Chapter 30
thirty
. . .
Stella
I'm fumbling with my keys outside my apartment door when I hear the elevator ding behind me. I turn to see Brandon stepping out, looking tanned and relaxed. He's carrying a weekend bag and wearing a soft gray t-shirt that makes his eyes look even more golden than usual.
His face lights up when he sees me. “Hey. Perfect timing.”
“Hey, yourself.” I can't help but smile back. “How was Manmorial Weekend?”
“Amazing. Really amazing.” He sets down his bag to fish for his own keys. “The house was incredible, the golf was terrible, and I think I consumed my body weight in whiskey.”
“I'm so happy for you,” I say, and I mean it completely. “You've been wanting that invitation forever.”
“Yeah, it felt good to finally be included.” He pauses, studying my face. “How was your weekend? Did the girls spoil you properly?”
“They did. Blair's baby is absolutely perfect, and we may have consumed our own body weight in wine and gossip.”
We're both standing in the hallway now, keys in hand, but neither of us is making a move toward our respective doors. The air between us feels charged, like there's something important hovering just beneath the surface of this casual conversation.
“Stella, I—”
“Can we talk?” I blurt out at the same time.
We both laugh, and the tension breaks slightly.
“Your place or mine?” he asks, but he's already unlocking his door.
“Yours,” I say, following him.
The click of him sliding the lock closed sounds louder than it should, like it seals us off from the rest of the world. The space feels different somehow.
As he turns to face me, a question is already forming in his eyes.
But I don't want him to say anything. If he does, I'll lose my nerve, and I've already spent too many nights wondering what this would feel like.
Wondering if the tension between us is as unbearable for him as it is for me.
The girls' encouragement, the realization that I've been thinking about him as a possibility, the way my heart jumped when I saw him in the hallway—it all churns in my chest.
And I realize I'm done pretending.
I close the distance and kiss him, sure this time, greedy for the taste of him, my hands fisting in his shirt like I'm afraid he might vanish if I don't hold on.
He reacts instantly, like I've touched a match to something inside him. His arms wrap around me, pulling me flush against him, and the rough sound he makes hits me low in my stomach.
“I want to stop pretending I don't want you,” I whisper against his mouth as my forehead brushes his. “I'm so tired of pretending.”
His gaze drops to my lips, then back to my eyes, like he's making sure I mean it. “Are you sure? Because, once we cross this line, I don't think I can go back to just being your friend.”
“I don't want to go back.”
That's all the permission he needs. He surges forward, and his mouth crashes onto mine with a hunger that pulls the breath from my lungs.
His hands slide into my hair, his fingers curling tight as if he can't stand the thought of me pulling away.
The kiss is deep and consuming, and his tongue teases mine until my knees threaten to give out.
“God, Stella,” he groans against my lips.
“You taste so fucking good. So sweet and warm.” His nose brushes mine as his mouth moves to my cheek, then lower to my jaw.
“I can't stop thinking about you. About the way you felt pressed against me that night—your body rubbing against mine, soft and perfect, like you were made to fit there.”
He drags his lips along my throat, inhaling deeply, like he's memorizing me. “Your skin…” His lips trail over my jaw, my ear. “Your mouth, your lips. I've been dying to have them on me again.” His mouth claims mine again, harder this time.
His admission sends electricity through my entire body.
I reach for the hem of his shirt, needing to feel his skin against mine, and gently peel it up over his head, careful with his shoulder.
My hands explore the planes of his chest, the muscles that flex under my touch, the way his breathing hitches when my fingers trace the line of his collarbone.
“You're so beautiful,” I murmur, and he makes a sound like I've undone him completely.
His hands find the zipper of my dress, and he pauses, his eyes meeting mine. “Tell me you want this.”
“I want this, Brandon. I want you.”
The zipper slides down slowly, deliberately, and a shiver races over my skin as the fabric falls away. For a heartbeat, I forget how to breathe. His gaze roams over me, almost worshipful, but there's heat there, too, a hunger that makes me feel unsteady.
“You're perfect,” he says, his voice rough and certain, like he's stating a fact. “Absolutely perfect.”
I should laugh it off, make some self-deprecating joke the way I always do when someone gets too close, but I can't. Not with the way he's looking at me.
His eyes capture mine, and they tell me everything I've been hoping to know: that he's been waiting for this, not for days or weeks, but maybe longer, maybe his whole life.
He lifts me easily. My legs instinctively wrap around his waist, and the press of his body against mine steals my breath.
God, he's hard. The contact is dizzying, electric, sending a pulse of heat straight between my thighs.
I've been kissed before, touched before, even slept with men before, but nothing has ever felt like this.
He carries me to the bedroom and sets me down on his bed. His hands are sure but tender, mapping the slope of my shoulders, the curve of my waist, and the delicate skin below my ear. I gasp, arching toward him before I can stop myself.
“Tell me what you like,” he murmurs as his lips brush my throat. “Tell me what you want.”
I hesitate, my cheeks warming. “I don't know. I've never… With the other guys, it was never—”
“Never what, baby?”
I swallow, and the words barely make it past my lips. “Never where I felt like I might come apart just from being touched.”
Something flickers in his eyes, heat layered over a kind of determination that makes my pulse spike.
He bends to that spot under my ear again, and his teeth graze my skin just enough to make me whimper.
“We're going to figure out exactly what you like,” he promises, and the confidence in his voice curls low in my stomach.
“And I'm going to make you come apart so many times you lose count.”
