Chapter 26
Sophie
I’d lost track of the times that Pace had scooped me up and carried me. If being carried around came with his job, I wouldn’t complain. I loved the feeling of safety he provided me. Somehow, he was up and carrying me, despite us having been disheveled and on the low couch.
“Such big muscles you have,” I said as I held on tight. He grinned down at me with a wiggle of his eyebrows.
“The better to carry you,” he said.
In his bedroom, he set me on the floor. His room smelled airy and clean, like a window had been opened.
I took a quick glance around, registering a similar blankness as the other rooms. But my focus was on the large bed in the center, big and soft and waiting for us to teach each other on.
His confession had touched me deeply. It was the first time he had shared a private detail about himself with me, and I wanted to show him how much it meant to me.
“We should get out of these dirty clothes,” he said.
I looked down to where my breasts were already on display, the underwire of my bra digging in as the cups were pushed down.
Pace was equally a mess; his cock was still very much hard, where it jutted out of his sweatpants, his T-shirt defiled.
It’d been a beautiful sight watching the ropes of cum shoot up between us.
It made me feel powerful to have him lose control so quickly.
I tugged my bra off and slipped out of my pants. “Seems only fair I go first since I’ve seen you naked already.”
“I was wearing a privacy sock,” he said, smiling.
He looked gorgeous. Watching him come had made me feel more feminine and powerful than I thought I could.
Part of me had worried that wanting to make a man come would make me less of a modern woman somehow.
As if my desperation to see his pleasure would somehow put mine second.
But I didn’t feel second. Not only had I come first, but bringing him apart had made me feel more in my power.
It didn’t hurt that Pace currently looked at my naked body with that intense, dark gaze.
“I didn’t know they could stay that hard when they just uh, finished,” I said, biting my lip and gesturing to him.
“It’s you. We’ve been wanting this for a very long time.
” My heart beat harder, desperate to know just how long.
But I was distracted as he drew a hand up to his head and pushed back the damp hair.
His muscles flexed with the action. My eyes fought to find the best place to look, but every inch of him was incredible.
“But maybe, don’t expect this every time. ”
Every time?
I bit my tongue to keep from asking. How many more times was he planning?
He pulled his gray sweatpants down and stepped out of them. He lifted his shirt and tugged it over his head, tossing the clothes into a hamper.
There he was. My beautiful, sensitive, thoughtful man, in all his glory.
I had seen much of him many times, but this time it felt different. In this safe space, it was just us and our intimacy, and for the first time, his nudity felt like vulnerability, not a superficial armor.
I swallowed down the sudden emotion that gripped me.
When he stepped forward and slowly brought me into his arms, I felt base with desire and completely raw. We were a man and a woman, naked and embracing, hot skin against hot skin. Soft against hard. Sweet and tender. Raw and ragged. No masks, no clothes, just us.
I loved the way my hard nipples rubbed against his chest, and the heavy, hot length of him against my lower belly.
His hands moved into my hair, threading in sensitive strands and gently tipping my head back.
He kissed me until I was weak, knees trembling.
I held him to me. I held myself up by him.
We were connected in a way I didn’t think possible.
He tilted my head back to lavish my neck and shoulders with kisses. He played with my breasts again. He moved behind me, lifted the hair off my neck to run his mouth against the shoulders that had so long carried all the weight of my anxiety. Now I was light as air and yet heavy with desire again.
I arched back against him, my nipples jutting out on full display, making me feel more like a goddess as his hand moved across my stomach, crept lower, slowly so I had time to stop him if I wanted.
“Is this okay?” he asked.
“Yes,” I whispered.
I reached for him, held his head, and he peppered little kisses at my hairline, neck, and earlobe, gentle reminders of his adoring tenderness.
His hand lowered to tease me again. Just the tip of one finger at first, then the next, slowly inserting it, taking his time to swirl the liquid heat, to feel me grabbing back for him.
He moved them deeper, our bodies finding a rhythm again, obscenely wet sounding in the quiet room as his fingers pumped in and out of me.
So vulgar. So dirty. I was growing wetter by the second.
“Pace,” I gasped.
But he was miles away with his focus, his hard body tense as a bow as he brought pleasure to me. “Can I make you come like this?”
