4. Rune
Chapter Four
Rune
T o say I was waiting with impatience would be an understatement. I was also more nervous than I'd ever been in my life, for reasons I couldn't pinpoint and wasn't about to try to figure out.
I lay in my bed in the hostel room, covered in a flat sheet and nothing else, naked as the day I was born, still shaky from the orgasm yet hornier than I'd ever been in my life.
A soft tap on my door brought me to my feet, and I tiptoed across the small room, pulling open the door while hiding behind it.
Duncan's tall frame entered the room, immediately filling it with his presence.
His hair was messier than ever, as if he'd been raking his hand through it all the way here—even as the thought crossed my mind, he turned to look for me, saw me standing with my hand on the knob, hiding behind the door, and his hand scraped over his scalp, further mussing the reddish-brown locks.
"Close the door," he growled, his voice low and dark with arousal.
I pushed it closed and turned the lock, and then crossed my arms over my body, hiding my breasts and privates. "Now that you're here, I…”
He flicked the light switch on, bathing me in sudden and blinding light. "Need to see you." His eyes raked my body greedily. "Rune." He met my gaze. "No hiding."
"I just met you," I whispered. "It was hot on the phone, but now you're here and I'm…"
He prowled toward me, reaching for me. His hands grasped my wrists and he applied gentle but insistent pressure. "Let me see you, Smokeshow. Please."
It was the please that got me. The way he said it—quietly, genuine, a soft entreaty.
More embarrassed than ever about my unkempt lady bits, I slowly moved my arm to let him see my boobs—I'm well-endowed in that department, so I wasn’t as shy about letting him see them. I hid my sex with both hands, though.
He stopped a few inches away from me, gazing down at me—into my eyes. "You're so goddamned beautiful, Rune."
My heart leapt in my chest—I've not always had the most confidence in my looks.
I'm strong and fit, and I'm confident in what my body can do.
I love my hair, and I'm confident in that.
But my body? My curves? The men I've dated in the past haven't always been the most supportive.
Most recently, Hayes. He wasn't exactly the type to shower praise on me.
I knew he was attracted to me, if only because he wanted sex constantly, and he'd get an erection if a stiff breeze blew past him, let alone if I was naked.
He just didn't say it. And he was the best boyfriend I’ve ever had—the others have been uniformly terrible.
Thus, my two-month self-imposed dry spell; I have awful taste in men.
Duncan seems different. I don't know why. He has the air of a playboy, a player, a fuckboy. But in other ways, he seems genuine and kind and funny. The things he says to me, though? Oof. Fucking hot.
I don't do casual sex, as I told Lindsey.
But this was temporary. It has to be. I'm going back to LA after the wedding, finding a job, and getting back to life.
Maybe end up with a boyfriend at some point—preferably one who won't cheat on me.
But right now? Duncan is here, and he's staring at me like I'm something delicious to eat and he's starving.
I can have fun with him. Mess around now and during the wedding weekend. And then I go back to my life, he goes back to his, and that's the end of it.
But when he says I'm so damned beautiful, especially in that soft, reverent tone of voice, I just don't know what to do, how to respond. It makes me feel beautiful. Desired. Appreciated.
It's a frighteningly addictive feeling.
"Duncan," I breathed.
He tugged my hands away from my sex. "Don't hide, Rune."
I let him pull my hands away, but my thighs pressed together, one lifting and angling to cover my core. "I'm embarrassed. I wasn't planning on…this."
He stepped into me, his big, hard body pressing against my smaller, softer frame, walking me backward until my bare ass met the cold hardness of the door.
His hands settled on my waist above my hips, where he'd hold me if we were slow dancing.
His lips ghosted against my cheek, his breath hot on my ear.
"Want me to leave?" His words seared into me, leaving panic in their wake.
"No," I whispered. "I do not."
"Tell me not to touch you."
"No."
It was all different, now that he was here.
The frenzy of arousal that prompted me, in a moment of horny stupidity, to call Duncan Badd, had fled.
I had an orgasm while he watched…and I watched him do the same.
But now he was here, live and in person, and my nerves were screaming with insecurity.
I was naked; he was fully clothed. He was jacked, ripped, shredded, every muscle rippling and toned, a warrior's lean, hard physique.
I saw his body on the phone, and even now I want him.
I want to rip that baggy hoodie off, yank his shorts down, and lick and suck and touch and taste every inch of him.
