Chapter 25 Pleasure
TWENTY-FIVE
Pleasure
TIA
The hard floor bit at her knees, but Tia didn’t care, not when faced with an opportunity to explore the expanse of Ryker’s body. All those heated dreams, the thoughts of him sheltering her through the long nights, and those forbidden desires she’d kept locked up tight? All were becoming reality.
A dangerous risk but one she embraced.
Collins had given the team two days’ liberty in the wake of the accident. If they wanted, they never had to leave the confines of this odd metal box.
As she reached to pull at the waistband of his briefs, Ryker gripped her wrist.
“Not yet,” he said.
“But don’t you want…” Her brows lifted, as she was surprised by what seemed an odd refusal. How did a man not want a blow job?
“I do. Very much in fact, but let’s slow this down.”
How slow did he mean to go? He’d already given her yet another earth-shattering orgasm. The man had talented fingers and an even wickeder tongue.
The erotic promise of his hardened shaft, hidden beneath a thin layer of fabric, had her skin tingling and her breaths accelerating. She’d only experienced it in a hurried fuck not so long ago. Instead of imagining what it must look like, she could take her time exploring.
She already knew what his cock felt like and couldn’t wait for the rush of pleasure that would follow the burning stretch as he slipped inside once again.
An image of him stroking himself fluttered in her mind, his hand fisting his cock with rapid pulls as his ass flexed.
His cock looked longer and thicker than she remembered, and that brought a building ache surging between her legs.
Her mouth watered with the urge to wrap her lips around him, taste his salty essence, and devour him as she brought him the same pleasure he’d bestowed upon her.
Her chest clamped with disappointment. He hadn’t rejected her, but he wasn’t allowing her to have a say in what happened next.
Did that surprise her? Her brows pinched together, as she was confused by how that made her feel. Did she even care?
He was impeccably built, the figure of cut muscle, so damn virile with his broad shoulders angling down to the lickable lines of the V-cut indentations of his abs and hips.
Would he even let her trace those lines and follow them down?
His entire body was a masterpiece of masculine perfection and screamed sexual domination.
It drove her wild with an aching hunger.
That throbbing between her legs returned. Not that it had ever left. She licked her lips and glanced up, incredibly aroused and so very confused.
“What do you mean, slow down?”
If he refused her mouth, would he allow her hands to take him over the edge? She wanted to watch him come apart, blissfully undone, as she stroked him to a panting, shaking, explosive end.
His eyes hardened, perhaps sensing the thoughts scrambling in her head. With a jerk of his chin, he stepped away. His shoulders heaved with heavy breaths.
“I want that very much,” he said, “but I’m not done exploring you.”
She thought he’d made himself rather well acquainted with her body but didn’t argue the point. Crossing her arms over her chest, she felt shy under the heated appraisal he cast at her. Without overanalyzing it too much, she strode over to him.
“I want to feel you, Tia,” he said. “I want to feel every inch of you, but we need to talk.”
Talk? He wanted to talk! What could he possibly need to say now? It was too fucking late. Was this his game—take what he wanted and then drop her like last week’s trash?
She barely heard his next words.
“I never made it to the exchange,” he said. “I don’t have any condoms.”
Her breath caught in her throat. She’d forgotten her shopping list, too. Then, she laughed. Deep, bubbling laughter spilled from her throat. Then, relief washed away her self-recriminations and doubt. He didn’t want to leave. He wanted to stay.
He cupped her hand and placed it in his lap. “I’ve never gone without protection.”
“Oh.” Then, why did he refuse the blow job if they couldn’t have sex? “We don’t have to…”
“Hang on,” he said. “I’m clean. HIV negative.
” As a requirement of their job, all military personnel were tested as a part of their annual physicals.
His grip tightened, and he worried his lower lip with his teeth.
“I don’t want to force you to do anything, but I don’t know if I can leave without fucking you. ”
She rolled her lower lip between her teeth, contemplating options. “My tests are clean, too,” she said.
