Chapter 13 #2
His hands work at the buttons of my blouse but they’re too slow and I bat them away impatiently, yanking the fabric over my head instead. His breath catches as he takes in the simple black bra underneath.
“Beautiful,” he murmurs. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”
“Less talking. More—”
He silences me with a kiss, and then his mouth is trailing lower—across my collarbone, down the center of my chest, over the swell of my breast. When his lips close around my nipple through the fabric, I nearly come off the couch.
“Oh—”
“Good?”
“Yes.”
He lavishes attention on one breast, then the other, until the fabric is soaked through and I’m writhing beneath him. His hands are on my waist, my hips, sliding down to the waistband of my pants.
“Tell me if you want me to stop,” he says, fingers hovering. “At any point. I need to hear it.”
“I don’t want you to stop.”
“Isadora—”
“Please.”
The word undoes him. His fingers make quick work of the button, the zipper, and then he’s peeling the fabric down my legs and I’m lying beneath him in nothing but my bra and underwear.
His gaze travels over me slowly, reverently. “I knew it.”
“Knew what?”
“That you’d be perfect.” He traces a line from my knee to my hip, watching goosebumps rise in his wake. “Every inch of you.”
“I’m not—”
“Don’t.” He leans down, pressing a kiss to my stomach. “Don’t argue with me about this. You’re perfect. End of discussion.”
I don’t know how to respond to that. No one has ever looked at me the way he’s looking at me now—like I’m something precious, something worth cherishing.
His fingers hook under the edge of my underwear. “Yes?”
“Yes.”
He pulls them down slowly, and I resist the urge to close my legs, to hide. His sharp intake of breath tells me everything I need to know.
“Isadora.” His voice is barely recognizable. “You’re going to be the death of me.”
Then his mouth is on me, and I stop thinking entirely.
His tongue traces patterns I can’t follow, finding every sensitive spot, every nerve ending.
My hands fist in his hair, and I’m making sounds I’ve never made before—broken, desperate sounds that I should be embarrassed by but can’t bring myself to care about.
“That’s it,” he murmurs against me. “Let me hear you.”
He adds a finger, sliding inside me with torturous slowness, and my back arches off the couch.
“Mal—”
“You’re so wet.” Another finger joins the first, stretching me deliciously. “So ready. Have you been thinking about this?”
“Yes—”
“How long?”
“Weeks—” I gasp as he curls his fingers. “Since the first time we—oh—”
“Since the first time we what?”
“Danced.” I can barely form words. “Every time you touched me, I—”
“You what?”
“I imagined this. You. Doing—” My thoughts scatter as his tongue finds that perfect spot again. “Doing that.”
His answering groan vibrates through me, and I’m climbing, climbing, reaching for something just out of grasp—
“Come for me,” he says. “I want to feel you.”
I shatter. The orgasm hits me like a wave, rolling through my body in pulses of white-hot pleasure.
I hear myself cry out, and his hands grip my thighs, holding me open as he works me through it.
When I finally come back to myself, gasping and trembling, he’s watching me with an expression that makes my heart flip.
“Beautiful,” he says again. “So fucking beautiful.”
I reach for him, pulling him up my body, and kiss him deeply. I can taste myself on his lips—strange and intimate and unbearably erotic.
“Your turn,” I murmur.
“You don’t have to—”
“I want to.”
My hands go to his belt, fumbling with the buckle, and he helps me—pushing his jeans down just enough, and then he’s in my hand, hot and hard and huge—
“Oh.” I look up at him. “That’s...”
“Too much?”
“No.” I wrap my fingers around him, marveling at the weight, the heat. “Just... impressive.”
He laughs, but it turns into a groan as I stroke him. “Careful. I’ve been thinking about this for weeks too.”
“Really?”
“Every night.” His hips rock into my hand. “Every time I close my eyes. You have no idea what you do to me.”
I stroke him again, watching his face and the way his jaw clenches and his breath catches.
“Show me,” I whisper.
He groans and kisses me, and for a while we lose ourselves in each other—hands exploring, mouths meeting, bodies moving together in a rhythm that feels both new and ancient.
When he finally stills my hand, we’re both breathing hard.
“If you keep doing that,” he manages, “this is going to end embarrassingly fast.”
“Would that be so bad?”
“Yes.” He presses his forehead to mine. “Because when I finally have you—all of you—I want it to last.”
When. Not if. When.
The certainty in his voice makes something bloom in my chest.
“So this isn’t—” I swallow. “This isn’t just tonight?”
He pulls back enough to look at me, and the tenderness in his expression makes my eyes sting.
“Isadora Solis,” he says quietly. “This was never just anything. Not for me.”
“For me either,” I admit. “I tried to pretend it was. Told myself it was just attraction, just chemistry, just—” I shake my head. “But it’s not. It hasn’t been for a while.”
“How long?”
“Since you waltzed into my studio with your terrible technique and your ridiculous charm and proceeded to turn my entire life upside down.” I trace the line of his jaw. “You’re impossible, you know that? Completely impossible.”
“And yet you’re here.”
“And yet I’m here.”
He kisses me again—soft and sweet and achingly tender.
“Stay with me,” he murmurs. “Tonight. Just... stay.”
“My cottage is literally twenty feet away.”
“I know. But I don’t want to let you go.” His arms tighten around me. “Not yet.”
I think about all the reasons I should say no.
The boundaries I should maintain. The careful distance I’ve always kept between myself and everyone else.
Then I think about today. About how he showed up at dawn, handled my crisis, danced with a shy little boy, and looked at me like I was worth everything.
“Okay,” I whisper.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
His smile is sunrise breaking through storm clouds.
We rearrange ourselves on the narrow couch—him on his back, me tucked against his side, my head on his chest. It’s not comfortable exactly, but with his arms around me and his heartbeat steady under my ear, it feels like exactly where I’m supposed to be.
“The floor is still wet,” I murmur.
“Mmm.”
“And I have three classes to reschedule.”
“Tomorrow.”
“And the bathroom needs to be completely rebuilt.”
“Isadora.”
I look up at him. “What?”
“Stop thinking about the floor.” He presses a kiss to the top of my head. “Just for tonight. Let it go.”
I want to argue. I want to point out that “letting it go” isn’t exactly my strong suit since I’ve spent my entire life holding things together through sheer force of will.
But his hand is drawing lazy circles on my back, and his breathing is slowing, and for the first time in longer than I can remember, the voice in my head telling me everything I should be worrying about goes quiet.
“Okay,” I whisper.
“Okay?”
“Just for tonight.”
His arms tighten around me, and I close my eyes, and somewhere between one breath and the next, I fall asleep. The last thing I’m aware of is his lips against my hair and his voice, barely audible.
“I’m falling in love with you, Isadora Solis. Just so you know.”
I should respond. I should tell him I feel the same way, that I’ve felt it for weeks, that I’m terrified and exhilarated and completely, utterly lost in him. But sleep pulls me under before I can form the words.