Chapter 28
A LOVE BITE
RIPLEY
Banks pins me down in a flash, my arms above my head, my wrists in his hands, his body covering mine. There’s a duvet between us, but I can feel him, thick, hard, insistent between my thighs.
His chest, strong and sturdy against me.
His stubble, scratchy and just the right amount of whiskery, against my face as he seals his mouth to mine in the world’s most necessary kiss.
It hardly feels like it was only yesterday afternoon when we kissed feverishly on the side of the road. That seems like ages ago. Like it’s taken Herculean strength to get through the last day and a half since we touched.
His teeth are hard against my lips. His hands wind around my wrists. His hips roll into mine.
And I melt into the kiss. I melt into the bed. Into the moment where I’m trapped under him. I’m arching my hips, frantically seeking friction, seeking heat. With each dizzying kiss, I grow hotter, needier.
His hands grip tighter as his kisses turn more passionate. I drown in them willingly as his mouth explores mine, and my body begs for him.
Getting closer to him is a terrible risk. Touching like this is a bad idea. It will only cause problems during the movie shoot. Yet this insistent ache thrumming in my bones has grabbed hold of all my senses. It’s owning my body and my voice.
When he breaks the kiss and catches his breath, I say the only words I can manage. “I want you. Please.”
His eyes squeeze shut. His jaw clenches. He’s still for a few dangerously long seconds, like this is the tipping point. But when he opens those deep, dark eyes, he’s clearly lost too—to this feeling.
“I can’t stop thinking about you.” He lets go of one of my wrists and grabs my chin, making sure I’m looking at him. As if I could look away. “I can’t stop wanting you. Tell me you feel the same.”
It’s a demand, but it’s more like a desperate plea. “Same,” I say, reaching for him with my body.
He lets go of my other wrist, moves like a cheetah off me, and yanks the covers off too. Then he climbs back over me, our hips flush. This time I wrap my arms around his neck, tugging him close.
He finds the pulse at the base of my throat and kisses me there. I arch, moaning as wicked sensations radiate through me from my core all the way to my toes.
His mouth skims over my neck, then he moves down my chest, kissing me here, there, everywhere—my shoulders, the tops of my breasts, my arms.
He tugs at my cami. “Need this off.”
In a flash it’s gone, and his mouth comes down on my right breast, his teeth grazing my nipple.
“God,” I gasp, my fingers lacing through his thick, messy hair. I want to hold on to this hair. Grab it hard as he goes down on me. I want to rake my fingers through it as he fucks me. But I want something else first.
As the idea takes shape in my head, Banks travels down my body till his mouth is on my stomach and he’s lighting me up with hungry, needy kisses. “Need to taste you before I fuck you.”
That sounds amazing. Truly, it does. But first, I push up to my elbows, breathing hard, frantically. “There’s something I want.”
He stops, his eyes blazing with heat. “What is it, Ripley?”
My gaze strays to his hands. “You’re good with your hands,” I begin, then swallow, my desire spreading like liquid inside me.
A vein pulses in his neck. “I am.”
I picture yesterday in the front seat of the truck.
How he held me. “Do you want me to…” This shouldn’t be hard to say, and truly, it’s not.
But I’m taking my time since I’m loving his reaction.
The anticipation in his irises. The quiet gust of his breath.
The rise and fall of his chest. My gaze drifts up toward the slats of the headboard. “…Hold on to the headboard?”
His eyes darken and he licks his lips. But he’s quiet for a beat, like the thought is almost too much to bear. Like he needs time to process. Or maybe not too much time, since a second later, one word flies out of his mouth. “Yes.”
“Great. That’s great. Really. Because yesterday in the car…when you held my wrists…that was good. Really good. I liked it.” I’m talking too much. Too fast. Too pointlessly. But I can’t stop. “It seemed like you did too.”
I’m babbling. Holy fuck. I’m definitely babbling. But I want this so much, even though he’s already said yes.
“Fucking loved it.” Banks’s smile is filthy as he grabs the waistband of my panties, then tugs them off. “But first, I really need to taste you.”
He spreads my legs and buries his face between my thighs. He eats me like I’m the meal he desperately needs at the end of the day. There’s no hesitation, no teasing, just a hungry man craving sustenance. In no time, I’m grabbing his hair and jerking him close. Panting and gasping.
Lifting my hips.
Pleading.
Wanting.
But when my breath comes faster, he stops, denying me. Then rises. Wipes a hand across his mouth. “Patience,” he says, smooth and controlling. Patience, like he said to me the first night.
