I, then?” I snapped. Gravity got the best of one tear, and it followed the contour of my cheekbone before dripping into my ear. “Please. Just do it.”
Gunner’s expression was like someone had broken the glass surface of water by skipping a stone across it. He tightened his hold on my jaw and gave a little shake. It didn’t hurt, but it certainly wasn’t tender anymore. “Don’t insult yourself. And don’t insult me.”
I didn’t know what to say. Even if I had, I was afraid to speak and hear my voice crack. If I had thought, only moments ago, this night couldn’t be much worse, I’d certainly managed to find the last intact seam in my life to unravel.
Elemental bullets on my streets.
A new gangster looking to take me out.
An enraged boss likely cleaning out my desk that very moment.
And now this.
Gunner released his hold, grabbed the Vaseline tin, and stuck his fingers in again. “Not all men enjoy the sensation,” he said, quite simply. “Others need time to work up to it.” He stroked my flagging length with a greasy hand, and my eyes about rolled out of my head.
I was stiff and breathless by the time Gunner let up. I opened my eyes and watched as he reached behind himself. “Wh-what are you doing?”
With his free hand, Gunner guided mine to his prick and released a held sigh as I touched him. “I’m rarely allowed an opportunity to indulge,” he said, voice thick and low and so unbelievably attractive. “The men I sleep with—”
“Passing ships,” I corrected.
Gunner smiled lightly. “That’s right. They’ve got a certain image of me. A certain expectation.”
I felt myself blush at those words. Hadn’t I thought the very same of Gunner?
In Arizona, when I’d belatedly realized his tendencies were a mirror of my own, I had mused on the notion that no person would dare whisper terrible things about Gunner.
Because he was so dangerous. So masculine. So… not me .
But then… what did that even mean? Because I was not the ideal physique of a man, had I assumed something about myself too?
Convinced myself that, should I ever have the opportunity to sleep with a man, I could only experience one thing?
That I would be expected to assume such a role?
And why did I relate such an act of intimacy as something I deserved, not because I should be so lucky, but because I was less?
Gunner wasn’t less.
He was everything and more.
“You enjoy it?” I asked.
Gunner lifted up, leaned over, and kissed my mouth. “Want to try?” he asked by way of answer.
I gulped for air and managed a curt nod.
That smile was back on his face. Gunner told me to stay on my back while he put a knee on either side of my body. I was more than happy for him to remain in control of the situation, because even with this change, I still had no practical experience, only animal instinct.
“What if I—” I gasped as Gunner bore down, and that tight heat about pushed me to the brink then and there. “—h-hurt you?”
“You won’t,” he whispered.
I dug my heels into the mattress and grabbed Gunner’s hips hard enough that he hissed. “Sorry,” I said, managing not to choke on my own tongue.
“It’s okay, dear.” Gunner sat and began to rock. The muscles in his long, lithe body uncoiled and flexed, and he was so elegant, so fluid, so remarkable. He pried my hands from his hips and dragged them up his taut stomach, making certain my wrists rubbed against his body. “Touch me.”
“Christ Almighty,” I swore through clenched teeth.
I reached for his pecs and dug my fingers into skin and hair as Gunner kept pace.
“So good. So good. So— fuck .” Gunner did something with his muscles—clenching them around my length so that my vision tunneled, my belly tightened, my balls drew up.
“Oh God.” I brought my hands down, dragged my fingernails along his flanks, and watched him suck in a sharp breath.
I started to move my hands around Gunner’s backside—it had been automatic—but I came up short upon realizing what I was doing.
Gunner leaned forward, brought his mouth to mine, and kissed me before saying, breathless, “It’s okay, Gillian.”
I don’t know how that one comment seemed to overcome my inexperience and inhibitions.
Perhaps it was the certainty with which Gunner spoke, or the way my name sounded on his lips in the midst of sex.
Or maybe it was nothing more than my entire adult life being denied this experience—this opportunity to be dominant with someone who seemed to fully believe I could be—and with someone who appeared to enjoy when I let this part of me out.