Chapter 5 #2
He shrugs out of the jacket and watches me as I start unbuttoning his shirt. ‘Guess I’m not the only one who’s thought about this before.’
I freeze when I realize what I’ve accidentally admitted, then lean in to kiss his neck to hide the color creeping across my cheeks.
He smells like oud and sandalwood and something else warm and spicy that I can’t place but has me nuzzling closer to get another hit.
‘Yeah, yeah. I’ve always thought you were cute. Don’t let it go to your head.’
‘Too late,’ he murmurs, hands sliding to my ass and rocking me against him. ‘My ego is growing.’
‘I don’t think that’s your ego I feel.’ I pull his shirt free from his pants with adrenaline-trembling fingers. ‘But I’ll check just to be sure.’
‘So you are trying to get me naked.’ He mockingly tsks, but he doesn’t stop me from pushing his shirt open.
His skin underneath is a warm tan, verging on bronze, with a dusting of hair that I immediately run my fingers over. He’s muscled and lean and so flawless that I want to drag my teeth across his skin just to leave a mark.
But as he unbuttons his cuffs and takes off his shirt, I see he already has scars – two of them, one on each wrist, long and thin and dotted with little spots where every stitch was placed.
The healed skin is still pink, still raised, still fresh enough, and when he catches me looking his face shutters.
‘I expected you to have tattoos,’ I blurt, hoping that will distract him from thinking too hard about what those scars mean. But I really did expect him to have at least one tattoo hiding under there. ‘You’re a shockingly blank canvas.’
A bit of his guardedness lifts at my observation. ‘My mother would kill me if I got a single tattoo. Even if she never saw it, she’d know.’
I wrinkle my nose, palms splayed on his solid chest. ‘Ooh, maybe we don’t talk about your mom right now, yeah?’
That’s all it takes for his smile to return. It’s small but open, his eyes alight once again. ‘Probably best,’ he agrees, dragging me forward on his lap, making me swallow back a moan. ‘We don’t need to talk at all.’
His lips find mine, our tongues tangling in another kiss that feels as if it could go on forever.
Somehow, even when we break for breath, our lips never leave each other.
They linger on jaws and corners of mouths.
They whisper against skin, brush noses and cheeks and chins.
I don’t know if I’ve ever been so content to simply sit and kiss, giggling when his stubble tickles my neck and twisting his soft hair between my fingers.
His hands alternate between my hips and thighs and waist and ass, squeezing and gripping but never in a way that’s too much.
But there comes a point when I’m breathing too hard – too hot and too overdressed in just a bra and underwear. Even shirtless, he’s also wearing too much. I want to feel skin on skin.
His teeth snag my bottom lip when my hands trail to his belt buckle, his eyes opening lazily as if the move has broken the trance we’ve been in.
He presses his lips to the crook of my neck once I have the buckle undone, and when his open-mouthed kisses drop to my collarbone, I lose whatever coordination I have left to get his pants open.
‘We should stop.’ He mumbles the words against the hollow of my throat, still kissing and biting, making no move to do what he says.
‘Do we have to?’ I ask breathlessly, but my weak hands cease their progress.
‘I don’t want to,’ he clarifies. ‘But I’m happy to keep doing exactly this for as long as you want.’
My stomach sinks and twists, even though it really shouldn’t. Tonight has been more than I could have ever hoped for, more than I ever expected, and I’m being greedy. This should be enough.
Still, I ask, ‘Why?’ I’m glad it doesn’t come out as a petulant whine.
Zaid chuckles, and I don’t even care that he’s essentially laughing at me. ‘Because I don’t have a condom,’ he says, punctuating the explanation with a kiss right below my ear. ‘And if you get my trousers off, I’m going to fuck you across that big, plush bed over there.’
It’s a perfectly reasonable explanation, and I know he’s right. I’m not on birth control and I know nothing about his health history. It’s a risk neither of us should take.
Still, our inability to do more makes me want to grumble – until I remember something that has me sitting up straighter, and has Zaid groaning as I press down harder on his lap.
‘There are condoms in the bedside table.’
At least, there should be if Edith hasn’t cleared them out for the move, left over from when I was here for her birthday party last year and delusional enough to think I might actually hit it off with one of the guys she was determined to set me up with. Needless to say, they all went unused.
‘Good to know,’ he says, back to kissing my neck, but he makes no move to get up and throw me across the bed like I want.
