Chapter 22
Riley
“And all I really wanted was to make sure you were not just fucking with me, but I didn’t mean it in an insensitive way, I promise.
I wish I spoke more than one language. Hell, I wish I spoke better English with some of the words you use all the time—” I continue my forever run on sentence as Dom stands there, surely wondering what penance he’s paying with me as his neighbor.
“Please just go home and let me die of embarrassment alone.”
“Riley!” he shouts.
“What?”
“I’ve been calling your name, but you won’t stop spiraling.”
Is he smiling? Why is he smiling? Dom doesn’t smile, so what? This little spiral is making him happy.
Why Earth? Why is this the path you put me on?
“Stop,” he whispers, snapping me from my spiral again, this one internal, but he can see it too. He’s learned to read me so well in this short amount of time, and it truly isn’t fair. He’s sort of perfect.
The only thing keeping him from being utter perfection is wanting me. I’m destined to go through life wanting things I don’t have and people who don’t want me back.
What a conundrum.
“Breathe for me and get out of your head,” he adds, and I do just that, taking a deep breath in and searching his dark pools to help me ground myself in the right here and now.
He grabs my face in his large, rough hands, bringing his thumb to my bottom lip. “I’m going to be honest for a minute, and it won’t be fair, but at least it’ll be the truth.”
“What?”
“I want to dismantle some of the lies you’ve spun in your head, but I need you to know I’m about to be very selfish, so I do apologize in advance.”
“Okay?” Selfish? He’s the most selfless man I’ve ever met. I don’t think he knows the definition of selfish, so this should be interesting.
“No, I’m not okay. I’m far from okay.” His eyes bounce between mine, and I can see only honesty. And want. A desperate want.
“What do you mean?”
He shakes his head, fighting an internal battle with himself. “It’s not one-sided.”
“What?” I ask again. He’s making zero sense.
“You said it was humiliating because it was one-sided and you misread it, but you didn’t. It’s not. I just can’t give you what you need right now.”
“And what is that?” My voice trembles as the question leaves my lips.
“I can’t give you a relationship. I can’t give you a whirlwind romance. Shit, I shouldn’t even be here right now.”
“Then why are you?”
“Because a moth is attracted to the flame even if it will burn it, Firefly, and I can’t seem to stay away from you.” His hand has not moved from my face, making me thankful for the tether it’s providing when I feel like I should be floating away instead.
I don’t know where I’m getting the strength to say, “Let me be the judge of what I need right now,” but I do, holding his gaze so he knows I mean it. I’m lost in his onyx eyes, the smell of the rain awakening every sense.
Come on, Riley, boss babe. You’ve got this. “Ask me,” I mutter.
He looks at me in confusion. “Ask you what?”
“What I need. You’re a fixer, right? Isn’t that what fixers do?” My years of binge-watching Scandal come into play with that one.
“What do you need, Riley?”
“One night. To get it out of our systems. One night when we don’t think about the consequences or the complications. Just one night.”
His gaze softens. Oh no, no, no. No pitying me. “Riles.”
Fuck, the way he whispers my name will do me in every time.
“Stop looking at me like a wounded animal. Give me what I want or go home.”
“I can’t give you more than one night,” he says.
“I know.” I trace my fingers through his thick, charcoal and iron beard, wanting it everywhere, just like in my dreams.
“Nobody can know,” he whispers, leaning into my hand, closing his pretty eyes, his lashes brushing his cheeks.
“I know.”
And with the rain falling harder, a deluge opening in the sky, Dom steps inside, walking me in until my back is against the wall. He slams the door shut with the back of his foot and stares directly into my soul. “Just once.”
I nod. “Just once,” I echo, and just like that, his mouth is on mine in a searing kiss.
Holy shit. Dominic Diaz, my grumpy, sexy as sin neighbor, is kissing me.
If I stop spiraling over the fact that he’s kissing me and actually pay attention to what’s happening, I would feel the way his full lips are on mine as his mustache tickles the bridge of my nose.
I would take notice of his hand tugging gently at my wet hair at the nape of my neck.
I would notice his thick leg pressed against my sex and the way he’s pulling moan after moan from me as if it were his mission.
He bites my lower lip, sending me into a different kind of spiral, snapping me from my thoughts and tethering me to this moment, as a kiss should.
I let myself believe this is actually happening and drag my hands through his thick hair.
His mouth roams from my lips to my ear, leaving searing hot spots as he drags his tongue through.
“I’ve been dreaming about this exact moment,” he whispers, dragging his hand from my neck to my wet hair. “Touching you, kissing you like this.”
“Then why didn’t you?” I practically moan, rolling my hips against his thick thigh.
There’s too much fabric between us. I barely had time to pull a pair of panties on before he got here, and he’s just wearing briefs. It’s still too much. I want more.
“Because we shouldn’t.”
I link my fingers behind his neck, pulling myself higher to reach his ear, and bite his earlobe. He groans, answering all the unspoken questions I have. He does want this.
Me.
He wants me.
“How is it that we shouldn’t when just a kiss feels like this, huh?”
He slams his hand against the wall, ever so close to my face, bringing his other hand to my neck, grabbing it wholly in his calloused hand, keeping my head against the wall.
Four fingers rest against my neck, surely feeling my pulse beating faster with every second that passes.
His entire body is against me, and with his thumb, he tilts my head back, peering down at me with pure smoke and lust behind his eyes.
All I want to do is get lost in them as he fucks me into oblivion.
