Chapter 21 Avery #2
She heard the breath escape from Tanner’s chest. The honey of his irises glowed as he grabbed her hand again, and Avery knew she’d have more luck stopping the sunrise than her feet from following him across the patio.
At the back door, a sugar spoon of common sense had her pointing out, “We left the towels by the pool.”
“It’s fine.” Tanner towed her inside.
“We should dry off.”
“Nope.” He shut and locked the door behind them, then swept her up into his arms. Avery squealed.
“You’ll slip!”
“I won’t.” Sure-footed and determined, Tanner strode into the foyer without even reaching for the light switch.
“Your floors will be soaked!”
“I don’t care,” Tanner rumbled.
“Your carpet—” They were on the stairs now.
“Fuck the carpet.”
His teeth flashed white in the gloom, and there was something about the fact that he could pick her up and carry her without breaking a sweat that sent any further sensible thought leaking from Avery’s ears.
She melted into him, her fingers curling around his thick traps as she leaned in to catch a droplet of water with her tongue that was trickling down his neck.
Tanner rebounded heavily off one of the walls with a stifled curse.
He turned into an open doorway, saw it was the bathroom and reversed, muttering about still finding his way around. They struck lucky with the next one.
“Tanner, no! Your bed—”
He dropped her onto the mattress and knelt above her, silhouetted in the dark.
His eyes raked her body; Avery wished she could read his expression.
Was it the alcohol fizzing in her system or could she actually feel the desire pulsing in her veins?
She was grateful for the combination because they drowned out any voice of reason that might have stilled her hand as she reached for him.
Her fingers brushed Tanner’s abs and they rippled.
He tipped back his head, his throat bunching around a rough swallow as he palmed the front of his shorts where they jutted over his erection.
Carnal sin personified, he was the definition of raw sensuality.
The physical embodiment of way too many of Avery’s secret fantasies.
She wanted time to study him. Time to learn his masculine angles and curves after all these years of wishing and wanting.
Time to press her mouth against the many knicks, bumps, and scars he’d gotten on the ice.
But Tanner decided she’d had all the time she needed.
Climbing from the bed, he dragged his trunks down his legs, the wet fabric clinging and resisting.
Utterly unselfconscious, he finally discarded them on the floor—and now it was Avery’s turn to swallow as she untied her top with shaky fingers.
Taking it from her, Tanner threw it in the direction of his trunks without turning to look.
He ran a hand through his hair as she shimmied out of her bikini bottoms, mindless of sheets already damp from their bodies and her hair.
When she reached for him, aching and desperate, he turned away instead.
Avery twisted on the bed, following his movements with a frown. “Tanner?”
Crossing the room, he grabbed a canvas bag and upended it. With a frantic shake, Tanner sent the contents spilling onto the carpet, kicking at the mess with his foot. “Where the fuck are they?”
“What are—” She suddenly realized what he was looking for and his frustration broke her tension, a giggle escaping as she cupped her chin with the palm of one hand. He shot Avery a wild-eyed glance as she said, “We should have kept hold of the one from the scavenger hunt.”
Responding with just a growl, Tanner bent suddenly to grab a singular foil square from the middle of a tangle of socks. “No need—we’re all good.”
He threw the condom onto the nightstand and stalked to the end of the bed.
Prowling onto the mattress, Tanner braced himself over her body, hands planted either side of her shoulders, and Avery thrilled at the unswerving intent on his striking face.
Noses just inches apart, lips too, he stared down at her like she was his faceoff opponent and they were waiting for the puck to drop. But with less clothes.
“So you can hold a plank.” Avery’s voice was a croak. “Color me impressed, Ace Face.”
The smile started in his eyes and flared as his mouth parted in a grin that was sex and fire and all Tanner.
She raised her finger to trace the arc but was beaten to it when his lips met hers, his body lowering inch by electric inch until he covered her like a blanket.
Avery moaned at the heat. His weight, his hardness, was consuming.
Even as she explored the scar near the corner of his mouth with her tongue, her legs were parting, urging him closer.