“I don’t know if I can when standing. I’ll be too worried about falling,” I admitted.
“I can carry you,” he said, like he’d done before, and it was like I had manifested this exact moment. “But actually. I have an idea of what I want to do first.”
Again, I was repositioned without any effort on my end. Before I knew it, I was sprawled back on the bed with him on top of me. His length hard on my hip.
I was ready to feel him inside me. I clenched around air, desperate to be filled, but he wasn’t there for long.
He began to kiss down my waist. Actually, that wasn’t enough of a description for what he was doing.
He was making out with my body. His tongue teased and tasted, and at first, I felt like I was a sweet treat he was testing.
But as he moved, I grew more tense, not relaxed. Lower, he gently kissed the bones of my hips, my pelvis muscles tightening, a growing sense of worry. He moaned in pure pleasure when the tip of his tongue pressed hard against me.
“Mmm.” He licked again.
By this point, I was so stiff, he must have sensed my mood shift, because he paused to balance on his elbows and check on me. It was the picture of delicious sin to have him look up at me, lips wet from lavishing tongue kisses and cheeks red with exertion.
“Are you okay? Is this okay?” he asked and dipped to nuzzle my core briefly, like a puppy pushing a toy with its nose.
He’d been so honest with his lack of experience.
I could be too. “I don’t know if I-I like that.
I know a lot of women do, but in the past, I’ve found it too overstimulating and also maybe a little unpleasant.
” I sat up on my elbows, seeing my breasts flatten and fall to the side.
I wasn’t feeling like the sexy goddess anymore.
I was starting to feel like my old, broken self.
How had I become once again shackled to my mind?
I had hoped that when we started going, with him, I would be cured.
This felt like a step back.
I went on before he could talk. “I don’t know if it’s my concern for your comfort or my own self-consciousness, but I’m not sure I can come that way. And the longer and harder you work at it, the more I’m likely to overthink it.”
“We will only do it if you want to. I just got carried away exploring you.” He kissed my hip, and I felt a zing of something. Maybe just the relief of sharing the truth was what I needed.
“And you won’t get frustrated if I can’t, uh, finish?” I asked.
He chuckled, huffing warm air over the core of me. “Nothing about this is going to frustrate me. I just love the way you taste.”
I swallowed. “Really? Like really, really?”
“I really, really do.” His eyes darkened and held mine as he took a long, luxurious lick of the center of me.
I shuddered with genuine pleasure. “Come. Don’t come.
An incredible, gorgeous woman wants me to take the time to explore her body to help her learn what she likes. This is a dream come true.”
“You really like it?” I worried that my need for reassurance was annoying.
“I’m salivating. I cannot wait. I have actually been dreaming about it. I woke up the other morning hard as a fucking rock, rutting the mattress like some teenager because I was half asleep, thinking about this exact situation.”
“Really?” My heart began to pump with arousal again instead of trepidation.
“Yeah. I hope that’s not weird.” His brow furrowed.
“No.” I relaxed back onto the bed and sighed. Imagining Pace thinking about me and touching himself was really doing things for me. “I think it’s hot.”
“I think you’re hot.” I felt his smile against my hip.
“Okay. I want you to try it,” I said, my heart racing from the vulnerability.
“I will do this for a minute for my own selfish reasons, but if you don’t like it, or it gets to be too much, we can move on, okay? Just promise you’ll tell me. Not like with the hot water at the nail salon,” he said, squeezing my butt with his hand until I looked at him and confirmed.
I groaned in embarrassment and said, “Okay.”
Without the pressure of needing to have an orgasm or acting like I had to perform pleasure in some way, I let myself focus on Pace’s exploratory touches.
It wasn’t anything like the last time a guy tried this.
He’d been all teeth and rough movements.
Pace really seemed to be enjoying himself down there based on his soft moans of pleasure, his rippling back muscles, biceps that flexed with exertion, and the random exclamations of joy.
And once again, that simple fact, that I turned him on, really did something for me. Basic. What could I say.
There was no pressure to do anything but let him have the time of his life down there.
“Whoa,” I said, back arching off the bed. “Uh, whatever that was . . . ohh.”