9 #3
I smiled against her skin. “Again.”
“Don’t.”
“You said no names.”
“I said don’t be an asshole.”
“No, you said no names.”
“That wasn’t tonight.”
“You brought the rules into my room when you walked in wearing my clothes and looking at me like you needed me to make the world shut up.”
She pulled back enough to glare at me, and fucking hell, she was beautiful like that—angry, wet-eyed, turned on, and terrified of how badly she wanted to stay.
I saw all of it and knew, with a certainty that settled deep enough to ruin me, that I was already gone for her. It wasn’t lust, obsession, or only the thrill of a woman that sharp choosing my bed when she wanted to stop pretending.
It was her, all of her.
The bitchy mouth, the impossible pride, the way she loved her girls like breathing and hated needing anything in return.
The crack in her voice when she talked about Bliss looking small.
The way she sat in my lap, trying to turn vulnerability into a dare because it was the only language she trusted.
I knew it there, but I didn’t say it because saying it would make her run. Instead, I gripped her hips harder and gave her something she could understand.
“You don’t have to be easy in here,” I said.
Her face shifted as the words slipped beneath her armor.
“You don’t have to be nice,” I continued, keeping my voice low. “You don’t have to be calm. You don’t have to know what to do for Bliss. You don’t have to fix the house. You don’t have to explain why you need quiet. You came to my room, Aura. That’s enough.”
Her lips parted, but whatever she wanted to say got trapped behind the brightness in her eyes.
I pulled her closer until her chest struck mine and her breath spilled across my mouth. “But you don’t get to hide from me while you’re sitting on my lap.”
She stared at me before her mouth curved, slow and dangerous, because Aura would rather set herself on fire than admit a man had made her feel safe.
“You’re so sure you can handle me.”
I slid one hand beneath the sweatshirt and up her back, spreading my palm against warm skin. She shuddered, and I felt every inch of it.
“No,” I said, dragging my mouth over hers. “I’m sure you came here because you already know I can.”
She kissed me again, harder than before, but this time something else lived inside it. Aura would have bitten off my tongue if I called it softness. It was trust, messy, reluctant, and buried beneath all that heat.
Her body pressed into mine, her hips rocking with a needy little roll she tried to control until I took over, using my hands to guide her down against me.
She gasped into my mouth, and I swallowed the sound. Her eyes stayed on me, wide and affected, while her fingers found my face again and traced the line of my jaw with a touch that was unexpectedly gentle and searching.
The truth hung between us, too heavy to deny.
She stayed silent for a long moment before leaning closer, slowly and deliberately, and putting her mouth near my ear. Her breath was a hot, damp promise.
“Say my name.”
Every muscle in my body locked.
“Say it,” she breathed, her teeth grazing my earlobe. “While you’re inside me. I want to hear you ruin my own rules.”
That was the match.
I grabbed the hem of the sweatshirt and pulled it over her head in one rough motion. The fabric caught against her braids for a second before coming free, and she gasped, the sound swallowed by the quiet room.
I tossed it aside, and then my hands were against her bare skin, sliding up her ribs while my thumbs brushed the undersides of her breasts. She wore a thin, lacy bralette, and I could feel the delicate fabric beneath my palms and the hard points of her nipples pressing against it.
I bent my head and took one into my mouth through the lace, sucking hard.
She cried out, both hands flying into my hair and fisting in the strands. “Easton—”
“Again,” I growled against her, circling my tongue. “Say it again.”
“Easton, please—”
“Please what?”
I moved toward her other breast, biting gently through the lace as she arched into my mouth, a broken, beautiful mess.
“Use your words. Tell me what you need.”
“I need you to stop talking and fuck me.”
A savage grin cut across my face, unseen in the dim light. “There’s my bitchy, needy girl,” I said as her command hung in the air, filthy and perfect, while I stripped her bare and broke another rule.
I leaned back with my hands against her hips and looked at her beneath the lamp’s gold light, which spilled across her naked skin, the sweat shining in the hollow of her throat, and the defiant, desperate set of her mouth.
