Chapter Twenty-One #2
I have to slip the headset off his ears to finally get his attention. He blinks a few times, like he’s waking up. “God—sorry. I got distracted.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “How late is it?”
“Almost one.”
“Fuck. I should go.”
Gently, I reach down and run my fingers through his hair, erasing the indent left by the bulky headset. I have to wet my lips before I say, “You don’t have to.”
“My brain is totally fried, Reagan. I can’t work anymore—”
“We don’t have to work.”
He looks at me evenly, his eyes so dark I feel like I could fall right into them. “Do you want to play another game?”
I lean back onto my desk and stretch out my legs in front of me; my calf brushes against his where my ankles cross near the base of the chair. “No,” I say. “No more games.”
Wesley’s body goes taut with tension. He rises out of the chair, and I half expect him to turn on his heel and walk out, but he stands utterly still.
His hands drift up, then drop to rest on the tops of my thighs.
His fingers feel stiff, like he’s trying to restrain himself from doing anything further, but then he guides my legs apart so that he can step between them.
Wesley arches his neck down so that his disheveled hair falls into his eyes.
Gently, he brushes his forehead against mine, tracing the sharp line of his nose across the curve of my cheek.
Through lowered lashes, I watch him worry his bottom lip between his teeth while he keeps his gaze latched to my mouth.
“Yes?” he murmurs.
I nod.
He rests his hands on either side of my face, and his palms are warm against my skin despite how my cheeks feel on fire.
His fingers curl behind my neck, teasing the small hairs at the base of my scalp, while his thumbs sweep back and forth under my eyes, over my freckles.
With a touch of pressure, Wesley lifts my face upward toward his and holds me there.
My legs ache with the strain of holding my position on the desk, and my neck starts to burn at the sharp angle Wesley has it tilted.
I wish I could claim that gym soreness is what’s making my knees feel so weak, but I know it’s the way he’s studying me with that dark, thoughtful gaze.
I’m impatient for him to make a move, any move.
“Please,” I breathe.
I don’t even know what I’m asking for—for him to make up his mind about what comes next, or to let me go. I tell myself it’s the angle of my jaw that has my voice sounding so breathless.
Wesley’s lips curl into a slow, satisfied smile before he finally—finally—lowers his mouth to mine.
For the first time, there’s no frantic rush between us—no race to give in to what our bodies crave before our brains catch up.
There’s no taste of alcohol in the back of my throat to fuzz away the details, no pitch-black closet to hide in, no excuses or exceptions.
This time, I don’t mask my want, and Wesley kisses me with slow deliberation, like he’s reminding me he chose this—I chose this.
His tongue slides along mine as he gasps into my mouth, and his teeth catch onto my lower lip and bite down.
I don’t bother to swallow down the moan that hums in the base of my throat.
With careful consideration, Wesley nudges my keyboard and one of my monitors to the far side of my L-shaped desk—he recognizes how good my equipment is and wouldn’t dare risk my wrath by damaging it.
He doesn’t give my D as I wind my arms around his neck, he tugs me forcefully forward until our chests are flush.
Lowering his head, he brushes his lips up the line of my shoulder, along the curve of my neck.
He casts a distracted glance at where my computer monitor glows with orange-and-red light; I see sparks of it reflected in his half-lidded eyes.
“You’re brilliant, you know?” He exhales a sharp laugh from his nose, and the rush of air down my neck leaves goosebumps in its wake. “Who am I kidding? Of course you know.”
I can’t help it; as I fist my hand in his hair and draw his head back down, I let out a low, satisfied laugh against the corner of his mouth. “I know,” I murmur. “But I like hearing it from you.”
Wesley knots my skirt in his hand and tugs it up past my knees, up my thighs.
When he pulls me tight to him again, I part my legs on either side of his hips, and there is suddenly very little fabric between us.
I can feel how hard he is through his jeans, and I don’t waste any time in reaching for the dull silver button at his waistband.
But in an instant, his hands are circling my wrists, pinning them against his stomach.
