Chapter 16
Stella
I couldn’t sleep. Again. And it had nothing to do with chocolate cake this time and everything to do with the man in the bedroom across the hall.
I kept replaying that moment in my mind when Tate had pulled me from the gala, guiding me through the crowd with his hand warm and steady at the small of my back. How he’d led me to that empty ballroom and the way he’d looked at me.
You’re worth more than that entire room put together.
No one had ever said anything like that to me before.
Not my parents, who saw me as a disappointment to be managed.
Not Oliver, who cared about me but in the uncomplicated way of a good friend.
Not any of the men I’d dated before, who’d been more interested in my family’s money and connections than in me.
But Tate... he saw the parts I tried to hide, the parts I was still discovering, the parts I didn’t even know existed until he’d brought them to light.
You walk into a room and you’re the most remarkable person there.
My chest ached with the memory of the fierce conviction in his voice.
And then he’d kissed me.
Not like he had in the backyard, all dominance and claiming and unleashed hunger. This kiss had been different. Almost reverent, like I was something precious he was afraid to break.
It had undone me completely.
I rolled onto my side, punching my pillow in frustration. Sleep was impossible. My body was too awake, my mind too full, my heart too... something I wasn’t ready to name yet.
I thought about Tate in his bed across the hall. Was he sleeping? Was he awake too, replaying the same moments, feeling the same restless energy humming through his veins?
Before I could talk myself out of it, I was throwing back the covers, swinging my legs over the side of the bed and standing.
My nightgown was nothing special—a simple pale pink silk slip that skimmed my thighs, delicate spaghetti straps, a modest neckline.
I didn’t own anything overtly sexy. Had never really had a reason to.
But it didn’t matter anyway. I didn’t plan on wearing it for long.
I slipped out of my room. The hallway was dark as I stepped across to the guest room. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat. This was crazy. Reckless. Everything we’d agreed we shouldn’t do.
I knew he didn’t lock his door. I opened it without knocking and stepped inside, then closed and locked it behind me with a soft click.
He was on the bed, propped up against the headboard, covers tossed aside, wearing nothing but a pair of black boxer briefs.
His chest was bare, his hair slightly mussed like he’d been running his fingers through it and he was reading a book, which he immediately closed and set on the nightstand.
“Stella, are you okay?” he asked, almost cautiously. “Did something happen?”
I shook my head and moved toward the foot of the bed. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“So you came to my room?” His eyes tracked my movements with an intensity that made my skin prickle, but he remained still.
I shrugged. “My parents are asleep,” I said, looking all the way up at him from where I stood at the end of the mattress. “They never come to this wing of the house unless absolutely necessary. They haven’t in years.” My insinuation was clear.
“That’s not the point,” he said firmly.
“Then what is the point?” I lifted my chin, refusing to back down. “Because I’m tired of pretending, Tate. Tired of acting like I don’t want this. Like I don’t want you.”
“Stella...”
He was watching me with those dark eyes, his jaw tight, his body coiled with tension.
He wanted me. I could see it in every line of his frame, could feel it in the charged air between us, but he was holding back.
Still trying to be the responsible protector, the man who did the right thing even when the right thing felt impossible.
I was done letting him resist.
I reached for the straps of my nightgown and slid them off my shoulders.
The silk whispered down my body, pooling at my feet in a pale pink puddle, followed by my panties. I straightened, standing before him completely naked, my skin prickling with the cool air and the heat of his gaze.
Tate groaned—a low, tortured sound that seemed to come from somewhere deep in his chest, dragged out of him against his will.
“Christ, Stella.”
I smiled, feeling powerful in a way I never had before, and my eyes dropped to the obvious tent forming beneath his boxer briefs. “Looks like at least a part of you is happy to see me.”
“Every part of me is happy to see you,” he muttered. “That’s the problem.”
I laughed softly and climbed onto the bed, crawling across the mattress toward him on my hands and knees. He watched me, his eyes on my swaying breasts, his hands fisting at his sides like he was physically restraining himself from reaching for me.
Kneeling between his legs, I hooked my fingers in the waistband of his briefs.
“Stella.” His voice was a warning now, rough with need and the last shreds of his self-control. “If you do this—”
“Dare accepted,” I teased him, and tugged at the fabric, pulling his briefs down slowly, savoring the reveal.
