Chapter 1 — The Arrangement #3
The question, so direct and formal, undid me. Ben never asked. He took, commanded, assumed. This request, in this staged setting, was the most genuine thing that had happened all night.
I nodded, a slight dip of my chin.
He leaned in slowly, giving me every second to change my mind. His lips met mine, and the world tipped on its axis.
It was not a kiss for an audience.
It was a discovery. Soft at first, a testing press.
Then firmer, his mouth moving over mine with a deliberate, exploring tenderness.
His tongue traced the seam of my lips, and I opened for him with a sigh I didn’t recognize as my own.
The taste of him was clean, sharp, like mint and the red wine from dinner.
His hands slid from my shoulders into my hair, cradling my head, his fingers tangling in the strands.
He angled his head, deepening the kiss, and a low, quiet sound hummed in his throat.
Heat unspooled in my belly, liquid and heavy.
My hands, which had been hanging limp at my sides, came up of their own volition.
They found his waist, his back, the solid muscle beneath his shirt.
I pulled him closer. The lace of my lingerie scraped against the fine cotton of his button-down, a delicious friction.
We kissed for what felt like an age, there at the foot of the bed.
Time lost its shape. The room, the candle, the watching presence in the corner—they all blurred into a faint periphery.
There was only the soft, insistent pressure of his mouth, the scrape of his stubble, the secure hold of his hands.
When he finally broke the kiss, we were both breathing harder. He rested his forehead against mine, our breath mingling.
“Okay?” he whispered.
I could only nod, my eyes still closed, clinging to the sensation.
He kissed me again, quicker this time, a reassuring brush of his lips.
Then his mouth left mine and traveled down my jaw to my throat.
His lips were warm, soft, as they pressed against my pulse point.
His hands slid down my back, over the open lace, finding bare skin.
His touch was everywhere, mapping the landscape of me with a reverence that felt utterly foreign.
I heard a sound from the corner. A sharp intake of breath. Ben. I’d forgotten him. The realization was a small, cold shock. But then Leo’s teeth grazed the tendon in my neck, and a bolt of pure sensation shot straight to my core, and I forgot again.
His hands found the clasp of my bra at the front, a complicated hook-and-eye. He fumbled with it for a second, then it gave way. The lace fell open. He drew back just enough to look down. His eyes darkened, his pupils swallowing the green.
“You are so beautiful,” he said, the words hushed, awed. They didn’t sound like a line. They sounded like a confession.
He bent his head and took my nipple into his mouth.
I cried out, my back arching. The sensation was immediate, intense, a direct line of fire from his tongue to my clit.
He laved it with slow, wet circles, then sucked gently, his hand coming up to cradle the weight of my breast. He paid the same devoted attention to the other, his mouth and hands working in a rhythm that was both tender and devastatingly specific.
He was learning what I liked, adjusting his pressure, his pace, based on the hitches in my breath, the tremors in my thighs.
My fingers clawed at his shirt. “This… off,” I managed to gasp.
He straightened, his lips glistening. Without breaking eye contact, he pulled the shirt over his head, dropping it to the floor.
His chest was smooth, defined, a dusting of dark hair between his pecs.
I reached out, my palms flattening against the warm, firm skin.
He felt solid, real. My touch seemed to break a last reserve in him.
A low groan escaped his lips, and he captured my mouth again, this kiss hotter, hungrier.
His hands went to my hips, to the waistband of the lace panties. He hooked his thumbs into them and pushed them down. They slid over my thighs, my knees, to pool around my ankles. I stepped out of them, and out of my heels, standing bare before him.
He looked his fill, his gaze a physical caress. “God,” he breathed.
Then he was kneeling. His hands spread over my thighs, urging them apart. I hesitated for a fraction of a second—a flash of Ben’s face, his watching eyes—but the need was too strong, too primal. I let my feet shift wider.
He leaned in. His breath washed over my pussy, warm and intimate. I was already wet, embarrassingly so, my own scent rising in the space between us.
“Look at you,” he murmured, almost to himself. Then his tongue touched me.
It was a flat, broad stroke from my entrance to my clit.
I jerked, a gasp tearing from my throat.
My hands flew to his head, my fingers sinking into his thick hair.
He didn’t pause. He set a slow, relentless rhythm, licking into me, circling my clit, sucking gently on the sensitive folds.
He was meticulous, unhurried, as if he had all night to learn the taste and texture of me.
Pleasure coiled, tight and urgent, deep in my belly.
My hips began to move against his mouth, seeking more pressure, more friction.
He gave it to me, one hand sliding around to grip my ass, holding me steady as he feasted on me.
The sounds were obscene—wet, sucking, my own ragged moans mixing with his low grunts of approval.
I was climbing fast, too fast, the peak rushing at me. “Leo… I’m going to…”
He answered by sliding two fingers inside me, curling them upward.
I screamed, my knees buckling. He held me up, his mouth never leaving me, his fingers pumping in a steady, perfect rhythm against that spot inside that made me see stars.
The orgasm ripped through me, a convulsive, blinding wave that shook me to my core.
I cried out, my body bowing, my thighs clamping around his head.
He gentled his mouth, lapping softly as I came down, his fingers still moving slowly inside me, prolonging the shudders. When I finally stilled, trembling and spent, he withdrew his fingers and pressed a soft kiss to my inner thigh before rising.
He was hard, his erection straining against his trousers. He looked wrecked, his lips swollen, his eyes glazed with a desire that mirrored my own.
“Bed,” he said, his voice rough.