Chapter 12 #3
“Will you touch yourself for me? Trail your fingers softly down your neck and show me where you would want me to kiss you.” He waited a few moments, letting the desire in his expression spill over into hunger.
Standing just behind the camera, I could almost believe that he was looking at me.
“You like that, don’t you? You like being told what to do. So good, so obedient…”
At some point during the previous night, he had figured out just how much of a praise kink I had.
Ever since then, he had taken advantage of any minor moment to murmur encouraging things into my ear even if he was just teasing.
“You opened that bottle of water so good.” It had quickly become a joke between us, except for when it wasn’t, and hearing the words fall from his lips unwound something inside me.
Even though thousands of people were going to see this video and put themselves in the wallflower’s shoes, I knew the truth—that it was just for me.
Heat was pooling at the juncture of my thighs, and I couldn’t help running a hand over the bodice of my sundress as Dash urged his fictional lover to touch their body.
Brushing my straps down, I wriggled my dress down over my lavender mesh bra.
I circled my tightening nipples with my fingertips, matching each of Dash’s words with an action of my own.
He kept going, mirroring my wicked smile as I dragged up my hem and caressed my inner thighs.
I paused when I reached my panties, running a finger over the narrow band of lace encircling my thighs.
After a charged, anticipatory pause, I hooked my fingers into the waistband and let them drop to my feet, then stepped out of them and went to Dash.
The camera was angled so that it caught his face and most of his chest as he sat in the pink chair, but didn’t show me as I knelt in front of him.
Surprise flickered in his eyes, but Dash was the consummate professional—even though there was no way we were uploading this one.
With barely a pause, he started to improvise on the dialogue we had written to incorporate this new twist, keeping in mind what we’d discussed about keeping things inclusive by never directly referring to the wallflower’s gender.
I balled the hem of his shirt in one hand, raising it over his abs, then skimmed the other one over the bulge in his breeches.
His head fell back, cushioned against the pink chair’s high back, his eyelashes brushing the tops of his high cheekbones as his eyes fluttered closed.
Greedily, I followed the line of his throat with my gaze, thinking about how I was going to kiss it when I got off my knees.
Dash was still talking, improvising with surprising ease, but I heard the hitch in his breath when I pressed a little harder on the seam of his breeches on my way to the period-appropriate buttons that held the front closed.
I took my time undoing each button, giving him time to tell me if he’d rather I didn’t. Instead, he gave an encouraging buck of his hips and helped me pull down the layers of fabric so that I could touch his warm, bare skin.
Dash was hard in my palm, and velvety soft, and slightly slippery but not slippery enough.
Without missing a beat, he reached for the coconut oil he used for making his abs look sleeker on camera.
I waited until he poured a dribble over himself, then I wrapped my hand around him and began moving it up and down in earnest, twisting my wrist on the downward stroke, following his rhythm when he started thrusting into the tight circumference of my grip.
He put his own hand over mine, and for a long moment, we were Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze in Ghost.
And I… I couldn’t quite catch my breath.
Everything inside me ached. From lust, sure, but also this deep, all-consuming hunger that was almost a yearning.
For what, I couldn’t tell you. Dash was right there in front of me, thighs parted and eyes half-closed.
I could have my fill of him. I was having my fill of him.
I was still watching his face, and I saw the exact moment when he went over the edge.
And it was a good thing that I was on my knees, because if I’d been standing, my legs would have surely failed me.
Because Dash, who could radiate beauty just by standing around, was as dazzling as the sun itself as he gave himself over to his climax.
And knowing that I was the one who’d put that expression on his face…
My breathing sped up, even as his slowed. His lips were curled when he opened his eyes and gazed down at our sticky hands, still linked together.
He brushed a light kiss over my knuckles, and even in the soft chill of his air conditioner, my skin felt like it was slowly catching fire. “You have lovely hands. So graceful.”
Turning my hand over, he laid another kiss at the base of my palm. He lingered there for a long moment, before reaching for the remote he’d hidden in the chair’s cushion and turning off the camera.
And then he was standing up, pulling me up with him and walking me backward until my ass hit his desk.
“You’re fucking amazing,” he breathed against my neck as he reached between my legs and dipped the tip of his finger into the wetness between my thighs. “Do you want me to go down on you?”
“No,” I said, holding his hand in place. “Finger’s good. I want to kiss you.”
“Tell me how you want it.”
It was my turn to give him instructions, which I spoke into his mouth in between gentle flicks of my tongue over his lower lip.
