Chapter 21 #3
“No. I want to see this.” As if to prove his point, he pushed his glasses further up his nose. I saw a flash of red in his hand. The Rosebud. He pressed it into my palm, then sat back on his heels expectantly.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Yes, you do.” Like always, he read me perfectly.
“I said I was going to savour you. That means, as much as I want to go down on you – and I really want to go down on you, Lang – I’m showing restraint.
” Shifting, he reached for my hand holding the Rosebud.
Brought it to rest on my stomach. “I’m not laying a single finger on you until you learn your own pleasure. Learn what you like, okay?”
Okay?
When he laid it out like that, it sounded smart.
Reasonable. I’d been nineteen when Cameron and I started having sex.
I hadn’t been his first, but he’d been mine.
I’d never gotten a chance to explore with anyone else.
Then I’d had Teddy and my body stopped feeling like mine, more like a sack of skin I used to service other people.
My own needs, wants and desires always third in line.
But – “And you’re just going to watch?”
His eyes made a slow crawl to the V of my legs still hidden beneath the hem of my T-shirt. With a low moan, he said, “I’d really like that.”
“Oh.”
“If that’s something you’re comfortable with,” he added.
Truthfully, it wasn’t. Not because I didn’t want this – I did. But because I couldn’t dispel that little voice that whispered, You should feel embarrassed.
“Okay.” My mouth felt sticky.
Alistair leaned over, flicking the little button on the bottom of the Rosebud, and I jolted at the small whirring.
The sound alone was obscene.
Alistair groaned, at once appreciative and demanding.
I let it bolster me enough to bend my knees, inching my T-shirt higher until I knew he could see the dark cotton of my comfortable briefs. He licked his lips like he was staring at lace. “You should take them off.”
“Are you going to help?”
He shook his head, looking a little dazed.
“Not a good idea.” He pushed himself back a little to give me room to slide them down my hips and thighs.
They got caught around one ankle and I huffed slightly, certain there were women with superior abdominal strength who could make this look sexy. I was not one of them.
Taking mercy on me, he unhooked the cotton, balling them into his fist.
The Rosebud still whirred in my hand as I stretched out again. Thighs spread just enough that I knew he could see me. If I hadn’t already been sure, his drawn-out “Fuck” would have been enough to clue me in.
“I was right, Isla. Prettiest fucking cunt in existence.” The words were like sunlight poured directly into my bloodstream. Turning me golden as it raced through my veins. “I wish you could see this. Already soaking. I bet you can feel how wet you are, huh?”
“I think so.” I nodded. I was hot. Sticky enough I should be embarrassed. Could feel it pooling in the creases of my thighs every time I moved.
“Not good enough.” He tsked. “Dip your fingers inside, find out for yourself.”
God. His voice was like hypnosis, wiping every thought from my head other than this one command, because I moved without thought. Sliding my hand down my belly, over my thigh and down and—
I jerked. Gasped. A little kernel of pleasure tightening my gut. “Lower,” he ordered. And I did as I was told, until I felt the wetness gathering at my opening. “Tell me how it feels.”
“It – it’s hot.” My voice cracked. “Really wet.”
“Soft too, I bet. Do you feel like silk, Isla?”
“Yes,” I panted. Because it was true. I dipped my finger in a tiny bit more. No more than the first knuckle, but it was enough to make me moan. To marvel at the sensations it wrought. Where my other knuckle brushed the lower curve of my arse. Where my wrist brushed my inner thigh.
Alistair groaned like he’d performed the action. “Now pull it out, let me see.”
Pinned like a butterfly beneath his gaze, I extended my hand like an offering for him to study. And he did. Flipping my hand one way then the other.
“Fucking beautiful.” His voice was husky. “Now, rest your feet on my shoulders and make yourself come.”
I flushed but did what I was told.
Too far gone. He helped me lift my legs that had become dead weight, his eyes making unblinking contact with my clit.
I can’t believe I’m doing this. I can’t believe I’m doing this.
I resisted the urge to snap my legs together.
Two weeks ago, the thought of having my feet propped on Alistair Macabe’s shoulders while he talked me through an orgasm would have been right at the top of my never going to happen list, above immediate space travel.
My hand clutching the vibrator moved like it was independent from my body. Positioning it between my legs. Nervous breaths rattled from my chest. And it took a few twists of my wrists to align it with my clit, but once I did, my back arched.
