16. Cheribelle #2
That was the last logical thought I had before he put me down on my unmade bed.
For a brief second, I was almost pulled out of the simmering tension by the glimpses of clothes all over the floor and about six empty water cups dotted around the room.
Even without having seen it, I knew Paul’s room would be immaculate, and then embarrassment lanced through me.
I couldn’t even keep up with taking care of my modest house.
“I need you,” Paul rumbled, and any thoughts about my housekeeping prowess or shame about my habits vanished. It seemed almost impossible that someone like Paul could need a chaotic college dropout like me , but I wasn’t going to question him. Not now.
“I’m here,” I whispered, the moment feeling too vulnerable, too tender for my normal volume.
I reached up, cupping his face between my hands and holding him there.
I’d always been a tactile person, but with Paul, it wasn’t enough.
I wanted to connect with him on a deeper level.
“I’m here, and I will be as long as you let me. ”
What I had wanted to say was that I would be here forever, but that would be taking it too far.
Although complicated emotions rose in my chest, my mind wouldn’t let me forget that we were just a couple of adults blowing off steam.
Our first hookup had been completely casual and now it was something akin to friends with benefits.
There was no possibility for romance between us.
We came from different worlds, and no doubt he would find some lovely shifter heiress to settle down with and have all sorts of official shifter babies together.
But I could pretend for now.
I’ve always been good at pretending.
We kissed, soft and tender and deep. If I didn’t know better, I would think it was romantic, even if it couldn’t be. But I was fine with that, and I fell deeper and deeper into the fantasy.
My fingers slid up Paul’s chest, and the clean state of his clothes seemed so incongruous with the fight he’d been tossed around in. Part of the magic of shifters, and a handy one, because the generic black dress I was wearing and the bicycle shorts underneath it were filthy and torn up.
Although I still loved the feel of his muscles below my fingertips, my touch went beyond that. Beyond the heat that always radiated from him. It connected us, and I desperately wanted more of it.
How are we ever supposed to go back to normal after this?
Less thinking, more kissing.
That was a logic I could get behind.
I flipped one button, then two, but I paused on the third, wanting to make sure Paul was on board with me.
Because if he wanted to just keep kissing, that was absolutely fine by me.
We didn’t have to do anything we didn’t want to, and I wanted to do whatever Paul needed.
Not because I was a martyr or anything, but because I cared about him.
But then his hands, which had been holding me so tightly, moved.
One went to my zipper behind me while the other roamed down, over my hip, and finally to my thigh.
It lingered there a moment, impossibly hot against my flesh, before sliding up only to stop in what I was pretty sure was disappointment as they hit my bicycle shorts.
“What’s this?” His disapproval at the unexpected barrier added a much-needed moment of amusement to the thick tension between us.
“We were setting up a trap, remember? I had to be prepared in case things went south.”
He narrowed those intense gray eyes of his at me. “Were you always planning on getting involved in the fight?”
“I wouldn’t say planning to, but I wanted to be prepared for the worst-case scenario.
” It wasn’t a lie, more a smudging of the truth.
Although our plan had largely involved me snooping around to find someone in the crowd without any emotional signature, I’d figured being so close to the fray would likely have some backsplash.
Granted, I’d never imagined his zombie brother was the assassin, but then, who could have expected that?
He looked like he wanted to say something about my preparation, but in the end, he just sighed and shook his head. “I shouldn’t be surprised about your penchant for putting yourself into dangerous situations at this point, should I?”
“You really shouldn’t. Kinda a logic error on your part.”
He huffed another small, dry laugh—this one had actual mirth—and then he was kissing me again.
My guy could multitask though, because he dragged down my zipper while he toyed with the hem of my bicycle shorts. I wasn’t about to be caught slacking, so I returned to my unfastening of his buttons, revealing his pale musculature inch by inch.
But I wasn’t satisfied with looking and not touching, so I dragged my fingers over the striations of his abs, the swell of his chest, his defying shoulders, all of it.
While I’d never been into the bodybuilder type, I appreciated just how artfully made it was.
Paul was carved like a statue with a mind as sharp as a scholar. Talk about the best of both worlds.
Although really, if more blood flow was going to my brain rather than the bottom half of my body, I would have realized his kindness was his most attractive trait.
Between how protective he was of his siblings and how he had always treated me with respect—even when I’d revealed I’d tricked him—Paul really was the kindest person I knew.
And just being around him, even in these awful times, made me wanna be a better person.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he breathed as he finally got the zipper all the way down. The dress fell to my middle, one of the cup sleeves torn in the fight with his brother and the other unable to hold up the weight of my breasts on its own.
I flushed from the top of my head down to the tips of my bare feet, and all my eloquence left me in a rush. So, in lieu of actually speaking, I kissed him again as he stripped my dress down my body as much as he could with how I was sitting on the bed.
However, as much as I wanted to keep my lips locked to his forever, we both reached a point of no egress, with him still being in pants and me sitting on the bottom half of my dress. So, once our kiss broke again, Paul stood and offered a hand to me, guiding me back to my feet.
“You are meant for the moonlight,” he murmured, and for a moment I was confused until I realized that my dress had fallen to my feet and I was standing in a beam of liquid silver shining through my window.
