Chapter Eighteen
ELI’S BODY WAS chiseled from marble. Three words. Delicious. Thick. Cut. Not only was his jaw cut, but so were his pecs, his abs, and his thighs—good lawd—his calves could support her weight for days. Absolute magnificence. She’d seen parts of his body, but looking at the total package, Amarie panted, literally, like a canine in heat. He would ruin her for other body types. His body was a poetic specimen of male anatomy, and his pecs a detailed chapter she could study for hours.
“Tell me. What do you want to happen first?”
It was a question that no man had ever asked her before. She’d expected him to tell her what she had to do to satisfy him. Eli wanted her to share in their lovemaking, but she didn’t know where to start.
“Surprise me,” she said, reclining on his bed.
A wolfish smile spread across his face. “Great answer.”
The gleam in his eyes was utter devastation to her senses. She was already halfway to full power from pure attraction. Would he feel the same about her body? Was there such a thing as self–slut shaming before she actually got to the act of slutting?
“Hey,” he called. Amarie looked up and the way he drank in her full curves erased her fears.
“All you have to do is say yes… or no. Grab the headboard with both hands.” Oh yes, he took the decision right out of her hands.
“Yes,” she whispered.
He chuckled. “Are you toying with me?”
“Absolutely not. I love being swept off my feet and… and you do it so often. Promise you won’t stop after you get the kitty cat.”
“Kitty cat?”
“You know… the one with the warm center.” She raised one brow, before using her tongue in a slow sweep of her lips.
Eli eye’s sparkled with mischief. “Will this kitty purr?”
“Depends? If you lick her just right,” she said, not shy at all with her soon-to-be lover.
When he kissed a slow trail from her ankle, the sensitive crease at her knee, alternating the firmness of his mouth with the nip of his teeth, she shivered.
Eli took his time caressing every curve. Kisses rained down, drenching her from the inside out. He found unchartered territory on her body, exposed sensitive areas, and exploited others. One by one, he felled her defenses, each touch demanding her surrender. How he loved her—words couldn’t describe the tenderness of his caresses. She felt his gaze, a tangible cord binding them together.
Warmth spread over her breast before he covered it with his tongue. He moved on to the next. She whimpered at the momentary absence of his mouth. Her breath quickened when he made a lazy sweep with his tongue down her abdomen. Her belly quivered. The more he teased and tasted, the higher her need for all of him raged beyond her control.
“Eli, please.”
“Can I kiss you?”
Amarie sucked in a breath and lifted her head. She offered her mouth.
“Not there, sweetheart.”
At the brush of his warm breath against her inner thigh, she gasped.
“Yes,” she moaned.
The slow rumble that sounded in his chest seemed to vibrate through her. He feasted again and again until her body could hold back no longer.
Just as her pleasure burst forth, so did her voice.
“Eli,” she screamed, a hoarse cry until she lay wordless, weightless, hopelessly against love’s allure.
When Eli entered her sometime later, safe and protected, it was unlike anything she had ever felt before. The initial controlled thrust, the stretch, the sensation of complete fullness. The emptiness that clung to her, ever present, vanished. He lowered his head, inhaled her scent, before pressing a kiss to her cheek.
“Breathe, my love.”
And she obeyed. He rewarded her with a slow roll of his hips. Amarie started to move with him. Their rhythm came so naturally. It felt like the sweetest song, an original tune that they wrote with the music of their bodies conducting the beats, as they learned the harmony together.
“You’re beautiful, Amarie.”
“Tell me that again,” she demanded.
“You feel perfect for me.”
“Yes.” The words washed over her. Warm water covering her head, her heart. She plunged deeper, and deeper still.
“It’s true,” he whispered. “I don’t ever want us to end.”
Wave after wave pushed her farther yet somehow drew her closer to him. Instead of drowning, Amarie floated, stroked in the direction of the building current pulling her body into a depth unknown before Eli. For the first time in her life, she knew what it meant to be worshipped. Poems rewrote themselves. She understood the great sonnets anew. The sound of love echoed in her voice, powerful, transformative, reborn. She felt the beauty of being connected to another life outside of her own. Eli groaned. Her pleasure had fueled his. It gave her confidence. Amarie, after years of hiding what she wanted, took what she needed. She knew that if she lost herself in the darkest of oceans, he would find her because he marked every trembling inch of her flesh. And Eli, well, he thanked her, over, and over, and over again.