Then he was the one groaning.
In a fluent maneuver that caught her by surprise, Tanner pushed up to kneeling, sitting back on his heels above her and reaching for the foil packet.
He opened it with his teeth, his eyes on Avery’s all the time.
Wordlessly, she sat up and stole the condom from his fingers, unwilling to give up her chance to touch him so intimately.
He jerked within the circle of her hand, thick and hot as she rolled the protection over his length, and Tanner grabbed her wrist when she tightened her grip around him.
“You’re gonna embarrass me soon.” Laughter wrapped in sandpaper rasped from his throat, and Avery’s stomach clenched as he pushed her flat again.
Tugging at her hair, he sucked on an earlobe and she shivered as the cool silver chain around his neck slid over her skin.
Grasping his biceps, she closed her teeth on his shoulder and he rocked between her thighs, his cock settling, steel on silk, against her groin.
Their movements were disorderly, desperate, a little unhinged.
Maybe it was all the alcohol. Maybe it wasn’t.
“This is not going to be my best work, Stretch.” Tanner grunted as she licked at a spot in the crook of his neck which made him shudder. “I’ve wanted you for too long.”
Avery wasn’t listening. She continued her exploration, found one of his nipples and became obsessed with the feel of it pebbling between her fingers. He tasted like chlorine and sunshine. She loved how he jerked and twitched beneath her tongue and hands.
When he lowered his head to sweep his mouth over her breast, she felt his needy rumble against her sensitive skin.
“Fucking gorgeous. These have been driving me mad since the Bach Bash. I’ve had a lot of dreams about your tits.” Tanner drew her nipple between his lips and the warm drag of his tongue tugged at her core.
Smoothing a hand over her stomach, he traced downward from her navel, his fingers dipping between her legs.
Without hesitation Tanner’s thumb found her clit, already needy from his attention in the pool, and Avery lifted her hips from the sheets to deepen his touch.
They both moaned as his broad index finger slid inside her.
“So fucking wet. So fucking tight. You’re killing me, babe.”
His words pushed her closer to the edge as his thumb matched the circles that his tongue mapped around her nipple, and Avery’s eyelashes fluttered and closed against her will.
He played her body until she was all sensation, no thought.
The release started in her toes, traveling beneath her skin.
When Tanner slid a second finger in to join the first, sucking harder on her breast, she bowed and broke.
His name was a thing with jagged edges when it escaped on a shattered cry.
He caught Avery’s mouth again as she trembled and shook, dipping his tongue into the warmth and eating her sighs straight off her lips.
She pulled him even closer. Fixing satisfied, hungry eyes on her face, Tanner hooked a hand around the back of one knee, drawing it up and out.
He rolled his hips. Avery felt his hard length right there, where she needed him most, and he pushed slowly into her against the tail end of her orgasm.
The stretch was blissful. His pained growl even better. Tanner’s eyelids flickered; she was sure her own did, too. And then he was deep inside her, pinning her to the bedsheets with his body, branding her from the inside out with each thrust. She couldn’t hold him tight enough.
He felt like heaven.
She felt like crying.
It felt like belonging.
“Yeah, that’s it. Christ, you feel fucking fantastic.” A light sheen of sweat slicked between Tanner’s shoulder blades. His arms shook and his forehead dropped down to hers. “Just like that, just like that.” He was almost chanting.
Avery reveled in the bunching of his inked muscles, his sheer mass pressing her into the mattress. Her head spun, their gasps growing louder in unison. Quicker than she could comprehend, everything went fabulously, deliciously taut once more.
“Oh, yes. Yes, Tanner. I . . .” The words were indecipherable. They came from the back of her throat as another wave of pleasure flung her through the air and she lost herself in a blanket of stars.
Tanner came hard and fast inside her and Avery relished every pulse of his release, clasping him tightly to her until they both finally stilled.
“Don’t move. Stay there,” she mumbled into the dip at the base of his throat when he shifted, and he gave a breathless laugh.
“I’m not going anywhere, Stretch.”
His promise glowed like a sparkler in the darkened room.