Chapter 17 Annie #3
This feels like before. Like eleven years ago, in the grass outside on the O’Malley estate, Elio’s body over mine as he devoured my mouth.
I can almost smell the sunshine, the warm wool blanket underneath me, the grass, and the nearby scent of the barn—hay, and dust mingled together.
This feels like the moment before he left me, and I don’t want him to leave me again.
“Elio—” I breathe his name against his lips, my hands reaching down for his belt. Instantly, he grabs my wrists, shaking his head as he pulls them away.
“We can’t,” he rasps. “Not like this. Not right now. We won’t stop… I won’t stop.”
“So don’t,” I moan, arching back toward his lips. “We don’t have to. I want you.”
"Annie—"
“Please.” I touch my forehead to his, breathing hard. “Elio, please—”
He makes a sound low in his throat, a pained growl, and spins me around, my back against the counter as he looks down at me.
“Do you know what would happen to me if Ronan found out?” he growls.
“Do you understand what you’re asking? My God, Annie, I like to think I’m a good man, but I’m still just a fucking man.
And God, I want you. You’re killing me, cuore mio. ”
“This doesn’t feel like you want me,” I whisper. “It didn’t feel like that before, either. When you walked away.”
"I do want you." The words come out rough, desperate. "More than I've ever wanted anything in my life."
"Then stop pulling away from me." I rise on my tiptoes, pressing my body against his, and I feel him shudder. "Ronan won’t find out. He’ll never know. This doesn’t have to—I need you, Elio. I need more.”
He groans, a sound that's half pleasure and half torture. “Fuck,” he hisses, his jaw so tight that it looks as if it hurts, and then his mouth crashes down on mine.
This time, there's nothing careful or controlled about the kiss. It's desperate and hungry and full of years of suppressed longing. I arch against him, desperate for more contact, more proof that this is real and happening and not just another fantasy I've conjured to escape reality.
"We should go upstairs," I gasp against his mouth. "The bed—"
"No." He pulls back just enough to meet my eyes. "Not the bed."
"Why not?"
"Because if we go upstairs, if we get into that bed together, I won't be able to stop. And once we cross that line..."
“Elio—” I know what he means. That we’re going to stop at some point. A frisson of disappointment runs through me, at the same moment that I feel the racing burn of anticipation at the implication that we’re going to do something.
Is he just going to finger me again? Let me get him off? Are we going to stop where we’ve stopped before?
Or…
“I’ll give you more,” he murmurs as he leans in to kiss me again, his mouth gentler this time against mine. “But we do it on my terms. Because I’m the one who’s going to get hurt when this all falls apart, Annie.”
I’m the one who’s going to get hurt. Suddenly, I don’t think he just means Ronan. I don’t think he just means physically. My chest burns at the implication that he feels more for me, too—that I’m going to break his heart.
Elio’s hands drop to my hips as he kisses me, his hands sliding the edge of my sweater up.
I changed into a thick wool sweater and jeans for the outdoor shooting practice, and I’m too hot now, my skin burning all over.
I’m utterly grateful when he strips it off and tosses it onto the floor, leaving me in my sports bra and jeans as his hands roam over my ribs, skimming over my breasts through the tight material.
He takes his time, his mouth searching mine as he maps out my torso with his hands, my skin prickling and alive at every touch. Every time I reach out for him, he pushes my hands away, pinning them to the counter before he resumes his slow exploration of my body.
“I wished I’d memorized you before,” he murmurs against my lips. “I realized too late, alone in my room in Chicago, that I couldn’t remember every line of your body the way I wanted to. I’m not going to make that mistake again.”
My breath catches in my throat. I can’t breathe, can’t think. The words spilling from his lips are romantic, painful, words that come with a certainty that this is going to end. That we don’t have forever, we only have right now.
I know that’s the truth, and I desperately want it to be different.
His hands drop to the button of my jeans, flicking it open with ease as his mouth trails from my lips to my jaw, kissing a path to the sensitive spot just below my ear.
I let out a shuddering moan as he draws down my zipper, then slowly pushes my jeans down over my hips, letting them drop to the floor and leaving me in only my bikini panties and sports bra.
“I dreamed about tasting you,” he whispers, sending a jolt straight to my pulsing clit.
“I imagined what you’d taste like a thousand times.