His hand doesn’t move. He’s fighting it. I can sense it, feel it, see it. “This—” He takes a second, clearing his throat and regaining the control I don’t want him to get back. I want him unhinged. “This was not just a kiss.”
“No?” I question, not knowing what he means but wanting nothing more than to find out.
“No, Riley, it wasn’t.” He drops his mouth back to mine, slow this time, like he’s choosing it instead of losing it with me. His lips press firmly against mine, deliberate strokes, one after the other, his tongue asking for permission. I allow him entrance.
My pulse races harder as I grind my pussy against his thigh, searching for friction, but it’s not enough. Nothing is enough. I want him buried deep within me.
He pulls back; it’s only by an inch, his breath still tangled with mine.
“You feel that?” he murmurs, voice rough but steady now. “That’s why it wasn’t just a kiss.”
I swallow, trying to steady myself, but my voice gives me away. “Then what is it?”
His thumb brushes lightly along my cheek, eyes locked on mine—no hesitation this time.
“Something I’m not going to pretend I don’t want anymore.”
His hands move, sliding down my back until he reaches my ass, and, in one second, I’m up, legs wrapped around him, back against the wall. “Yes,” I whisper, letting go of his full lips and tilting my head back, allowing him space to explore.
He does. He kisses, licks, bites, and sucks on my neck, on my collarbone, but my shirt is in the way, and I want to feel his hard chest against my flesh.
“Too many clothes,” I whisper as he starts pulling the shirt over my head.
The minute it is off and on the floor, he groans, his eyes trained on my breasts.
“Fuck,” he groans.
“Touch,” I mutter. “Please.”
He doesn’t waste any time, as if he realizes how much time we’ve spent wanting each other instead of doing something about it. If one night is all we have, then to hell with it, because I want it all.
His fingers trace from my neck to my chest, between my breasts, and then under it, but not where I want it. He’s taking his time, so painfully slow, as if holding me up bears no weight.
“Are you going to make me describe how I want to be touched, Dom?”
He chuckles. “If all we get is tonight, I want to take my time committing you to memory.”
Well, fuck.
“Room?” he asks, and I nod, pointing to the back where my bedroom is.
He walks us there, kissing every inch of my neck and my cheek, pulling my earlobe between his teeth, not taking his hands from my back.
I want to kiss him again. I want to hear his moans.
I want to see him as unraveled as I am for him, and I want him now.
He flips the switch, turning the lights on. “I want to see it all too,” he whispers, anticipating my question. He tosses me to the bed, standing in front of me in all his cowboy body glory.
Dom is more than chiseled lines and hard edges. The breadth of his shoulders seems to have been made to carry me. A body built to work hard, with the most perfect tan I never get to ogle openly as I’m doing just now.
I’m so exposed in front of him, breasts out, thin underwear covering the one place I want him to touch most right now, but with Dom standing in front of me, eyes filled with want, with need, I’ve never felt more comfortable in my life.
“There’s way too much space between us,” I say, my chest heaving.
He climbs on top of me, dropping a soft kiss to my lips before continuing down my body.
Where he traced before, he now kisses, stopping right at the edge of my nipple.
I arch my back, trying to get him to drop his lips over it, but he just chuckles.
He does the same with the other breast. I’m so turned on, if he doesn’t do something about it, I will.
But he does. Finally.
He drops his mouth over my nipple, teasing with his tongue, swirling around it and sucking on it, hard.
“Yes.”
His hand roams my body, lowering my underwear as I kick it off with my foot. He kisses down my belly, over my belly button, and continues until he’s right over my pussy. He takes a leg, spreading me open, placing it on his shoulder as he drops to his knees at the edge of the bed.
“We can just fuck. You don’t have to go down on me.”
“Oh, you think that’s what I’m doing?” he asks.
“Oh?”
“I’m not going down on you, Firefly. I’m about to eat this pussy. Make sure you get that right.”
A gasp escapes me—his mouth is on me, and suddenly, there’s no gravity, because I’m floating.
I’m not inexperienced. I love sex and the pleasure that comes with it. But dating has not been a priority while I was living the college experience. A lot of experimenting and trying things? Sure, but nothing serious, which meant very little pussy eating from one night stands.
But Dom is not only doing this for me. He’s doing it for him.
“Fuck,” I groan, arching and lifting my ass so my pussy is closer to him. He’s not licking or kissing—he’s devouring. Dom’s teeth graze my clit, and I jolt on the bed, hands in his hair, struggling to catch my breath.
Damn it, he’s good at this. He pushes a finger in to work in tandem with his tongue, and I’m a writhing mess.
His beard tickles and rubs against my ass, and damn it if that doesn’t feel good too.
“I… Oh my… Fuck. That’s…” I can’t even form a sentence, but there’s no need, because as the expert he is, he knows what I want without me even asking.
More.
He adds a second finger, pumping in and out as his teeth bite my clit, and that does it. That’s it.
I explode.
“Dom!” I shout, but he’s relentlessly drawing out every drop of my pleasure.
“I’ve dreamed about you whispering my name. Didn’t know you shouting it was going to be even better.”
My legs shake as he drops them, and I sit up, ready to pull him towards me.
I kiss him, tasting my arousal and the beer from earlier on his tongue. I pull his briefs down, finding a toned ass, just like I knew I would. “I love your ass.”
He chuckles against my lips. “That’s new.”
I squeeze his glutes for good measure. “That’s a shame, because it’s perfect.”
He smiles, shaking his head and dipping low to kiss me again.