18. August
18
AUGUST
There was something different about the way he kissed me this time. The way his grip tightened, as if every restraint holding him back and keeping him civilized had been removed at my demand, and I was about to get what I asked for, whether I liked it or not.
I loved it. I was almost desperate for it.
Almost?
It was his fault for keeping me on edge. All that foreplay and dirty talk. The things he’d done with his fingers and promised to do with his tongue, always denying me the ability to touch him in return.
Was I complaining about having an orgasm-granting neighbor who asked for nothing but my pleasure, who also did chores for me, like some magically handy sex genie?
Yes, because he was turning me into an insecure addict.
Why did he keep pulling back? What was he waiting for?
I’d already begged often enough that I’d almost gotten over the embarrassment. And it wasn’t that he didn’t want me. I’d felt his erection every time he got close to me. I’d seen the need in his eyes. But he’d still managed to stop himself every single time.
Wade Hudson was a big old cock tease, but now it looked like he might be done teasing and was finally going to let me have it.
Hallelujah.
His mouth was still devouring mine when he manhandled me up to a sitting position, guided my arms up and sent my favorite sleep shirt sailing onto the floor. Then he broke the kiss, rolled me onto my back and stripped my boxers down my legs, tossing those over his shoulder to join my shirt.
Without a word of warning, he reached behind him to switch on the bedside lamp, and suddenly I was completely naked in front of him.
I didn’t even have time to get self-conscious before Wade growled at the sight of me.
I knew he’d be a beast in bed.
“There you are.” His honeyed drawl heated my skin as he nibbled and licked his way down my throat. “I’ve been dreaming about having you bare and spread out like my own personal banquet for a while now.”
He studied me from eyes to thighs, his gaze lingering on my breasts. “Reality is better.”
The way he looked at me, and possibly the last lingering traces of tequila in my system, had me believing him. All my usual worries about sagging and stretch marks disappeared in a puff of steam under his fiery approval. He liked what he was seeing. He wanted more.
So did I.
“Your turn,” I managed, tugging on his jeans with trembling fingers. He rolled gracefully off the bed and shucked them and his underwear off with an ease I could only envy, his attention riveted to the space between my thighs.
“Spread your legs for me. ”
I was too distracted by the sight in front of me to do anything but obey.
Wade had a man’s body. Chest hair I couldn’t wait to get my hands on again. A stomach that wasn’t a six-pack created by protein powders and a trainer at the gym, but a solid slab of muscle I was desperate to feel against me.
When I got to his cock, a legit feminine quiver rippled through my body. It was more than a little intimidating. Maybe I needed to think twice about letting that jutting redwood invade my personal space. What if we didn’t fit?
“We’ll fit, August.”
“I know,” I lied, breathlessly pretending I didn’t just say all that out loud. Again. “I was building up your confidence.”
It didn’t need building up, I thought a little hysterically. His confidence was impressive and thick and aiming in my direction like a pornographic heat-seeking missile.
His lips curved and he bent to rifle through his jeans while I lifted my head to keep that sex spear in view. If he was going to ruin my vagina for all other men, I needed to remember every detail. “What are you doing?”
“Condom.” He dropped several on the bed beside me before slowly stalking to the end of the mattress, gripping my calves and dragging me closer. “We’ll need more later.”
I was glad he’d thought about it. I was still taking pills, but it had been so long it hadn’t even crossed my mind to stock up on any—“ Wade !”
My legs were over his shoulders and his face was between my thighs before I’d realized what he was planning.
“What are you doing?” I moaned, my neck arching on the bed as his tongue started doing things I didn’t know were possible for that appendage.
Talk about a secret superpower. I was willing to bet his tongue could tie all the cherry stems at the bar into pretty little bows with ease. Holy bananas. My plans for tonight had revolved around exploring his body and making him beg for a change. I wasn’t expecting this at all.
Honesty pool confessional time: I’d never been a fan of this particular act. I hadn’t added a scene like this into my book because, in my experience, oral was routinely transactional, often performative, and always made me too self-conscious to enjoy it. It was rarely offered, so I never felt like I could refuse it, but I was never able to relax and enjoy it either. I’m ashamed to say I’d usually faked my excitement, thinking it was the least I could do if my partner was going to the trouble of acting like he enjoyed something that wasn’t about his climax.
I wasn’t faking anything this time, and Wade Hudson was not acting. I didn’t even have to see him to know it. I could feel it in the hungry seeking of his mouth and the convulsive squeezing of his fingers on my hips, hear it in his deep panting breaths and growls of approval. He was practically shaking with an excitement that sent mine spiraling.