“Goddamn you,” I mutter as he moves to the edge of the bed.
“That’s right. Curse me, sweetheart. You know I like it.”
“You’re really going to make me wait?”
“Yes, I’m going to make you wait. And beg. And call my name.”
I grab a pillow and throw it at him as he walks to the table. “You jackass, Banks.”
He tosses me a smug smile. “I was right. You called my name.”
“You’re the worst,” I mutter, feeling a little silly since I’m naked in bed, and wet and horny.
And yet I’m totally intrigued as he pops out of bed. He’s still dressed in a gray T-shirt and shorts. They’re tented beyond my wildest dreams. The compass of his erection is bigger than it was this morning, I swear.
He strides across the room to the vase and snags a sprig of Provence lavender. When he returns to me, he runs a big hand down my hair, a tender, caring gesture. “I promise I’ll give you everything you asked for.”
Heat sparks in me from the promise. He drops his mouth to my ear, tugs on the lobe with his teeth. “But let me try something first.”
Anticipation rushes through as I nod against him. “Anything.”
He rises up, holding the lavender, then lowering the flower end to my neck. He coasts the tiny blooms down the side of my throat. I gasp. He sweeps it along my collarbone. I moan. Then he slowly, deliciously, dusts it down my chest, between my breasts, and along my belly.
I shudder as wild sensations whip through me. This man is touching me in brand-new ways. In ways I never dreamed of. He’s turning me on with my own flowers, and as he travels down my legs, tracing my thighs, my calves, my ankles with the lavender buds, I grow hotter, needier, and more aroused.
“Banks, please,” I gasp as he brushes the flowers back up me, then over my belly button.
“Please what?” he asks, innocently.
I can’t even taunt him, I’m so needy right now. So achy. “Now. I want you now.”
With a wicked smile, he tosses the lavender onto the nightstand. “I thought you’d never ask.”
I roll my eyes. “Yes, I’ve been the one holding out.”
He runs the back of his knuckles against my cheek. “You’re even sexier like this. When you want it more. When you’re hungrier for my cock every single second.”
My breath comes in a rush. “Then, stop taking so long.”
But he doesn’t match my tease. His expression is serious. Seconds later, my arms are above my head, and my hands are gripping the slats. “Don’t let go,” he says, a warning.
“I won’t.”
He runs his palms down my body. I’m spread out before him.
Correction: he’s spreading me out.
He’s kneeling between my legs, adjusting my hips, then he slides down between my thighs, pressing them open.
An appreciative rumble falls from his lips.
I smile in heady anticipation, waiting for his next move.
And he makes it as he reaches a hand to the back of his shirt, then tugs it off. “Now, where were we?”
I roll my eyes. “Gee, I wonder.”
“If memory serves,” he says, and right when I think he’s going to slide between my thighs again, he straddles me instead. He pushes down his shorts halfway, runs his palm over his hard cock, then shoves his shorts down, his dick springing free.
It’s hard, thick, and hungry for me, with a drop of liquid beading at the tip.
My mouth waters. “Please,” I breathe out hard, staring at his cock, then his hungry eyes.
“Love the way you beg for it,” he says, then climbs off me, sheds his shorts, and grabs a condom from the nightstand.
“Did you just have those handy?”
“Bought them today,” he says.
“So you knew?” I ask as he moves over me again.
“That I couldn’t resist you?”
“Yes.”
He sets a hand on my chest, then coasts it down my body. “Sweetheart, I’ve never been able to resist you.”
“Same,” I say with a shudder.
After he rolls on the protection, he kneels between my thighs and pushes up my legs so my knees are at my chest. I’m not trapped now.
I’m not bound. But the vulnerability of this position is all new to me.
And it’s strangely freeing. From my mind, from my to-do-list, from my constant need to take care of everything.
I can’t take care of anything right now.
When he nudges the head of his thick cock against my wetness, a breath shudders through my whole body. All my instincts tell me to move, to wrap my arms around him, to thread my hands in his hair.
But I don’t let go.
I don’t want to do a thing but take him. He grips my hips and pushes in. His eyes are blazing with desire, and they stay locked on my face as he sinks into me more, inch by tantalizing inch.
Till I’m so full I feel stretched.
“Beautiful,” he murmurs, inhaling a big breath that seems to spread across his chest as he gazes at me with lust and reverence.
I tremble, then ask, “Because my hands are above my head?”
