Chapter 9
Hazel
Some magical voodoo makes my clothes disappear.
“Don’t stop.” I clutch at his shoulders as Luke flings my thin cotton boxers aside. He suckles my nipples as I paw at his zipper like an animal starving for what’s in his pants.
I am. God help me, I’m desperate to touch him. To feel him inside me this instant. I’m frantic and needy and dying to devour every inch of him.
“Slow down, babe.” Luke comes up for air, leaving my breasts tingling. “You in a rush?”
“Yes,” I pant, tugging his button fly open. “And don’t call me babe.”
With a devilish grin, he crawls down my body. “You can call me whatever you want.” A long, languid swirl of his tongue snatches the breath from my lungs. “Just make sure you scream my name when you come.”
“Cocky son of a—oh, God.” I clutch at the top of his head as his talented mouth takes charge of the throbbing heat between my thighs. I know I should protest that I’m sweaty and need time to shower.
But the instant his tongue sweeps that sensitive bud, and I forget my own name. “More. Oh, God.”
“That’s right.” He growls the words into the hollow of my thighs. “It’s me making you come. Me giving you what you need, Hazel.”
“Yes.” That feels insane. Not just the way he’s consuming me. It’s the gravel in his voice. The sting of stubble on my hipbone. The rustle of denim on carpet and the faint whiff of sawdust in his hair.
It’s also the slide of two fingers inside me. Gripping his hair, I cry out. “Oh fuck that feels good.”
“Say it.”
I’m too dizzy and mind-whacked to know what he’s asking. I can’t even form words as my thighs start to quiver. My sweaty palms slide to his shoulders, gripping bunched muscles that might be the only thing anchoring me on this planet.
Plush carpet cushions my back as I bow up beneath Luke’s skillful mouth. How is he so goddamn good at this?
“Hazel.” His magic tongue stills, and I cry out in agonized protest.
“Oh, please. Don’t stop now.” I’m pleading, I’m begging, desperate for release. “So close.”
“That’s right.” His eyes capture mine as the tip of his tongue skims my clit. It’s too much sensation, yet not quite enough. “I’ll get you there again and again, Hazel. As much as you can take.”
“Please.” I arch up beneath him, greedy for more of his mouth.
“Say it.”
“Luke.” Somehow I know what he’s asking. “Luke, please. Oh my God, Luke. I need you.”
His devilish grin says I’ve pleased him.
And now he’ll consent to please me.
“Good girl.”
Is it those words that do it, or the next skillful suck he delivers?
A sharp burst of pleasure explodes behind my breastbone, blasting my core with bright shards of glass.
I scream out his name, clutching his shoulders in a quivering grip.
I’m tumbling, flying, coming apart in six-billion pulses of pleasure.
He brings me down gently, cradling my hips in those talented hands. He moves up my body, kissing a path from my hip to my navel. With heated breath skimming my breasts, he teases a nipple with his tongue. His eyes lock with mine, and an aftershock wracks my whole body.
“Let’s talk contraception.”
Talk? He expects me to form words? “Guh.”
Chuckling, he kisses his way to my mouth. “I’ll talk; you listen. There’s nothing in the world I’d love more than to slide inside you with nothing between us. Obviously, pregnancy isn’t a concern at this point.”
Somehow my mouth forms the shape of a sentence. “Don’t you have to get tested for things when you’re a sperm donor?”
“Bingo.” Grinning, he kisses me gently. “I can download my last test results if you want, but I’m guessing that’ll kill the mood.”
“Like this conversation hasn’t done it already?”
His eyes flash with challenge as his mouth finds my nipple, getting me groaning again.
“Okay, okay—” Christ, that feels good. “I’m clean and I trust you.”
“Yeah?” The hope in his eyes slings a dart through my heart. That’s just his desire to forego the condom, right?
“Yes.” I paw at his chest, eager to move him back between my thighs. To feel him slide hard and thick inside me. Clawing my way to his fly, I growl my frustration when he stops me.
“No way.” Gripping my wrist, he moves my hand. “You’re pregnant.”
“I’m aware.”
“I’m not making love to you on the floor.”
My heart skips a beat at his earnest expression. “I thought we were fucking.”
“Call it whatever you want. I’m not grinding the mother of my children into the carpet.” There’s that sinful grin again. “Not this time, anyway.”
This time?
I can’t think about that right now. I ought to be clear this can’t happen more than just once. We’re just scratching an itch. Indulging a momentary urge. He knows that, right?
But his tongue sweeps my nipple again, and I forget all my plans to clarify things. I forget everything except how good this feels. How I need more of him right now.
“Right here,” I beg. “Need you inside.”