You’ve been with the wrong men all your life.
That was more glaringly apparent by the second, because if I’d thought Wade’s hands were talented, they had nothing on his mouth and tongue. I tried to pay attention to every stroke, swirl, flutter and thrust, but all I could do was feel and react, clutching at the quilt and making noises I would have been mildly mortified by if he weren’t so thrilled by them. He worked harder with every guttural grunt and banshee wail that escaped my throat, making my body buck and writhe on the bed while my mind struggled to retain a single thread of control. I was already too close to coming and I still hadn’t gotten my hands on him.
“Wade,” I finally managed to whimper. “You promised.”
He lifted his mouth, lips shining and eyes bright with hunger. “We’re not leaving this bed until I come inside you, August. That doesn’t mean I can’t make you come as many times as I want to before then.”
“There you go being perfect again,” I mumbled under my breath as he went back to work.
He didn’t apologize or stop what he was doing. Instead, he got more creative, adding a finger while moaning against my clit, making it vibrate to the key of holy shit this orgasm might actually kill me.
What a way to go.
I was shouting incoherently, my back bending hard enough to crack, my hands tearing at his thick hair because that was the only part of him I could reach. But he refused to be rushed, his tongue and finger so deep I could feel my muscles clenching painfully around them as I came.
And came.
And came some more.
“Fuck,” he groaned, sliding his wet lips over my thighs, his fingers still pumping through my spasms. “Fuck, August, that’s beautiful. Take what you need, baby. I’m drowning in your taste, but I want more. I could do this all night.”
“No, you can’t,” I panted, regaining consciousness enough to tug on his hair and thump his back with my heel for emphasis. “Up. Now.”
“Is it your turn to play boss now?”
If I could have formed a complete sentence, I’d have tossed out a suitably sultry comeback. Right now, however, I needed him on me. Needed him to hold me down on the bed so I didn’t shatter and float away.
His lips followed a damp, sensual trail from the curve of my stomach to my ribs as he slowly complied. When the firm weight of his chest against my breasts finally anchored me, I exhaled in relief and opened my eyes.
“Hey you. ”
“Hey back.”
His smile was genuine but unnaturally tight, his cheeks flushed dark with arousal.
I might have been floating in a satisfied haze, but I knew that he was trying to reel himself in again. Giving me time to recover. Holding back in case I’d changed my mind now that he’d given me my daily O.
Screw that.
“Wade?”
“Yes, August?”
“That was amazing.”
“Yeah, it was.” He licked his lips, as if tasting the memory. “I knew you’d?—”
“I’m ready for you to fuck me now.”
My words ricocheted around the room like a bolt of erotic lightning, and after a moment of stunned surprise, his expression transformed, making him look dangerous. “You sure about that, Gus? I was planning to give you a few more orgasms before we got there. You didn’t think we could fit a minute ago.”
“I’m absolutely sure about what I want at this moment. The question is, are you ?” I was aiming for an expression that said Confident Woman Throwing Down the Sexual Gauntlet, but I wasn’t sure any of my muscles were under my control at the moment. Even the ones in my face.
Cute , he mouthed silently before kissing me again. I tasted myself on his lips, and a fresh stirring of desire shot through me when he rose up enough for his hard shaft to brush against my thigh.
That. I wanted that.
I ran my hands over his strong back, loving the way it flexed to my touch, and then I heard a wrapper tear. Condom. This was really happening. Finally.
“I wanted to make this last,” he said raggedly. “I need hours between those thighs, longer on your breasts, but I don’t think I can wait anymore.”
“They’ll be hanging around later,” I promised impatiently. “Sex now.”
“I was never going to be able to resist you, was I?”
If I were thinking straight, I might have reminded him that he’d done a great job of resisting me for most of our adult lives, but all of my energy and attention focused on the body he was positioning above me instead.
The head of his erection rubbed against my swollen, sensitive sex. Prodding gently, like a battering ram politely knocking at my front door.
“You’re so wet, August. Look at me.”
I blinked up into the handsome face I knew better than my own. My first crush. My fictional hero. The one I never thought I’d be with in real life.
His expression was raw and honest, his need laid bare—along with something vulnerable I thought I recognized but wasn’t ready to name.
We groaned together with his first tentative thrust. My toes curled and I tried to breathe through it, but the fit was so snug and he was everywhere. I could feel him everywhere …and it ached a little more than I’d expected.
He started to pull back and I slapped my hands down on the curve of his ass, fingernails digging in to keep him right where he was until I could get my sex legs under me. “Wait.”