He shakes his head. “No. You. Just you. Like this. With me.”
On his knees, he tugs my hips tighter against him and fucks me. He’s not gentle. He’s not tender. He fucks me like a man who craves control. Driving into me. Reaching the depths of me.
Pleasure rockets through me as I sink into the sensations. But I’m dying to touch him too. Only, I’m not letting go yet. I like this too much. Banks’s hungry gaze snaps to my hands gripping the headboard, then to my face. He growls, then looks back at me with even more heat in his eyes.
“Want more, sweetheart?”
“Yes. All of you.” It’s a desperate demand.
He eases out, almost all the way. His lips curve up. “You sure?”
“Fuck me,” I demand.
His dark eyes drift to my hands. “Beg for it.” It’s said offhand, almost casual. Like he knows I will.
“You cocky ass,” I mutter.
A wicked smile. A slide of his hands up my belly. A squeeze of my nipple. “C’mon. You can do it, Ripley.”
I seethe. “Fuck me,” I murmur.
He lifts his chin, almost in idle curiosity. “How? How do you want me to fuck you?” His hands cup my breasts as he stays like that, barely inside me.
Making me ache for him.
And I do ache.
Desperately.
“Hard. Fuck me hard. Please. Do it now,” I say, and I’m begging, but I’m still me, so I add, “you ass.”
With a glint in his eyes, he says, “Since you begged so nicely, sweetheart. But…”
“But what?” I ask, desperate.
His gaze turns needy, as he says, “Let go. Put your hands around my neck, sweetheart. I want to feel you closer.”
A blast of pleasure surges through me. Hot, electric, wild. But emotional, too, in its own way. Turns out I want to touch him as much as he wants me to. I let go and loop my arms around him, my fingers twisting into his hair instantly.
He groans. Shudders.
I smile, savoring this discovery. Banks loves when I play with his hair. I twine my fingers in those thick strands, running them through his hair as he thrusts deep into me, filling me till there’s no room left, then pulling back so the head of his cock teases me.
But I’m racing faster to the edge as he takes me apart, until I’m panting, writhing, then well and truly begging.
His control seems to fray as he drives into me, one hand on my hip, the other sliding between my legs. His thumb teases my clit, and I’m nothing but raw nerves and dirty desires as my bodyguard takes me to the edge of pleasure.
My legs shake. My body tightens. With one powerful thrust, he sends me over.
I’m spinning into bliss, my thoughts breaking apart, my world turning beautifully black as I cry out. He covers me as he drives into me, like he’s making sure I feel all of him as I fall apart.
With a deep grunt, he tenses, then groans, coming too, helpless to the pleasure, helpless to me, when he murmurs, “Yes, fuck yes.”
A few seconds later, he’s saying my name, faint but full of need. “Ripley.”
For a minute or ten, who even knows, we gasp and pant together—his body on mine, me under him, my legs wrapped around his waist, my arms wrapped loosely around his neck.
At last, he pushes up on his palms and looks down at me with passion in his eyes. “Thank you.”
He eases out, ties off the condom, then pads to the bathroom. He’s back seconds later, lying next to me. He takes my palm and kisses my wrist. “You’re good with your hands too.”
I laugh.
He meets my gaze, shooting me a deadpan look. “Laugh at me when I’m being sweet. Thanks, Ripley.”
“Like you’d expect anything less,” I tease.
“Yup. That’s how I know you’re not an imposter. But also for that, I think you need this…”
He brings my wrist to his mouth, giving me the swooniest wrist kiss in the world.
It’s so tender, it makes me gasp softly.
That seems to spur him on since he travels up my arm, across my birds, to my neck.
I’m murmuring the whole time. Until the fucker chases kisses with a loud, boisterous suck on my neck.
“What the…?”
He pulls back, grinning slyly. “You deserve a hickey.”
I swat his chest. “That’s so high school.”
He narrows his eyes. “Did I fuck you like we’re in high school?”
I huff, then grumble, “No.” I’m not really mad at him though. Because, once I grab my phone to inspect the mark on my neck using the selfie mode of the camera, I find I like it. I sigh, then say, “Fine. I like the love bite.”
He presses a soft kiss to my forehead. “Thought you might.”
We’re quiet for a few moments, the levity fading, till we’re left with reality. The two of us working together. “We were just getting that out of our systems, right?”
“Of course.”
“Tomorrow, we go back to…?”
“Yes. We do.”
But tonight, he curls around me in bed after he kisses my wrist one more time.