“Oh my god,” I gasped, completely involuntarily.
“Fuck. There you go.”
I’d already been turned on. That must have been why I suddenly felt like I was being pulled apart, like my body belonged to a stranger.
My toes dug into his shoulders. I should stop, might be hurting him, but I couldn’t.
I moaned for long minutes as a wave of pleasure rose, stretching me thin.
The sensation promising something spectacular without delivering.
After another minute, I started to draw my hand away.
“Don’t stop,” he groaned.
“But it’s—” My head shook from side to side. Good. Not enough. The petal of the Rosebud acted like a tongue, the slow setting creating a steady lapping that gave me long caresses, dragging me right to the edge then – nothing. “There’s something wrong with me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“You should—”
“Shut your beautiful fucking mouth before you say what I think you’re about to say.” His hands pressed my thighs open all the way, eviscerating any secrets left between us. “This isn’t about me.”
“I’m worried you’re bored,” I admitted, staring at the ceiling. “Waiting for me to get on with it so you can come.”
“Isla, anyone who isn’t willing to put in the effort doesn’t deserve to be within touching distance of you.
This is the best thing I’ve ever seen in my fucking life, no exceptions.
I could sell tickets to watch this show.
” As if to prove his point, he slid onto his belly, his face inches away from my pussy.
The last time someone had their head this close, I’d been giving birth.
But he wasn’t assessing me in any professional capacity.
His blue eyes were nearly full black. He looked ready to shatter apart as his hand moved, pressing me open even wider.
“But then I’d have to cut out the eyes of any man who’d seen you this way. ”
Fuck. The things he said. I never would have imagined him talking this way.
“Your clit is so swollen, I don’t know how you haven’t come already. But if it doesn’t feel good, try it from a different angle.”
I slipped it down, closing my eyes, letting sensation guide me as I clicked it onto a high setting that had my hips rolling. Eyes clenching shut. “Oh my god.”
He made a little whimpering sound in the back of his throat. “You like it rougher.”
“Alistair.” His name was the only word I was capable of as he masterfully controlled my pleasure without even touching me.
Before this, I’d always imagined an orgasm like a mountain I had to scale.
No matter how many steps I took, that peak always got further and further away.
But when my back arched and lightning shot through me, I felt weightless. Utterly boneless.
From between my legs Alistair grunted like he’d come himself. “Look at you, Isla. You’re doing so fucking good.” Any other time, the words would have pissed me off. But right then, I preened under his praise.
With shallow gasping breaths, I started to pull my hand away. “No. Again. You can come again.” A single finger pushed the vibrator back against my clit. I jerked. Cried out, trying to wiggle away. “It’s too much.”
“Good. You deserve too much.” His finger kept the back of my hand pressed against me. Barely exuding any effort. I could have broken away if I wanted to, we both knew it.
I looked down my body, finding his eyes on mine right as I blew into the second orgasm. This one was shorter, sharper than the first. But somehow more wondrous.
“I wish you could see this, Isla. Your cunt clenching around nothing, searching for something to fill it.” He dropped his face over me as he spoke, forehead against the curve of my belly as he inhaled deeply, breathing me in, before he blew a slow, hot stream of air over my sensitised clit, and I wasn’t sure if I came again.
All I knew was that I was trembling, crying out until Alistair pried the vibe from my hand, clicked it off and dropped it to the floor.
“You are breathtaking.” He hovered above me, looking as awestruck and wrung out as I felt. His fingers dragged through the sweaty curls at my temple, tucking them behind my ear. Eyes bouncing between mine. “You okay? Feel good?”
My tongue didn’t work, so I nodded.
He pressed a sweet kiss to my cheek and stood. Too tired to follow his movements, I lay in a blissed-out heap, eyes falling closed. I heard him rustling around my bathroom, a moment later the connecting door opened and closed.
Had he gone over to his place?
I was too tired to care. I felt like I was hovering above my own body.
Alistair appeared again a few minutes later, pulling one final gasp from my throat as his hands slid under my body and lifted me, cradling me against his chest and kissing my forehead again where it fell against his shoulder.
“Where are we going?” I finally asked as we passed through the door into his place. The curtains were still open and silvery moonlight spilled over the hardwood.
He didn’t answer, didn’t need to because he carried me straight to the bathroom. The air was wet and smelled like a spa. Water fizzed with bath salts in the tub. “Where did you get those?”