Wesley lets out a low chuckle against the side of my neck. “Impatient, aren’t you?”
“Please, Wes, take them off.” I refuse to feel shy about the needy bite to my tone.
“Later,” he promises. “But if I’ve waited this long,” he adds darkly, his voice rough, “you can wait a little longer. I’ve thought too much about this.”
I’m about to ask him what he means by this when I feel his hand glide up the inside of my thigh.
I suck in a breath to try to trap the whine that climbs out from my throat.
But Wesley muffles it himself with another achingly deep kiss, his lips tracing a burning trail from my mouth down my jawline.
His fingertips feel molten against the soft skin between my thighs, and I go still as they brush against the edge of my panties.
“For so long, I wondered,” he murmurs against my neck, teeth scraping the sensitive skin under my ear. “I wondered if it was just me.”
His fingers trace over me again, pressing hard against the thin fabric of my underwear.
He hooks it to the side with his thumb and dips his middle finger under the lace.
What he finds as he presses his fingers to my skin has him humming a low, pleased note into my collarbone, and that sound lets me know just how obvious my desire is to him.
“Look at you,” he murmurs, tracing lines of wet heat between my thighs. I can’t help but shudder under his touch, and I draw my lip into my mouth to try to still the way it trembles. “How long have you wanted this, too?” he whispers into the shell of my ear.
I shakily hook my arm behind his neck and tug his mouth back down to mine, if for no other reason than to kiss that smug smirk right off his lips.
But he only laughs into my mouth and slowly, slowly sinks two fingers inside of me.
I’d thought to smother his laugh, to tangle his tongue with mine, but as his thumb circles me at the same moment that his fingers curl inward—the whimper torn from my mouth is involuntary.
Instinctual. I buck against the heel of his hand.
His voice is an exhale against my hair. “Tell me, then. Tell me if you want me to stop.”
Like everything with Wesley, it sounds like a challenge.
And it’s one I’m losing—badly. Wesley’s fingers press in and out with the same patience and precision that I’ve seen him bring to every game, every competition.
With each of my outbursts, each stuttering roll of my hips, he keeps that same unending rhythm, meeting the chaos of my impatience with deliberate control.
He sighs raggedly into my hair, and I can feel his cock straining against my thigh through the stiff denim of his jeans.
Any more of this, and I’ll come apart completely.
I twist my head to the side, and my mouth is so dry from panting I have to swallow twice before I can speak. “Do you have a condom?”
I feel Wesley nod; his lips are still moving against the skin between my shoulder and my neck. “Do you want me to stop? Do you want me to go get it?”
“You were always too arrogant,” I say, but it sounds much less biting than I want it to. My voice is taut, strained with the effort of keeping myself from falling over the edge.
His voice is thick and syrupy. “I’ll take that as a no.”
And yet he stops anyway.
He withdraws his hand, straightens, and takes a full step back. The air is cool on my heated bare skin, and I feel chilled by the loss of him.
But then he sinks to his knees on my hardwood floor, and moisture floods my mouth.
Wesley presses a kiss to the inside of my knee, the top of my thigh.
He runs one hand along the swell of my hip and splays his palm against my lower back, pulling me forward until I sit on the very edge of the desk.
With his other hand, he tugs my underwear off and drops it to the side.
“You’re so pretty like this,” he murmurs, looking up at me through those unfairly long eyelashes. “Stay right there for me, won’t you?”
It’s hard to remain still when he lowers his head and brushes his lips against me. It’s nearly impossible when he flattens his tongue against my clit. I don’t know how I manage it. I hardly know how we got here. I can barely remember my name.
His, though—I repeat it like a chant in my head, the only thing keeping me grounded to this moment.
I shiver with the effort of balancing on the desk, poised on the edge in more ways than one.
I roll my hips forward, desperate for the swirl of his tongue.
He breathes a laugh against me, and the rush of that cool air against a spot so sensitive lights up my nerves.
He glides two fingers down my center and sinks them slowly inside.
I hitch in two stuttering breaths before I gasp out, “Wesley.”