He inhaled sharply, seemingly unable to stop himself from grinding and causing my internal muscles to flutter and squeeze around him. “ Now you want me to wait?”
“It’s been a while, and it’s not like riding a bike, where you can go straight from a Schwinn to a big fat Harley. Give me a second to adjust here. ”
His shoulders shook with pained laughter. “You’re killing me, Gus. A Schwinn?”
I could already feel myself relaxing around him as he slid in a little deeper, a new wave of arousal easing the way. “Okay, we’re good.”
“You’re so good,” he muttered, brushing his lips against my cheek, my temple. “So tight and wet and good for me.”
This time when he started to move, I was completely on board with the decision, each stroke sending delicious sparks and promising tingles through my body as it stretched to accommodate all of him.
It was overwhelming. A little unbelievable. Abso-fucking-glorious.
Wade was inside me.
One hand gripped my thigh, keeping me open for him while he angled his next thrust in a way that wrung a shocked gasp from both of us. He’d found the spot again.
“There. Harder,” I demanded when my eyes stopped rolling toward the back of my head.
“Bossy.”
It wasn’t like me, I knew. I patted his sweaty shoulder. “Just go with it.”
He went with it, setting a forceful, jarring rhythm that made me tighten my arms and legs around him and hold on for dear life.
“Like this? Is this what you needed, Gus? Hard enough, baby?”
“ Yes .” I was going to come again in the not-too-distant future because he was a magician and a well-hung motor daddy and I was currently the luckiest woman on earth. “Just like that.”
“Next time I want you from behind,” he growled, sweat shining on his forehead. “Then on top, with your breasts bouncing every time I do this.” He drove into me so deeply my headboard hit the wall .
“Wade.”
I couldn’t believe it felt so good. We must be better at this than everyone else. If other people had sex like this, no one would ever leave their house again and the world would collapse into satisfied and exhausted anarchy.
“This is why I waited, August. I knew once was never going to be enough after having you. As soon as I felt this perfect pussy wrapped around my cock, I knew I’d spend every day counting down the minutes until I could get home and find my way back inside.”
His shockingly arousing words matched his sinful strokes, driving me closer and closer to the edge of something indescribable.
Irresistible.
That was how he saw me. It was there in his face as he hovered over me, memorizing every sway of my breasts, every gasp as he took me. It was there when I screamed out my climax, the sensations combining with his unbroken attention to electrify my body. One high voltage shock after another pumped through every nerve ending I had, lighting me up until I exploded into a million sparks of light.
He moaned low, powering into me with less control than he’d had before as I came around him. Each thrust kept the fires burning, sending new spasms of pleasure through me.
“August. Fuck, August,” he ended with a guttural roar of my name, joining me over the edge. We were so close I could feel every pulse of his pleasure and all the fine tremors that rattled his big frame.
My hands sifted through his hair and skimmed over his shoulders as he recovered, touching every part of him I could reach while he buried his face in the pillow beside me, his breathing heavy and labored.
This was so much better than my book .
Not something I ever thought I’d say, but there it was, and I didn’t have a single regret about it. How could I, when I felt so damn fantastic?
Dreams never lived up to the hype in your head. Reality never beat fantasy. It was an immutable fact of life. A fact that had just been completely annihilated by the man whose body was now draped over me so heavily while he caught his breath that he was stealing some of mine in the process.
“Sorry,” he murmured, either hearing my thoughts or my subtle struggle for oxygen. He moved off me to get rid of his condom, then collapsed on his back and tugged me into his arms. “I think I blacked out for a second there.”
I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. That was another thing. What was that about? Laughter and sex rarely went together in a good way.
All the wrong men.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I said when his hand found its unerring way to my breast and cupped it, my nipple hardening again in response to the possessive touch.
“You should.”
The glow of satisfaction suffusing my body made me feel like taking credit for every good thing happening at the moment.
The moon was still shining? You’re welcome.
Endorphins were the best .
“I’m definitely putting this in my dirty book.”
His arm tightened around me and he kissed my temple, the tenderness of the action making me shiver. “What dirty book?”
Well shit. Why was I having such a hard time keeping my inside thoughts where they belonged? More proof of what happens when you don’t leave your house for two years.
No. It was Wade.
“Do you want some water?” I asked hurriedly. “I’m parched. I’ll grab us a bottle and be right back. ”
I rolled away from him and out of the bed with more speed than one might expect from liquified limbs, then tossed on his shirt. I’d reached the door before he finally responded.
“You’re parched ?”
“That’s what y’all say here instead of thirsty, right?” My attempt at an accent was embarrassing.
