Chapter 9 #2
Had he? Sure. Clay had been kissed a hundred different ways.
He’d been kissed boldly and passionately, he’d been kissed hard and deep, he’d been kissed slow and dirty, he’d been kissed with tongue, he’d been kissed as hands had freely wandered.
But he’d never been the recipient of the type of kiss Stevie had lay on him.
Unsure and inexperienced but with an innocent enthusiasm that had been such a sexual novelty it had hit him right in the dick.
And that clutch at his shirt, her fingers curling into the fabric like she didn’t know what to do with her hands but she had do something? Not to mention the accompanying little whimper from somewhere in her throat, like she just couldn’t control her bodily reactions or suppress her desire.
That had been hot AF. ‘Maybe,’ he conceded. ‘But I haven’t had one as sweet.’
Stevie’s nose wrinkled in irritation. ‘Sweet.’ She shook her head as her hazy mauve gaze tangled with his in what looked like utter frustration.
‘I’m so sick of being sweet, Clay. Of being sweet, pliant, predicable Stephanie.
I want to be more like Yolly. I want to be bold and decisive.
I want to not be afraid to ask for what I want.
’ She paused, swallowing as if her throat was dry.
‘I want to be daring. I want to be wanton. I want to be Stevie.’
Wanton.
Jesus… Just the thought of this woman going full wanton, full Stevie, was making him dizzy.
And he got it. He understood. Stevie wanted to be kissed properly.
The way two people kiss when their raw chemistry was so incendiary it sucked up all the oxygen.
The kind of chemistry that elevated a kiss from good to sensational.
The kind of chemistry that had arced through the air from the moment their eyes had met.
Clay studied her face. The V of her drawn brows, the spray of freckles over the bridge of her nose, the high spots of colour in her cheeks, the way her teeth dug into her bottom lip, the earnest rove of her gaze digging hot talons of desire into his flesh.
Clay knew he could kiss her the way she needed. God knew he’d thought of little else since she’d first taken the initiative. But should he? That was the question. That silver ring was still on her finger, after all.
A kiss didn’t have to mean anything. He’d been the giver and receiver of enough of them to know that and it was what he told himself now even as his subconscious called him on his bullshit, because it would be different with Stevie.
There would be no going back. He wouldn’t want to stop at just one.
Clay had never been one to shy away from risk. He’d literally spent a decade staring risk in the face every time he hopped on the back of a snorting, angry horse, and he’d exhilarated in the thrill of it all.
Consequently, not a lot scared him. But Stevie did. Because, what if he didn’t stop? What then?
Despite all that, Clay found himself taking a step closer the merest slice of air separated their bodies now, the heat coursing through his blood more potent than his fear of the consequences. ‘Okay then,’ he muttered.
Her breath hitched at his words and hell if he didn’t feel that all the way down to his balls. Clay’s gaze dropped to her mouth, which had parted slightly at his nearness. ‘Have you ever been kissed before?’
Another swallow bobbed her throat. ‘Sure. But nothing… cataclysmic.’
Cataclysmic? A smiled kicked up the side of his mouth. ‘No pressure then.’
She didn’t smile back, just lifted an eyebrow. ‘Don’t think you can deliver?’
Clay had to give her top marks for that line. Stevie might be sexually inexperienced with men but she sure knew how to hit him straight in the ego. ‘Oh, darlin’.’ He grinned, completely unconcerned by her husky challenge. ‘I can more than deliver.’
Sliding his hands up her forearms to her elbows, he walked her back a pace until her ass and shoulder blades bumped the wall, her arms pinned to her sides.
Removing one hand, Clay flattened it on the wall over her head, his body almost but not quite touching hers as he lowered his mouth close to her ear.
Her intoxicating scent, the husky timbre of her breathing stirred through his blood, turning him hard as stone. ‘This okay?’ he asked, his voice just as husky as her breathing.
She nodded, murmuring, ‘Uh huh,’ on a warm exhalation of breath that fanned across his throat, spreading hot ripples of desire south.
Clay nuzzled her temple, the scent of her shampoo – coconut – dizzying.
The brush of her silken hair against his forehead somehow more intimate in this moment than had her hand stroked his dick.
‘You want me to kiss you, Stevie girl?’ he asked, the roughness of his voice actually burring the back of his throat.