His cock sprang free, hard and thick and magnificently pierced. Silver glinted at the tip, and below it, the ladder of barbells marched down his shaft in perfect symmetry.
I groaned, my core clenching. God, he was so masculine and beautiful.
His hard, muscled body. The solid length of his shaft.
Everything about him was pure temptation, and he issued no other protest as I tugged the fabric lower and down his legs, removing them completely so he was just as naked as I was.
I wrapped my hand around his erection, feeling the heat of his skin, the ridge of each piercing against my palm as I fisted his cock. He hissed through his teeth, his hips jerking involuntarily.
He reached down for me, but I moved out of his grasp. “Wait,” I said, a wicked idea forming. “I want you to grab the headboard.”
Tate’s eyebrow arched. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” I stroked his cock slowly, watching his eyes darken. “Grab the headboard and keep your hands there.”
“Feeling the need to be in control tonight, are we?” he murmured, but there was a smile playing at the corner of his lips, amusement mixing with the desire.
“Tonight, yes.” I squeezed him firmly again, making him grunt. “I want to play and explore your body. And I can’t do that properly if you’re distracting me with your hands.”
He smirked. “My hands distract you?”
“Everything about you distracts me.” I leaned in and pressed a kiss to his lower abdomen, feeling his muscles tighten beneath my lips. “Please, Tate. Let me have this.”
I straightened, and he was quiet for a moment, studying me with an intensity that made my skin flush. Then he reached up and wrapped both hands around the wooden slats of the headboard.
“Happy?” he asked, his voice dropping to that low, seductive register that did arousing things to my insides.
“Very.” I gave him a sultry smile. “Now be a good boy and stay still.”
An abrupt gust of laughter escaped him. “Yes, ma’am.”
I leaned down and started slow. Keeping my eyes locked on his, I licked along the underside of his shaft, tracing the path of his Jacob’s ladder, cataloguing the feel of each barbell against my tongue. Tate’s breath caught, his grip tightening on the headboard, but he didn’t move.
“Fuck,” Tate breathed gruffly. “Stella...”
I ignored him and took the head into my mouth, sucking gently and running my tongue around the ring of his piercing. His hips bucked—just slightly, a tiny loss of control that sent a thrill racing through me and made my pussy throb with desire.
I took him deeper. Inch by inch, I worked my way down his length, letting each barbell slide across my tongue. The metal was cool against the heat of his flesh, a contrast that made me moan around him. The vibration earned me a groan from him in response.
“Jesus Christ,” Tate panted. “Your mouth... fuck, your mouth is perfect.”
I pulled back and looked up at him through my lashes, his cock wet and glistening. “You like that?”
“I love it.” His voice was strained, his eyes dark and wild. “Now stop teasing and suck my cock properly like a good girl.”
The command sent a pulse of heat straight to my core, but tonight was about me being in control, and I reminded him of that. “I’ll take my time if I want to,” I said sweetly, and licked a long strip up his shaft just to watch him shudder.
I returned to my task with renewed dedication, taking him back into my mouth.
I bobbed my head slowly, hollowing my cheeks, taking him as deep as I could manage.
The sounds he made were intoxicating. Heavy breathing that turned to soft groans.
Muttered curses. My name, falling from his lips like a prayer.
His precome leaked from the tip, salty and slick, and I swallowed it down eagerly. I could feel the tension building in his thighs, the way his cock swelled even thicker against my tongue.
“Stella.” His voice was a rasp now. “I’m so damn close—”
I released him with a wet pop. He groaned in frustration, his hips straining upward, chasing the sensation I’d denied him, but I had other plans.
I crawled up his body, straddling his hips, positioning myself so that his cock pressed against my entrance.
The head of him—slick and hot and pierced—nudged against my folds, and we both shuddered.
“Watch me,” I told him, and waited for his eyes to lower to my pussy before I slowly, gradually, sank down onto his cock.
The stretch was exquisite. Each barbell dragged against my inner walls as I took him, the sensation so intense it bordered on overwhelming. I gasped, my whole body shaking.
“Oh God.” My head fell back on a soft moan of pleasure as I slid a little lower, and he went deeper. “Oh fuck.”
“That’s it, kitten,” Tate growled beneath me, his hands white-knuckled on the headboard. “Take all of it. Take every fucking inch.”