The intensity with which I want these things is, in fact, what's holding me back.
I've never wanted anyone this bad. What if I get attached? This is why I don’t do this.
I have boyfriends; we develop a relationship, a level of trust and intimacy, and then we have sex.
Of course, all of them, so far, have betrayed me, but that's a different topic.
Not really, but I'm not going there.
"Hey, Rune," Duncan whispered. "Come back to me."
I swallowed, looking up at him. "What? I'm here."
"No, you're not." A rough palm cradled my cheek. "I can go. I don't want you to be scared of me."
"I'm not scared of you," I said. "I don't want you to leave."
"Then what do you want?" he asked.
"I…"
He bent down, thumb pressing my chin up, and nuzzled my lips with his. "This?"
"Uh huh," I breathed, all thoughts rapidly evaporating. "I like that."
Instead of delving into a lingering kiss like I expected, he turned my face away, tilted it higher to bare my throat, touching hot, slow kisses down the column of my throat; each touch of his lips burned my skin, scorched my nerves, lit dynamite in my core.
Soft wet lips danced over my breastbone, touched the ridgeline of my shoulder.
I gasped as his mouth sizzled down my chest and over the twin swells of my breasts, tongue sliding over the slopes, left side and then right, left and then right.
His fingers dove into my hair and toyed with the thick tresses, his other hand descending by increments to cup the outside of my hip.
I tipped my head back until it thunked against the door, sent my hands on a quest to find his flesh and muscle.
Lifting the hem of his sweatshirt, I found what I was looking for—hard muscle and soft, hot skin at his belly.
I pushed at his hoodie, and he yanked it off with an impatient snarl, hurling it aside.
"Thank fuck," I whispered, carving greedy, hungry hands over the rippling wonderland of his impossibly shredded eight-pack abs. "How the fuck do you maintain this while working the hours you do?"
"Hard work, a strict diet, and fucking fantastic genetics." He grinned at me. "To be honest, it's mostly just unfair genetics. I do work out a lot and watch what I eat and drink pretty closely, but it's mostly just the genes."
I pressed the waistband of his shorts lower, baring those razor-sharp V-cut grooves, gnawing on my lower lip as my lady bits sat up and took notice.
"These things drive me bananas," I whispered, trailing my fingers down his abs and along the grooves, only stopping when I reached the boundary of the waistband.
"I know the feeling," he murmured, scraping his hands up my belly to gather the heavy, aching weight of my tits in his hands.
"Yeah, but I'm naked," I pointed out. "You're not."
His smirk was that maddening, cocky grin, as infuriating as it was arousing. "If it bothers you that much, maybe you should do something about it."
"Maybe I should," I agreed.
I tugged his shorts lower, but they caught on something huge and hard and upright.
Hooking my fingers inside the elastic at his hipbones, I pulled the shorts away from his body—no underwear.
Lowering them past the hard bubble of his ass and the tentpole of his erection, I let the shorts drop to the floor, letting out a whimper of aroused surprise at the size of the organ waiting for me.
I met Duncan's eyes, watching greedily for his reaction as I curled my fingers around his hot, hard length. "It looked big on FaceTime," I whispered. "But in person…"
I stroked him from tip to root, a caress that took an improbably long time, watching his face betray his pleasure: his eyes shuttered, eyelids fluttering as his eyes rolled back in his head, jaw dropping open with a quiet hiss.
I squeezed at his root, palming his heavy balls in my other hand, grinning as his legs bent helplessly at my touch.
"Fuck, Rune," he growled. "Feels too fucking good."
I glided my loosely-curled fist up to his plump, round glans, rolling my thumb over the tip now weeping precum, making him growl like a cornered predator.
And then he yanked himself out of my grip. “Goddammit," he snarled. "That's not how this is gonna go, Smokeshow."
Before I could so much as squeak in protest, my hands were pinioned in his and pressed overhead against the hard, cold surface of the door, and his mouth was plundering mine, tongue darting and daring, sweeping against my lips and teeth and tongue.
His other hand cupped my breast, squeezed, thumb grazing my erect nipple, and then his palm seared down my belly and his fingers scratched over my pubic hair, parted the tender flesh of my pussy, middle finger delving between my lips and pushing inside me.
I whimpered at the penetration, struggled against his hold. "Let me touch you, goddammit, " I said through gritted teeth. "Please."