“Are you…” He huffed in a breath. “Shit, Tia, I need you.” His cock glistened with his need and tented his shorts.
“I think the exchange is still open,” she said.
But, even if it were closed, the lack of condoms wasn’t going to stop the inevitability of this evening. Like shocking a patient. He was clean. She was clean. They were all clean. And she had a protective IUD lodged firmly in her womb to last another five years.
He bent to grab his trousers, but she placed her hands on his hips. “Wait.”
“What?” His brows drew together.
“There’s no way you’re headed outside like that.”
He closed his eyes and nodded. “This wouldn’t be the first time you gave me a hard-on and I had to walk around with it.”
“Let me help you with that,” she insisted.
Her focus darted around the small quarters, looking for something to help. Her ruck had been delivered through some small act of kindness, probably Warren’s doing. Although a man, he acted more like the mother hen to the unit.
No sex without protection didn’t mean she couldn’t give back, especially after the attention he’d lavished on her.
Without thinking, she backed him up to the single bunk until the backs of his knees met the hard metal of the frame.
The mattress was thin but serviceable, plush by most field standards.
“Sit,” she said, pushing down on his shoulder with one hand and pushing back on his waist with the other.
Ryker collapsed on the bed with a whoosh from his lungs and a screech from the wire frame underneath. She dropped, kneeling between his powerful legs, and licked her lips.
“Lose the shorts,” she said.
“Not a good idea.” His sea-foam eyes darkened with a tempest of lust, and his shoulders heaved with billowing breaths. He narrowed his eyes, drawing a deep furrow between them as he stared down at her. “I want to fuck you.”
“Trust me,” she said and blinked what she hoped were seductive eyes at him. This was something she wanted for herself as much as for him. A slow, carnal exploration, one where she could take her time to enjoy him fully. “We can head out for condoms in a bit. At least let me take the edge off.”
“Don’t think that’s possible,” he said. “Being around you keeps me perpetually hard.”
His words sank in, and she glanced up at him. “Ryker?”
“Yes, darlin’?”
“How long have you…I mean…” She shook her head, realizing she’d been blind to his feelings for far too long. “Have you always been attracted to me?”
How could he? She’d seen the women he took to his bed.
They were small, frail things, full of giggles and nonsense, and usually coated in layers of makeup.
The only thing she had in common with them was the length of her hair.
Rarely did she fuss with makeup. Her world consisted of missions and downtime where she prepared for the next mission.
All that was done without care for makeup, short skirts, or any thoughts of attracting a man.
In the year she’d known Ryker, he’d collected women who epitomized femininity.
Even in the months they’d been deployed together, he’d only brought the prettiest of the pretty into his bed.
He leaned down and placed his palms to her cheeks, lifting her for a kiss. “I’ve been hard for you since the day I met you. I’ve never not wanted you.”
“But…”
“It’s okay,” he said, releasing her and dragging a hand across the stubble of his chin. “You were off-limits.”
She should still be off-limits. Regardless of what happened with Scott or not, theirs was a dangerous liaison. A forbidden romance.
“I guess I didn’t realize,” she admitted.
There had been plenty of heat between them, but it was more obnoxious than anything else. Or maybe that was what her head had been trying to tell her heart. It was the perfect lie.
Resting back on her heels brought her attention to the tenting of his shorts.
“You’re fucking killing me here.” Following the angle of her gaze, he lifted one hand and dragged it down his face.
A slight groan echoed out of his chest. His entire body vibrated with a seething mess of energy, making his posture stiff and uncomfortable.
Several times, his eyes darted to the locked door, but invariably, they returned to stare down at her, crouched before him on the floor.
She blinked up at him while he clenched his teeth.
His fingers grabbed at the thin fabric of the covers, but he didn’t make a move, except when she pulled at the elastic of his briefs.
His head tilted back while she shifted to a more comfortable position.
It wouldn’t take much to lean forward and take him in her mouth, but this was her turn to explore, tease, torture, and please, and she intended to do all that and more.