‘Zaid?’ I prompt.
‘Mm?’
‘I’m telling you we should use them.’
He freezes for a moment before his arms circle my waist and hold tight. ‘Oh, thank fuck,’ he says gruffly. ‘I don’t think I could have taken another minute of this.’
‘Big switch-up from what you were saying before.’
‘I was trying to be responsible.’ He pushes to standing and I throw my legs around him. ‘Now we both get what we want.’
We fall together in a heap on the mattress, knocking nearly all the air from my lungs, and whatever’s left is immediately stolen by his lips.
His kisses are urgent and heated, with a new hunger to them that I feverishly match as my nails drag down his chest. This time I don’t stop when I reach his pants, unbuttoning and unzipping like a woman possessed until I can slip my hand past the waistband of his underwear.
He groans and breaks our kiss when my fingers wrap around his length, giving him an experimental stroke that has a full-body shudder racking through him.
Zaid grasps my wrist and pulls it up between us. ‘Do that again and I’m not even going to get the chance to be inside you.’
I’m laughing before I can stop myself, head thrown back into the pillow as he nips at my throat in revenge. ‘We better solve that.’
I shimmy out from underneath him just enough that I can reach the bedside table, jerking open the drawer and rummaging inside until my fingers wrap around a foil packet.
When he sees what’s in my hand, Zaid stands and makes quick work of the rest of his clothes.
The sight I’m presented with when the last article hits the floor leaves me slack-jawed.
‘Wow.’ It’s the only word that comes to mind as I take him in, all hard muscles and sharp lines, the evidence of years working tirelessly in the gym. And the rest of him? The universe clearly has favorites, because Zaid is definitely one of them. ‘You’re – wow.’
He smirks as he grabs my ankle, gently prying off one of my pumps. ‘High praise.’
My laugh this time is weak, more of a nervous exhale, because he’s almost intimidatingly perfect.
But he takes my reaction in stride, tossing my other shoe to the floor before kneeling on the bed, giving me a better view of him.
I’m already reaching to undo the clasp of my bra when he curls his fingers around the sides of my panties, dragging them down with fervor.
‘Fuck, Ava,’ he murmurs when the lace set is on the floor, his eyes trailing down my body. ‘Do you have any idea how badly I want you?’
I practically throw the condom at him, needing more than just his admiration, sublime as it is. He rips the wrapper open and rolls it on with ease before lowering himself between my legs, cock sliding against my slickness. We both groan.
I’m wet from plenty of foreplay, but I still reach into the drawer again to grab a small bottle of lube, placing it beside us and trying not to let the heat that creeps into my cheeks stop me from asking for what I need.
‘Sorry, sometimes I just need a little help,’ I explain, because as great as sex can be, it can also be uncomfortable at the start.
Zaid doesn’t blink, unfazed by my request. ‘What did I say about apologizing?’
He keeps me from answering by leaning down for a bruising kiss, and by the time he’s done I’ve forgotten what I was apologizing for. When he pulls back this time, it’s to grab the other pillow, which he slides under my hips after tapping me to lift them.
And then he’s back between my thighs, one forearm braced next to my head while his other hand brushes between my breasts, down my stomach, and circles my clit until I’m panting and bucking and swearing at him to just fuck me. All he does is smile.
Finally, he grabs the lube, squeezing out just enough, and then he’s braced over me, cock nudging at my entrance.
I gasp at the stretch as he pushes in, grateful for both the lube and the pillow because I can’t lie – it’s been a while and he’s a lot to handle.
He doesn’t rush, just takes his time, moving inch by inch until I cant my hips, wordlessly asking for more until he’s completely seated inside me.
‘How’s that?’ he asks, and I wish I could appreciate the breathy note in his voice better, but I’m too focused on how overwhelmingly full I am.
‘It’s – fuck.’ I blurt the curse as he pulls out slightly and pushes back in, somehow filling me deeper this time.
His laugh is a rumble against my temple. ‘That’s what I thought.’
When he starts to move in earnest, it’s with shallow strokes until I relax around him.
I run my hands over his broad back and shoulders, reveling in the warmth of his skin, in the scent of him surrounding me, of how real he is.
He’s still the idol, the icon, the god that so many worship at the altar of.
No one can ever take that away from him.
It glows around him, a halo of eminence.
But here, with me, he’s also a man with calloused hands and soft eyes who’s worshiping at my altar.