He set me on my feet but kept hold of my waist. “I found them under your sink.” He nodded to the bottle on the side of the bath. The one Mum had sent me for Christmas and I’d never gotten around to using. “Sorry, I . . . were you saving them for something?”
“No.” My throat tightened around the word. I don’t think anyone had run me a bath since Granny Pat died. “Thank you.”
He huffed, taking my hand to help me step into the warm water, though I was still wearing my T-shirt. “I should be thanking you.”
I looked at him. Finally registering the front of his jogging bottoms. His thick length strained painfully against a notable damp spot. He followed my gaze. “I’m sorry . . . I didn’t even think – I should—” I started to reach for him.
“No.” He shook his head, nodding to my T-shirt. “Wait until I’ve closed the door to take that off. I’ll be at yours in case Teddy wakes. Shout if you need anything.”
The door closed with a click and I stared at it for a long moment, as if the lacquered wood held the answers to what the hell had just happened.
It didn’t.
I pulled my T-shirt off and sank into the hot bubbles with a yawn. I was tired. My muscles strangely taxed considering a vibrating flower had done ninety per cent of the work. With Alistair gone and the scent of jasmine filling my nose, the last thirty minutes felt like a dream.
Laying my head back against the porcelain lip, I slipped my hand between my legs, not quite as afraid of my own body as before. My fingers brushed my swollen clit, and I bit back a moan at the little aftershocks lighting up my body.
It had definitely happened.
Just like that, we’d blown up the rules we’d laid out. Or we hadn’t. Because while I felt like my entire world had been rearranged in a few heartbeats, we hadn’t actually kissed.
He’d barely even touched me.
And now the question was . . . did I want him to?
Alistair had laid a fluffy towel out for me, and I wrapped it around my body with a mission: to discover how he kept them so soft between washes.
I’d been a stay-at-home mum for seven years; it annoyed me that he was so much better at it than I was.
The connecting door stood wide open, and I smiled at the sight. It felt like an appropriate metaphor for how thoroughly things had changed between us over the past few weeks.
I found Alistair bent over, his head in my dishwasher.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
He jerked. A loud thunk – his head hitting the upper rack – had me rushing to his side. “Shit!” he hissed.
“Sorry, sorry,” I said as he dried his hands on a tea towel then rubbed the back of his head. “You okay?”
“Yeah, the new part for your dishwasher arrived yesterday. I was just replacing it.” His phone was on my counter, a YouTube video paused partway through.
“What new part?” I hadn’t had any deliveries.
“The central filter.” He pointed. I glanced inside, seeing nothing if I was honest.
“Did the landlord order it?”
“No.” He wiped his hands on the towel again. Just to have something to do, I think. “You said it wasn’t running properly.”
“Oh.” I don’t know why, out of everything that had happened tonight, that detail left me speechless. He was taking care of me in ways he didn’t have to. “Let me pay you back.” I grabbed my purse from the counter, glad to have a way to get us back on more even footing.
He stopped me, a gentle hand on my wrist. “Isla, I don’t want your money.” The statement felt loaded. Like he’d scribbled something in the margins of a moment I was incapable of reading.
“Okay.” I nodded. Holding in my manic scream of What do you want?
With a sigh, he cupped my cheek. “Are you feeling okay? I kind of blacked out a little at the end. I’m worried I lost my head back there and pushed you too far.”
“You definitely didn’t.”
“Good.” He nodded, jaw tight. “I meant what I said: I don’t want this to ruin anything—”
“Then it won’t,” I assured him. “We won’t let it.”
“Okay.”
“Okay,” I said with a smile. I glanced around my kitchen, taking in the gleaming counters. “Did you clean up in here?”
One side of his mouth quirked up. I wanted to press my thumb to the crease of it. “Couldn’t resist,” he said.
“I’ll make it up to you.”
“Oh yeah? How?” His eyes sparked, just the tiniest bit. This would have been the perfect time to say something flirty like, You’ll have to wait and see, or something obscene like, On my knees, with my tongue on your . . . Because now I knew Alistair was a man who liked dirty talk in the bedroom.
But we’d agreed not to ruin this, and I didn’t exactly know what that meant. So, I simply said, “With pie. You should take the rest of it with you.”
He groaned. “You’re a dangerous woman, Lang.”
And as I laughed, sweeping into my bedroom to change and then check on Teddy, I felt like one.