12. “Should I StayShould I Go?” #6
He gently cradled her leg, lowering the long zipper of her boot and sliding her foot free.
He repeated the motion with the other and set the shoes aside.
Next, he removed the clip from her hair and placed it on the nightstand.
Pulling her up slowly, he stripped her out of her dress and loosened the clasp of her bra underneath.
He stripped her naked and laid her back. “My God, you’re fucking beautiful.” He said it as if he never got the chance to look at her, which in a way, he hadn’t.
Until recently, they’d always come together in an explosive meeting of impassioned lust, and she’d always rushed him out as soon as it was over. This was different. Everything was changing now, and she wondered why she ever tried to stop it.
“Tired?” he asked, stroking a lazy finger down her throat and over her collarbone.
She sighed, because every time he touched her another part of her seemed to ignite and awaken. “A little.”
“I’m not ready to let you go yet,” he confessed, trailing his touch lower and circling her breasts until her nipples puckered into hard, needy peaks.
“Then don’t.”
“Aren’t you worried you’ll spoil me?” he joked.
She chuckled. “Impossible. You were spoiled when I met you.”
He moved to the hearth and turned on the gas fire. She watched as he methodically stripped out of his suit, neatly folding and draping each item over the wingback chair in the seating area of the room. Everything stood in precise, deliberate order.
The mattress dipped as he crawled over her, his mouth slowly dragging over the slopes and valleys of her chest before reaching her throat. When he kissed her, there was no sense of urgency like before. This time, he savored her.
“I want to make love to you, Jocelyn.”
The weight of more than his erection hung between them. They’d been careful to avoid that four-letter word, but it started slipping in no matter how much they tried to keep it out.
Tightness formed in her chest, but she wasn’t strong enough to oppose him.
She wanted him to make love to her. She wanted to be the sole focus of a man like Soren Hawthorne, because there was really no greater feeling than having a man like him choose a woman like her.
But most of all, she wanted to let her guard down and trust that he would never hurt her.
Cupping a hand to his cheek, she whispered, “Please make love to me, Soren.”
Firelight shifted in his eyes, behind a flicker of emotion he didn’t try to hide. He turned his face into her palm and pressed a kiss so reverent it sent an ache through her arm, cracking her heart open.
“I love being able to touch you like this,” he whispered, and her breath hitched.
She dragged her thumb across his lips, mesmerized by the shape. “I love it too.”
He lowered his mouth to hers, kissed her the way a man drinks water after going without, deep and unhurried, savoring the give of her lips, and the soft sounds she made when his tongue stroked hers.
His hand spread wide over her ribs, gently fanning toward her sides, matching her breathing with every rise and fall of her chest.
The firelight cast his tanned skin in a soft golden glow as he lowered over her, careful of his weight.
Bracing on his thickly muscled forearm, he covered her body without crushing her.
Every place he touched came to life. His chest against her breasts, his hip settling into the cradle of her thighs, the warm press of him everywhere at once overwhelmed her in an unsurpassed way.
She arched into him, and he answered with a slow roll of his hips, a promise rather than a demand. His mouth left hers and trailed along the line of her jaw, into the hollow beneath her ear, along the cord of her throat where her pulse beat in a riotous plea to hurry but also make it last.
His lips parted against her skin as he breathed her in. The slick trail of his arousal dragged over her as he fought the urge to take her in a rush. She pressed a small kiss to his temple, and a low groan rumbled out of him, helpless and beyond his control.
Soren was a vocal lover who never made her wonder what he liked. His sounds told the truth, and sometimes they were so honest they made it difficult to believe this thing between them had ever been casual.
His hands moved over her in long passes, palms learning the curve of her waist, the swell of her hip, the soft inner skin of her thigh. He worshipped her without a single word. He touched her as if he’d waited his whole life to hold her.
When his mouth closed over her breast, warm and wet, she gasped and threaded her fingers into his hair.
He groaned against her, the vibration sinking into her bones.
Gently, he sucked her nipples into tight peaks and blew on the sensitized tips, holding her stare as he teasingly kissed the puckered edge.
Her spine arched, and he teased lower, kissing the soft give of her belly, the curve below her navel, and the crease of her hip.
When he settled between her thighs, he looked up the length of her body and held her gaze.
Then he lowered his head and tasted her, slow and deliberate, a man savoring a rare indulgence where he also tasted himself.
His gaze flared as the combined flavor of them met his tongue.
Stunned that he didn’t pull back, she breathlessly watched as he stroked his tongue deeper and groaned.
A gasp left her throat as her clit fell into a rapid flutter, pulsing gently against his touch in a tiny orgasm neither of them expected, triggered by the sheer sight of him cherishing her in such a way.
He gentled her with a hand splayed warm across her stomach and gave her more, patiently reading every shiver, every broken breath, until she came apart against his mouth again.
His name ghosted past her lips. He whispered how beautiful she was to him and kissed her thighs. She trembled around him, shivering with need and overwhelmed by the delicate aftershocks wreaking havoc on her nerves.
He climbed back over her while the tremors still moved through her, kissing her cheekbones, the corners of her mouth, the unsteady line of her jaw.
She reached for him, desperate now to close the last distance, and he came to her with leashed control, whispering promises against her skin. “You’re my easiest thought, Jocelyn. I don’t think I can ever let you go, now that I have you.”
The blunt heat of his engorged length pressed into her in one long glide that stole the breath from them both.
He went still when her breath caught. “I want to make it last as long as possible.”
She shivered, sharing his thought far beyond this moment and hoping they could somehow hold onto these emotions forever.
Buried deep, he dropped his forehead to her shoulder, and a shudder rolled through his frame. His body caged her, as if afraid she might escape, but she wasn’t going anywhere.
Trembling, he held himself inside her, motionless, breathing with her, speaking without words. It was the closest they came to saying it out loud.
She turned her face toward his jaw, dragging his mouth back to hers. His hips slowly moved, deliberately dragging back only to fill her once more.
He set a rhythm built for closeness, not climax, his mouth never leaving her skin, his hands cradling her face, her shoulders, sliding beneath her to lift her closer with each measured thrust. He gave her his full attention and, for once, she received it without flinching.
Breath ragged against her ear, his body spoke the words they weren’t ready to say. There was something so solid in the way he held her, yet also so fragile they were both careful not to break it.
She wrapped herself around him, and the tenderness climbed in her like a tide, slow and inevitable. Her release crested but bore no resemblance to anything before. This time it wasn’t a delicate flutter of nerves. Nor was it an explosion of unpredictable passion.
It rolled through her in deep, aching waves, and she cried out his name as she came undone. He followed her over the edge, his face buried in the curve of her neck as he spilled into her and held on as if she were his only anchor in a tilting world.
Tears welled in her eyes, put there by the sheer intensity of the moment. The dampness of his lashes pressed against her throat, and she pretended, for his sake, not to notice, since he offered the same kindness.
In the aftermath, neither of them had the strength to move. Her tears dried long before she found the energy to wipe them away. His length retracted inside of her in subtle increments so she never suffered that jarring absence that always came when he pulled out.
Gathering her against his chest, he tucked her head beneath his chin and held her in the shelter of his body. His hand stroked the length of her spine, slow and absent, as if letting her go wasn’t an option.
The firelight cast shadows over the sharp angles of his face as their hearts slowed in tandem. That was when she finally admitted there was no other place she’d rather be.