She was completely bare now. The bralette was a forgotten scrap on the floor, my sweatshirt was gone, and nothing remained between us but heat, want, and the terrifying, beautiful truth she had let me see.
“No,” I said, my voice rough.
Her heavy-lidded eyes flashed with irritation. “No?”
“Not like that.”
I shifted my grip, stroking my thumbs across the sharp cut of her hip bones. “You don’t get to hide in the fucking, Aura. Not tonight. You came here to feel safe. Let me make you feel safe.”
“Talking isn’t safe,” she whispered, but the protest was weak and her body was already softening beneath my hands.
“My mouth on you is.”
I didn’t wait for permission. I guided her from my lap and laid her back against my pillows.
She went, watching me with huge, dark eyes while her chest rose and fell too quickly. I moved over her, caging her between my arms without lowering my weight, and drank in the sight of Aura stripped of every defense, lying in my bed beneath my light.
“You are so fucking beautiful,” I said, and it wasn’t a line. It was a fact pulled from the center of me. “Look at you. All this skin. All this pride finally quiet. Just for me.”
Her throat worked as she lifted one trembling hand and touched my cheek. “Easton…”
“Say it.”
“Easton.”
The sound of my name in that broken, open voice was better than any goal horn or crowd roar. It felt like a homecoming.
I caught her hand, brought her knuckles to my mouth, and kissed them before turning her palm and pressing a hot, open-mouthed kiss into its center.
“I’m going to taste every inch of you,” I told her, locking my eyes with hers.
“I’m going to make you forget there’s a world outside that door.
You’re going to come on my tongue, then you’re going to come on my cock, and I’m going to say your name so many times you forget you ever had a rule against it. ”
A shudder tore through her, and her legs fell open in silent invitation.
I started at her mouth, kissing her slowly and deeply, pouring every unsaid thing into it before moving down to the pulse at the base of her throat.
I licked a stripe between her breasts, taking my time and worshipping her with my mouth, then sucked each nipple until they were pebbled and dark and she arched off the bed with soft, desperate cries.
“So responsive,” I murmured against her sternum, my breath hot against her damp skin. “This perfect body. All mine to play with. All mine to ruin.”
“Yours,” she breathed, the word a ragged surrender.
“Damn right,” I said, meaning every word in response to words she didn’t, and it might have killed me tomorrow, but it was everything tonight.
I continued downward, tracing the plane of her stomach with my lips and dipping my tongue into her navel. She squirmed, her hands tangling in my hair, not pushing me away but holding me against her.
When I reached the slit between her thighs, I paused and blew a soft stream of air across her slick, swollen flesh.
She jerked, a high, needy sound escaping her. “Please…”
“Please what, baby?”
I looked up the length of her body. Her head was thrown back, her spine arched, and her breasts were flushed and beautiful.
“Tell me what you want.”
“Your mouth. Please, Easton, your mouth.”
“You wreck me, Aura.”
I didn’t tease. I buried my face between her legs and ate her like a man possessed.
My tongue pressed flat and firm against her clit, then speared inside her before circling again. I drank her in, the musky, sweet taste of her cunt and how needy she was for me, while I hooked her legs over my shoulders and held her open, giving myself complete access.
The sounds she made were obscene, a symphony of gasps, moans, and my name chanted like a prayer.
“Oh, shit… right there… don’t stop… Easton, please don’t stop…”
I didn’t. I sucked her clit into my mouth, applying steady, relentless pressure while my tongue flicked across the sensitive bundle of nerves. Her inner muscles clenched around nothing, seeking and desperate, so I slid two fingers inside her, curled them, and found the sweet spot deep within.
“That’s it,” I growled against her, the vibration making her scream. “Come on my face, Aura. Let go. I’ve got you. I’ll always fucking have you.”
It was the final push she needed.
Her orgasm tore through her with a violence beautiful enough to behold.
Her back bowed from the mattress, a raw, shattered cry ripping from her throat as she convulsed around my fingers.
I rode her through it, my mouth gentler now as I lapped at her while the waves subsided and swallowed every final tremor.