The boldness of it should make me blush. Instead, it sends a flood of heat through me so intense I have to bite back a moan. Maybe I should be embarrassed by how little I know, how little I've experienced, but with him, I'm not.
His experience doesn't intimidate me. In fact, it feels like an anchor, something steady I can trust. He's confident and deliberate, like making me feel good is the only thing on his mind. And with every touch, I let go of the need to overthink or to perform. I just want to feel.
When his fingers move to the clasp of my bra, I don't hesitate. I want his hands on me. I want to know what it's like to be wanted like this. The straps slide from my shoulders, the last barrier falling away, and his breath catches.
“Christ, Stella,” he murmurs as his hands cup my breasts with a reverence that makes my throat tighten. His thumbs brush over my nipples, and the sensation is so sharp, so consuming, I can't hold back the raw sound that escapes me.
“Do that again,” I gasp, and he does, rolling and teasing until I'm trembling in his hands, my every nerve ending lit up.
“Lie down for me,” he says, and I do, watching as he takes a moment to just look at me spread out on his bed. “I've dreamed about this,” he admits. “About how you'd look, how you'd taste, how you'd sound, how I could make you feel good.”
“Brandon, please.”
He joins me on the bed, and his mouth finds mine again before trailing down my body with the kind of attention I've never experienced. When he reaches my breasts, he takes his time, alternating between gentle kisses and an intensity that has me gasping his name.
“So responsive,” he murmurs against my skin. “I love the sounds you make.”
His hands continue their exploration, mapping every curve and hollow like he wants to memorize me. When he reaches the edge of my underwear, he pauses again and looks up at me.
“Can I taste you?”
The question, asked so directly, makes me blush. I nod, not trusting my voice. He hooks his fingers in the lace and slides it down my legs with agonizing slowness.
“God, you're gorgeous,” he says, settling between my thighs. “All of you.”
The first touch of his mouth is gentle, exploratory, and I nearly come off the bed. No one has ever touched me like this, with such obvious pleasure in giving pleasure.
“Brandon,” I gasp as my hands fist in his hair.
“I know, baby. Let me take care of you.”
He works me with his tongue, lips, and the gentle pressure of his fingers until I'm completely lost, my body moving against his mouth as tension builds higher and higher.
When his fingers slide inside me, curling in just the right way while his tongue circles that perfect spot, I shatter completely.
“That's it,” he encourages, working me through the waves of sensation. “So beautiful when you let go.”
When I finally come back to myself, he's pressing soft kisses to my inner thighs, my hipbones, the sensitive skin of my stomach, giving me time to recover.
“I need you,” I manage, my voice breaking as I reach for him. “Please, Brandon. I need you inside me.”
He stills, his weight braced above me, his eyes locked on mine.
For a long heartbeat, neither of us moves.
It's like the air changes, and I know we're both thinking the same thing.
Once we do this, we can't go back. But looking at him now, feeling the heat of his body, I know I wouldn't want to.
No matter what happens tomorrow, next week, or next year, this will be worth it.
He lowers his forehead to mine, and our breaths mingle. His gaze is so deep that it feels like he's seeing all the pieces of me I usually keep hidden. “Are you sure?” he asks, his voice low, almost reverent.
“I've never been more sure of anything.”
He reaches for his nightstand, fumbling for a condom, and I help him roll it on with shaking hands. When he settles between my thighs, the head of him pressing against me, we both go still.
“Look at me,” he says softly, and I do. Our eyes lock as he pushes inside me slowly, giving me time to adjust. The stretch is perfect, the fullness everything I didn't know I was missing.
“Okay?” he asks, his voice strained with the effort of holding still.
“More than okay. Keep going.”
He starts agonizingly slow, with each thrust deliberate and deep, like he's learning me from the inside out.
And it's nothing like I imagined. I thought being with him would be all fire and speed, cocky skill and showmanship.
And yes, there's that, but there's also something I didn't expect.
The way his hand cradles my jaw between kisses, the way his thumb sweeps over my cheek as if he needs the connection as much as I do.
Every movement is a study in control, like he's savoring every inch, every sound I make, every sharp breath and soft moan.
Then his control slips—just a fraction at first—with his hips driving harder, deeper, and his mouth finding mine in a kiss that's all heat and teeth.
That shift from tender to feral sends a thrill through me so intense that I arch against him, chasing more.
“You feel incredible,” he breathes, the words ragged between thrusts. “Perfect. Like you were made for me.”
The way he says it, like it's not just sex, like it's a truth he's been carrying, pushes me closer to the edge. And when his hand slides between us, finding exactly where I need him, the combination is too much. Pleasure rips through me, and my nails dig into his shoulders as I cry out his name.
“Stella…” My name on his lips is a groan, a prayer, and the sound of it makes every nerve ending spark.
I'm still riding the aftershocks, my body pulsing around him, and it's like that's all it takes to make his control snap.
His pace falters, then turns urgent, almost rough, with each thrust deeper than the last.
His eyes lock on mine, raw and unguarded, and I can see the moment he can't hold back any longer. I cup his face, needing him close, and he drives into me one last time before shattering, with my name spilling from his lips like it's the only word he's ever known.
When he finally stills, his chest heaving, he stays close, resting his forehead against mine. As both of us breathe in the same ragged rhythm, I realize I've just let him see every part of me, and I don't regret a single second.
“Stay,” he murmurs against my hair. “Stay with me tonight.”
“Yes,” I whisper before pressing a kiss to his chest. “Yes, I'll stay.”