Parched. Thirsty. Scorched. Bone dry.
That last one wasn’t true, I thought as my slick thighs slid against each other on my way down the short hall.
Tell him about it, August.
Why? I’d never told him about the other characters I’d based on him, even though he’d probably figured it out by now because he’d read the books and I was not subtle.
They also hadn’t liked rough sex in as many interesting positions as this one did. At least, not on paper.
I never really followed the “write what you know” rules of fiction. It was fiction—I wrote about other worlds with empowering feminine magic and true love with worthy partners, where the villains rarely won in the end.
That was not what I knew. But I’d inadvertently wandered into knowing territory with my current work in progress. The mechanic and the introverted woman in her forties who was obsessed with him.
Like I said before, I never thought that anyone but Chick would read it.
Merlin lifted his head from the couch and I paused on my way to the kitchen to scratch him behind the ears. He grumbled but leaned into the touch he considered his due. He’d been more affectionate lately. Maybe the hurricane had him rethinking his priorities too. Maybe he appreciated me more now that I left the house occasionally.
“It’s a good thing you refuse to sleep in the dog bed I bought for my room,” I told him with a giddy grin. “I wouldn’t want to ruin your beauty sleep with all my fun.”
He stared at me blandly, unblinking until I left him for the kitchen.
I took two water bottles out of the fridge and then leaned heavily against the sink to stare out into the darkness. Everything felt different now. Not only because of Wade and the epic sex we’d just had.
Epic . That was definitely the right word. It had been more life altering than losing my virginity, and I’d gotten flowers for that. True story. Both my mother’s friends and my sister had sent me flowers the day after I finally did the deed at the ripe old spinster age of twenty-two.
My sister had been the one to spread the word, and Morgan’s bouquet had been all stalks and no blooms, celebrating my “deflowering” and proving that she really could have a wicked sense of humor when she wanted to.
That had to go in a book someday.
The fact that I was thinking about “someday” books instead of dreading unfinished manuscripts was something I wanted to give myself flowers about. That and the race were the only future-related things I was willing to pay attention to right now.
I thought about my argument with Morgan again. She hadn’t been doing anything I didn’t do to myself all the time. Questioning my decisions. Worrying them to death and anxiously dissecting all the imaginative ways things could go wrong.
But I wasn’t going to fall into that trap this time. I was only going to focus on the present. And in the present, there was a man I’d always wanted, who—wonder of wonders—liked what he saw when he looked at me, was amazing in bed, and wasn’t pushing for or expecting anything more than I was able to offer.
So why was I standing alone in the dark kitchen when I could be snuggled up in bed with him ?
As if thinking of him had made him appear, his arm came around me from behind and his hand reached for the extra water beside me. Still holding me, he took a deep drink, emptying half the bottle.
Then he set it down and turned me in his arms, pressing his growing erection against me through the T-shirt. “You were about to tell me about a dirty book?”
“I knew you wouldn’t let that drop.” I slid my hands over his chest, unable to resist indulging in this newfound ability to touch him. “I may or may not be writing a spicy book about a guy that works on cars, looks exactly like you and likes to give his heroine orgasms. It’s basically an exercise , to get my writing chops back for my main series.”
He didn’t leer at me or look uncomfortable. Instead, he started kissing a line from my jaw to my neck, pausing only when the collar of his shirt got in the way.
“You going to let me read it, August?”
“I thought you said you had enough ideas of your own?”
“I’m not too old to learn a few new tricks. Or too stupid to throw away a chance to get inside that head of yours.”
“Good answer.” I pulled off the shirt myself and his work-roughened hands cupped my ass, lifting me onto the counter in a move so smooth it made me laugh.
I glanced down at his tented boxers, delighted and intrigued at the sight of the condom tucked into the waistband. “What would you say if I told you I wrote a scene in a kitchen that started a little like this?”
That smile. I’d never been able to resist it. “I’d say great minds think alike, because I’ve imagined you here since you let me inside the door, Gus. Occasionally peanut butter was involved.”
I pressed a finger to his lips. “I like how your mind works, but don’t say that word again or we’ll have an unwanted audience.”
When I dropped my hand, he rewarded me with a kiss that had me reaching blindly for his shorts, more than ready to make our fantasy a reality.
“Let me inside, August,” he said softly after he’d slid on protection and positioned me at the edge of the counter.
He already was, I thought as he pushed home.
That part of me I was trying to ignore whispered all sorts of dire warnings about the cost I might have to pay for this later. Nothing that felt this good ever lasted.
But if I was headed for another crash, I’d be damned if I didn’t let myself at least enjoy the ride this time.