I came for you over and over, imagining the feeling of your pussy on my mouth, you coming on my tongue.
” His fingers hook in the waist of my panties, tugging them down my hips, too, and then he’s lifting me in the air, setting me on the edge of the kitchen counter. “I think it’s time I found out.”
I can’t breathe, can’t say a single word.
My mouth opens, but nothing comes out. I lean back, my head tapping against a cabinet as Elio arranges me the way he wants me: my ass on the edge of the counter, his hands pushing my thighs wide.
“I wanted to look at you last night,” he groans.
“I wanted to see this pretty pussy again. I could feel how wet you were for me, cuore mio. I wanted to see it, too.”
His hands press my inner thighs apart, exposing me to him.
I should feel embarrassed, vulnerable at how open I am to him, how much of me he can see, but I don’t.
All I feel is hot, burning arousal at the sight of his gaze fixed between my thighs, his pupils blown black, and his throat working as he takes in the view.
I can feel a fresh pulse of wetness, feel myself dripping as he swallows again, hard.
“Beautiful,” he whispers. “So fucking beautiful.”
With one hand, he reaches out to touch me, almost reverently.
His thumb slides up my center, between my parted folds, up to my clit.
I gasp, moaning with a long, keening sound as the pad of his thumb rolls over my clit.
He does it again, once, twice. And then Elio sinks down, his head between my thighs as his lips graze over my throbbing pussy.
My hand slides into his hair, fingers tangling, tugging. “More,” I beg, my head tilting back against the cabinet behind me. “More, please—”
His hands tighten on my thighs, and he looks up at me, his mouth already damp. The sight sends a fresh jolt of arousal through me. “I’m going to take my time, cuore mio,” he murmurs. “I’ve waited too long to rush.”
A helpless moan falls from my lips, and I close my eyes as I feel his mouth graze me again.
It’s torturously slow, excruciatingly pleasurable.
I’ve never felt anything so good. I’ve wondered all my life how this would feel, and now it’s Elio whose mouth is on me for the first time, introducing me to the feeling of warm breath ghosting across my swollen flesh, lips grazing my sensitive folds, the tip of his tongue beginning to explore me.
It’s everything I’ve wanted. It’s perfect.
A shuddering sigh leaves me as his tongue trails up my inner folds, his lips lightly sucking at the outer as he works his way up to my clit.
His fingers stroke my thighs, almost soothingly as he takes his time, teasing me until I can feel how swollen I am from his ministrations.
And then, finally, the tip of his tongue reaches my clit.
White-hot pleasure bursts through me as he circles it, then lightly flutters. I cry out, my fingers knotting in his hair as my hips arch and writhe under his touch. It’s so warm, so wet, so unlike anything I’ve ever felt. So excruciatingly good.
“Elio—” I whine his name, the one word a plea for more, and he finally, finally gives it to me.
His tongue speeds up, licking over my sensitive, throbbing clit with rhythmic strokes that drive me mad.
It’s almost too much, but I don’t want him to stop.
He pushes his tongue upward, licking in the same way he moved his finger before, but now the sensation is wholly different.
I’m so close already, panting and writhing, and his hands grip my thighs harder.
“Easy,” he murmurs, the word muffled by my flesh. He lifts his head slightly, and I whimper in protest. “I’ll make you come, Annie. You can come whenever you want. You don’t need to fight it.”
When his tongue touches me again, I cry out.
I want his fingers inside of me, want something to ease the hollow ache in my body, but he makes no move to penetrate me.
Instead, he keeps licking, alternating between fluttering his tongue and licking in quick strokes until he feels my muscles start to tense up.
And then he keeps that one motion, pushing his tongue upward against my clit with every pass, and I feel the pleasure expand outward, and burst.
The orgasm tears through me with a force that I’ve never felt before.
Sparks burst behind my eyelids, my hips bucking upward, held to the counter only by the strength of Elio’s hands.
He doesn’t stop, doesn’t break his rhythm for even a moment.
He keeps licking, urging me to ride the waves of pleasure over and over as my fingers dig into his scalp and I come hard on his tongue.
I feel it start to ebb, and I expect him to pull back, but he doesn’t. He softens the strokes of his tongue, letting me come down, and then, just as I feel the pleasure starting to fade entirely, he wraps his lips around my swollen clit and sucks.