I’ve never been into being called a goddess or that kind of worship, but right then, I felt like some sort of ethereal deity.
And only Paul could make me feel that way.
I wanted so desperately to reply to him, to say without hesitation that I was meant for you , but that would be going a step too far and would end the fantasy we were building together. For now, it was okay just to pretend we could be something more.
As long as I didn’t push it too far.
So, I swallowed my words and turned so he could undo my bra. I knew from experience that he was more than capable of doing that with one hand, but that seemed too rushed, too primal.
Normally, relief flooded me when I removed my bra after a long day, but now, I was far too aware of myself, of the cold air against my skin, which was only banished when Paul’s arms wrapped around me and he embraced me from behind.
I felt unusually small in Paul’s arms, but not in a bad way. And not in a gross way either. I just felt... protected. Looked after. Something that had become quite alien to me of late.
I shuddered as Paul kissed down the side of my neck and then my shoulder, goosebumps rising in his wake.
I could feel the swell of his erection at the small of my back, pressing insistently, and despite the leisurely pace we were taking, I desperately wanted to get my hands on that garment and rip it from his body.
Not for the first time, it was almost as if Paul was the one who had psychic tendencies, because as soon as I thought that, he turned me around and brushed my lips with his. Finally, I was able to fully loosen his pants and get them out of the way.
I was fully ready to continue the festivities on the bed, but Paul didn’t let up his grip. It wasn’t hurtful, or even forceful, just... firm. I stayed still, wondering what his plan was, but then he knelt in front of me.
He wasn’t a giant of a man, especially not compared to his brother, but he wasn’t exactly small either. He had at least a foot on me, and that combined with his broad shoulders still made him a towering statue of a man even on his knees.
He began to kiss his way down my chest to my belly before slowly easing me backward. I sat on the edge of the bed and spread my legs, trembling slightly in anticipation.
Paul had been no slouch in eating me out the first time, so if he wanted an encore, I was more than happy to oblige.
“I want to taste you,” he rumbled, and there was that hint of animal in him that never failed to get fire burning in my belly. It helped me not get carried away in the romance building in my head and made what was happening between us more about the physical. That’s what I told myself, anyway.
Normally, I would have a quip for such a situation, a little play on words about eating me out or dinner being ready, but it simply didn’t feel right. Felt too much like masking, and that really was the last thing I wanted with Paul. So instead, I let a single word fall from my kiss-swollen lips.
“Please,” I whispered.
And while he didn’t quite say “as you wish”, it was implied as he leaned and pulled my shorts down my thighs, helping me lift my hips when necessary.
He was much less patient with my underwear, however, biting at the waistband and dragging the fabric down in such a possessive way that I could hardly breathe.
Because, despite my incredibly independent and headstrong nature, I wanted to be possessed by him. To be cared for, to be nurtured, to be dominated, to be worshipped. All the sides of the coin, from benevolent to feral; I wanted it all .
For what it was worth, Paul most certainly delivered.
Once he finished sliding my panties off, his mouth was on me.
It was like he had two separate personalities, going from tender, almost reverent to downright ravenous.
The phrase eat his way to her heart popped up more than once in my head as he warmed me up with his tongue, pressing in with his nose, kissing here and there.
Since I knew what he was capable of, I was well aware of exactly what he was building up to, and it made every single moment that much more intense.
I was impatient, wanting him to get to the good part where I was screaming and coming right on his face, but also, I never wanted this to end.
I wanted to linger in the delicious, endless torture forever where there was no murder hanging over our heads and no harsh reality where we came from two separate worlds and were inherently incompatible.
“Paul,” I murmured breathlessly, like I was the one who was praying despite Paul being the one on his knees. “Paul, Paul, Paul!”
My hands scrabbled around, desperate for a hold as he began to apply more pressure and his licks grew longer. He grabbed my wrist and buried my beseeching fingers in his thick, dark hair.
I grabbed hold like it was my last lifeline, and in a way, it felt like it really was. That illicit pleasure that Paul was so good at summoning was swiftly rising in me, making the muscles in my abdomen jump and my breath grow short and choppy.
“Oh God…” I whispered as Paul slipped his fingers inside me. The sensation, along with his mouth, tongue, and nose on me, had me nearly going blind with the rush of everything.
But when that rubber band finally snapped, it was rhapsody. Pure, unadulterated rhapsody. The sound that tore out of my mouth was broken, gasping. I was going to be hoarse tomorrow.
Tomorrow might as well be an eternity away, because time didn’t exist as pleasure flooded every single cell in my body, over-firing my synapses until nothing else remained. Paul didn’t let up until I collapsed onto the bed, shuddering with aftershocks bordering on overstimulation.
“You always come so beautifully for me,” he murmured, planting soft kisses along my trembling thigh.
I lay there, utterly spent, knowing the experience wasn’t done.
Not that orgasms had to happen to enjoy sex, but I wanted to feel Paul lose himself in me.
I wanted to see his face screw up with the sheer force of his pleasure as he let out that masculine roar that made my knees weak.
I pulled him up my body insistently, not stopping until I could kiss him again. And although it was slow, sweet, and syrupy, there was an undercurrent of urgency with the way his cock was dripping against my stomach.
“Please?” I murmured again, and naturally, my handsome partner-in-investigation saw fit to honor my request.
Lucky me!