For the first time, I understood what it meant when romance novels described their characters as feeling molten with desire—his touch made me hot and liquid, like metal softening at a forge.
I had never wanted anyone as much as I wanted Dash in that moment.
His thumb caressed me, mercilessly light. “Does this feel good?” he murmured.
My approval came out in a hum that turned into a groan when the pad of his thumb skimmed me just right.
“I want to make you feel as good as you made me feel.”
I moved against his hand, not letting him tease me, wanting only release and the sweet taste of his mouth. I wanted him in me and around me, and I wanted him for more than just a beginning. I wanted him for keeps. For real.
My fist clenched on a handful of his shirt. The fabric grazing my palm was smooth and soft, the muscle beneath it as hard as the edge of the desk digging into my ass. I think I let out a whimper. Or maybe I was just trying to say his name through the waves of pleasure shuddering through me.
I came so hard I could feel my ears ringing with the force of it. My knees knocked as I slid against Dash, completely boneless. “That was…”
He clasped me to his chest, his soft laugh wafting over me. “Good, I hope.”
“Better than good. What was it you said earlier? Fucking amazing.”
Still in romance hero mode, he picked me up effortlessly and carried me into his room, where he laid me in bed while he went into the bathroom.
I could have sunk down into his excellent mattress and gazed at the ceiling and contemplated life, the universe, and everything, but instead I flipped onto my side to study the contents of his nightstand.
There was a neat stack of paperbacks. A lamp, a sketchbook with a scatter of pens and pencils next to it, the wooden dock for his tablet. It was much cleaner than my nightstand, which was usually littered with crumpled food wrappers, empty cups, and discarded earrings.
Dash came back a couple of minutes later with a dampened towel, which he used to wipe off my hands then spread over a chair to dry before getting into bed next to me. He had taken off his costume and wore only a pair of snug-fitting boxers that rode low on his slim hips.
I touched the waistband, not quite ready for a second round but half-afraid of what he would say if I gave him two seconds to think about what had happened in my apartment.
Sure enough, he leaned back against his pillows and looked at me through his eyelashes. “So, we should probably talk about—”
“Talk is cheap,” I said quickly, and decided to distract him by wriggling on top of him and clapping my hand over his mouth.
“I was thinking. Our set is spectacular, all modesty aside, but I feel like we should vary the background of the videos, at least for the non-spicy ones. What do you say we take this show on the road?”
He raised an eyebrow and tried to speak through the hand I still held over his mouth.
I cocked my head, not releasing him. “Sorry, I didn’t get that.”
“Mmmpphhm.”
“You’re gonna have to speak up, Dashwood.”
He licked my palm—an advanced move for someone who didn’t grow up with siblings or cousins like Yaz—and I yanked my hand away, laughing.
“I said,” Dash said, enunciating each syllable with emphasis, “that it sounds like fun. Where were you thinking of filming?”
“Central Park,” I said promptly. “There are the carriages and the stables—I have a feeling that the fangirls will go wild for seeing you on horseback.”
“And by fangirls you mean you, right?”
If there was one thing I liked about Dash, it was that he couldn’t pull off a smirk without looking more sweet than wicked. He brushed his fingertips over my arm and captured the hand that had been pressed against his mouth.
“Your hands really are beautiful, you know.” I watched in amusement as he nibbled on my fingertip.
On screen, Dash was focused and romantic and seductive.
But this, this was Dash at his most genuine—a little slice of his personality that felt like it was just for us.
“They make me wish I was more of an artist, so I could draw them and actually do them justice.” Noticing my expression, he added, “I did warn you about compliments.”
“You certainly did, Dashwood. I just didn’t realize they’d be so… gallant.”
In one fluid, easy move, he flipped me so that I was the one lying on my back. He grinned down at me, eyes crinkling at the corners and curls flopping over his forehead. “Why else would you have picked me to be your duke?”
“Oh, that was mostly ’cause you’re cute,” I said airily.
“You think I’m cute?”
It would’ve been bad enough if he’d just hair-flipped me, but he went ahead and added one of his patented brilliant smiles.
The combination was almost too much for me.
“Bringing out the heavy artillery, huh?” I brushed his hair back and pressed a little kiss to the upturned corner of his mouth. “You’re more than cute. You’re…”
My ace of cups.
Haha, what?
A look of intense wariness came into Dash’s face as I sat up, but all I did was grab a handful of blankets, take a deep breath, and force myself to smile. “You’re fucking amazing.”