“Nope.” He’s gone back to teasing, tiny tip-of-tongue strokes at my nipples. It’s somehow too much and achingly inadequate. “The mother of my children deserves better care than a fast fuck on the floor.”
Huffing a breath, I prop up on my elbows. “You know that thing you said about killing the mood? Calling me ‘the mother of my children’ pretty much just—gah!” I squeal as he gathers me into his arms, scooping me up like I weigh nothing. “What are you doing?”
“Carrying you to the goddamn bedroom so we can do this the right way.”
I cling to his neck, hating how much I love this whole caveman thing. “There’s a right and a wrong way to have a meaningless fling?”
His footsteps falter, but he doesn’t lose his grip on me. Just regains his footing and stomps toward my bedroom like he owns the place. “It’s not meaningless, Hazel.”
But it has to be. He knows that, right? “I don’t want to complicate—oh!
” I gasp as he tosses me back on the bed.
Not toss—he’s gentler than that. But I’m airborne for at least half a second, which is just enough time to get pissed off again.
“Goddamn it, Luke. Stop flinging me around like a sack of potatoes.”
“You like it,” he growls as he prowls up my body. His teeth drag my throat, and I shiver. “Want to know why?”
“Why I like being manhandled by you?”
“Yep.” His cocky grin spreads through my limbs like warm honey. “You’re all bark and no bite, Hazel.”
Growling, I nip at his biceps, which just makes him laugh.
“You work so hard at being a badass boss bitch, and you are,” he continues.
“You’re one of the strongest women I’ve ever met, and I love that about you.
” He’s kissing his way down my body as he speaks, which gives some of his words a muffled, dreamlike quality.
“But inside, you’re softer than you want to admit. ”
“Great.” I squeeze out the word through gritted teeth. “How about you get inside me right now and see for yourself?”
“Oh, I will.” He wedges his hips between my thighs, notching himself at my slippery cleft.
He hovers there teasing, making me breathless with need.
“Deep inside,” he breathes against my neck as he breaches my entrance.
“You want somebody else in charge sometimes. You want someone strong enough to take the reins when you need to let go. Someone you trust to be in control when you want to lie back and give in to pleasure.”
“Luke.” I know I should argue, but my traitorous thighs wrap around him. “Yes!”
“Good girl, Haze. Let yourself go. I’ve got you.”
“Fuck.” I squeeze my eyes shut, too blissed out to say he doesn’t know me at all. This feels too damn good to fight him.
He drives into me harder, finding a rhythm I know like a song I’ve heard thousands of times. “God, baby. You feel so fucking good.”
“Luke.” I know I should tell him to quit calling me baby, but my mouth can’t make words. All it can do is form soft little whimpers of pleasure. “Right there—oh! Just like that.”
“How are you so fucking perfect?”
Was that a rhetorical question? Because I don’t feel perfect. I feel rumpled and reckless and out of control.
But somehow I also feel safe. “Jesus.” How am I so close already? “Just like that.”
“I feel you squeezing me, sweetheart. You’re right at the edge, aren’t you? Your body’s a map I was born to read.”
“Goddamn it.” I should bite him for being so cocky, but I’m too fucking close to the brink of this cliff. I’m buzzing and fiery and trembling all over. “You’re an arrogant son of a—oh my God!”
I scream my release, vocal cords lighting up gold like the rest of me. I’m flaming, flying, filling my lungs with shimmery sparks as I shout out his name.
Luke gives a harsh groan and releases his own surge of pleasure. His thrusts start to slow as he presses his forehead to mine. Sweat seals us together, but I’m much too satisfied to mind all the stickiness or the fact that my hair is a mess.
All I care about right now is how good this feels.
He opens his eyes, and he’s so close I see speckles of copper swimming in oceans of blue. The look on his face steals my breath. “Mine,” he grits out, kissing me softly. “Mine.”
I must be possessed. He’s pinning me down, commanding me with his gaze and his body. That’s the only explanation for the word tumbling over my lips.
“Yes,” I rasp out between pants. “Yours.”
A slow, languid smile spreads over his face. He kisses me softly, then rolls over and cradles me snugly against him.
My heartbeat should’ve slowed by now, but it’s banging my ribs like I’m running for my life. What just happened?
And what on earth did we just say to each other?
I comfort myself with a mantra my meditation app never taught me.
It’s just sex.
Only sex.
Nothing but meaningless pillow talk
But my heart doesn’t seem to be soothed. It keeps banging away, aware that I’ve just unraveled every promise we’ve made.
“Did you win an award?”
Luke’s sleep-raspy voice tugs me slowly from my dreamlike stupor. How long have I been out?
“Huh?” Peeling my cheek off his chest, I blink myself back from oblivion. “An award for sex?”