‘For research purposes?’ he pressed. ‘For the song?’
Her denial was swift. ‘No.’
Clay smiled against her temple. ‘No?’
‘I want you to kiss me because I think I might die if you don’t.’
Fuuuuck.
Clay knew exactly how she felt. A crazed kind of desperation flowing through his system, demanding to be sated.
But hell… no wonder Stevie wrote such amazing songs when she could encapsulate desire – hers and his – in just a handful of words.
And her frankness, her honesty, was more stimulating than any titillating dirty talk she could have uttered.
What guy didn’t want to hear a woman he was totally obsessed with confess to a similar obsession?
Placing a finger under her chin, Clay tilted her face until he was looking into her eyes, drowning in her hazy blue-grey gaze, the soft fullness of her mouth only inches away and parted, ready to be taken.
‘How daring?’ he asked.
Her eyes locked on his for several long moments as if she was trying to form the right words. ‘Can you make me forget everything? My career. The record company, my agent, the tour. My… sister?’
Should it matter that she was searching for some kind of oblivion in his kiss? Maybe. But why should her motivations have to be pure? And what the hell was wrong with a little oblivion anyway?
‘Honey,’ he muttered, his pulse a rising crescendo in his ears as his gaze zeroed in on the plump pink softness of her mouth, needing this now as much as Stevie. ‘I can make you forget your own name.’
Clay wasn’t one much for bragging but with Stevie – he knew he could deliver.
He dipped his head then, his lips landing on hers lightly at first, trailing several tiny kisses, drawing another whimper from her throat that throbbed through his blood. His tongue followed next, teasing the seam of her mouth.
‘You taste so fucking good, Stevie,’ he muttered against her lips, sucking in the ragged pant of her breathing as he went back for more, his tongue probing now, demanding entry to her sweet, sweet mouth.
And Stevie did not disappoint, opening to him eagerly, granting him access as her hands slid up his chest, her fingers clutching the fabric, pulling him closer, obliterating the miniscule distance separating them, the full weight of his body pressing her into the unyielding concrete behind.
Clay’s pulse roared as the aching hardness of his cock found both ecstasy and agony in the soft press of her body, and God help him, he wanted to follow the salacious dictates of his body and grind.
He wanted to shove his hand into her jeans and show her there was more than one away to make her forget her own name.
He wanted to fuck her so good and so well that his name would always and forever be on her lips any time she was with any other guys.
Nameless, faceless guys he already really fucking hated.
Clay’s mouth hunted hers, his head twisting left and right, chasing away the thought of her with anyone else, his tongue sweeping in and tangling with hers to obliterate the image.
Kissing her deep until she was moaning and clinging and raising onto her toes as if riding the same frantic need that drummed through him like a torrential downpour.
Shifting restlessly against him as if trying to sate her own downpour.
‘Clay,’ she gasped, her voice rasping like sandpaper. ‘I need…’ She panted, puffs of hot air increasing the burn between them. ‘I don’t…’ Another ragged pant. ‘Please…’
Stevie might not have been able to articulate what she wanted but Clay knew – he felt it in the frantic, discordant rub of her and in his own urge to have everything all at once.
Kissing her, stripping her, sinking into her.
With his mouth still plundering hers, finding all the sweet spots, sucking up all her pants, feeding her his own, Clay’s hand slid to her thigh.
Lifting it, he bent it at the knee, her inner thigh pressed to the hard ridge of his hip bone, and held her there as he angled his pelvis to align with hers, pinning her to the wall with the rigid cage of his hips.
It took all his willpower not to grind, but if her loud gasp followed by her urgent ‘Clay!’ was any indication, the hard ridge of his cock had hit just right.
‘That okay?’ he asked, his mouth mere millimetres from hers.
‘Okay?’ she muttered, clutching at his shoulder. ‘It’s electrifying. Don’t stop.’
Electrifying… Fuck, this woman and her words. ‘What about this?’ Clay did grind then, his willpower shattered, his cock impossibly hard as he hit the same spot.
She shuddered in his arms, almost keening his name, long and low. ‘Claaaaay.’
‘Good?’ he asked, watching desire slacken her mouth and bliss turn her expression almost ethereal.
‘So. Good.’
‘Not cataclysmic?’ he teased.
She huffed out a shaky laugh. ‘I don’t know. What’s my name again?’