Chapter 7 #2
But that hadn’t been the only reason he’d held back.
He’d thought he could keep a part of himself separate.
That he could stay emotionally uninvolved, so that when she left, it wouldn’t hurt.
But she’d blown that all to hell tonight, with her grand plan and her unquestioning faith that he could pull it off.
No matter what, it was going to cut him off at the knees when she walked away.
So he’d take what she offered, give them what they’d both wanted from the start.
Very deliberately, he set his coffee aside and slipped her mug from her fingers. “That definitely feels like something worth celebrating.”
He slid his palms along hers, absorbing her shiver as he folded his fingers around her slim, delicate hands. “You know, I told myself I wasn’t going to do this. I was going to maintain some boundaries.”
A flicker of irritation clouded her expression. “For my own good?”
He shook his head, gaze steady on her face. “For mine. I don’t let myself get attached to people, and I don’t do meaningless encounters. I knew from the beginning that being with you could never be meaningless. You aren’t a one-night fling sort of woman.”
One dark brow winged up. “What am I then?”
His thumbs traced circles on the insides of her wrists, feeling her pulse jump. “You’re a fight-all-the-dragons-in-her-name-and-take-her-home-to-Mom kind of woman. And one night or one week will never be enough.”
“Oh.” She was an incredibly articulate woman, always ready with a comeback, and Sebastian found great satisfaction in reducing her to monosyllabic shock for a second time in one night.
“I told myself it would be worse if I let myself have you and knew what I’d be missing when you go. But hell if I can walk away from you. So if you don’t want this…If you aren’t absolutely sure, you’re the one who’s gonna have to step back.”
The shadow in her eyes faded as she stepped forward, closing the distance between them. “I want this. I want you.”
On a groan, he closed his lips over hers, swallowing her sigh.
He was already hard as he drew her in, pulling her tight against him.
She shifted to rub her hips against the bulge in his jeans and opened for a deeper kiss, sliding her tongue against his.
The taste of her flooded into him, sweet and sinful, leaving him dizzy and desperate for more.
He needed skin. Needed to feel the warmth of her in his hands, against his tongue. Tunneling beneath her sweater, he released the catch of her bra and filled his palms with her breasts. They were heavy and perfect, the nipples already drawn tight with desire as he circled them with his thumbs.
“Oh, God.” Her eyes blurred and she sagged a little as he traced each taut peak. “More. Definitely more.”
On board with that, Sebastian stripped off the sweater and bra, baring her chest to his hungry eyes. Her creamy skin was flushed, the dusky rose of her areolas giving way to deeper pink nipples.
“Gorgeous.” Bending, he took one tight bud into his mouth.
Laurel whimpered, pressing closer as he licked and sucked, each pull making her rock her hips against his, and driving him just a little more crazy.
Skating his hands down her spine, he slid them into her pants, thanking God for leggings as he slid them and her underwear past the curve of her hips.
Releasing her nipple with a light scrape of his teeth, he knelt, sliding off her short boots and easing the fabric down the rest of the way.
Her breath went ragged as he helped her step free.
Seeing her there, unabashedly naked in his kitchen, her eyes full of lust and longing, had his dick going impossibly harder.
He ached with the need to lift her onto the nearest horizontal surface and drive himself into her.
But that would be over too quickly. He wanted to draw this out. Make it last.
“Such soft skin.” Sebastian skimmed his fingers from her ankles up the backs of her legs, thinking of all the ways he wanted to worship her beautiful body.
But he could already scent her arousal, and that overrode everything else.
“I’m going to kiss every inch. But right now, I need to taste you. Hold on to the counter.”
“Oh.”
Again with the monosyllables. It made him smile. But when she didn’t move, he looked up to find her eyes closed, her expression strained.
“Laurel?”
Her eyes snapped back to his, pupils swallowing up almost all the color of her eyes. “What?”
“You okay with this?”
She ran her fingers through his hair, lightly scraping her nails over his scalp in a way that had him leaning into her touch. “I am very okay with this.” With one, last, nipping kiss, she leaned back and gripped the counter.
Sebastian kept his eyes on hers as he shouldered her legs apart, making sure she was still with him as he kissed his way up the sensitive skin of her inner thighs.
She trembled and swallowed. Nerves, not fear.
Satisfied she was okay, he spread her folds and licked.
Her hips bucked against his mouth and she moaned.
“So fucking sweet.” Leaning closer he hooked his hands behind her thighs and set to work, seeing to her pleasure with the kind of ruthless, single-minded focus he gave to a mission.
Her hands came away from the counter, threading in his hair as he drove her wild.
“More,” she gasped. “Please, more. I need…I need…”
Sebastian slid two fingers inside her as he circled her clit with his tongue and she broke, flying over that first brutal peak screaming his name.
Her legs trembled as he lifted his head and shot her a cocky grin. “I never imagined you were a screamer.”
Sagging back against the counter she stared down at him with heavy-lidded eyes. “Neither did I.”
Rising, he skimmed his hands up the back of her legs, over her ass. “That was pretty much the hottest fucking thing ever. I want to hear you do it again, when I’m inside you.”
Another shudder ran through her as she hooked a hand around his nape. “Then hurry up.”
Sebastian boosted her up, wrapping her legs around his waist and kissing her as he strode with purpose to the bedroom. He lowered her to the bed, pulling away only long enough to break land speed records stripping out of his clothes and grabbing a condom from the bedside table.
“Hurry.” Her word was a chant in his blood as he stretched out over her and settled in the cradle of her hips, his erection just brushing her entrance.
“Hurry.”
She was drenched and ready. He’d seen to that.
He could slide inside her in one hard, fast thrust, and drive them into oblivion.
But as he ranged over her, looking into the face illuminated by light spilling in from the hall, he paused, wanting to etch the moment into memory.
This brilliant, beautiful woman wanted him. Needed him.
And he needed her.
The truth of it washed over Sebastian and left him reeling. This was more, so much more than what he’d intended.
She cupped his jaw. “Sebastian.”
He saw his own vulnerability mirrored in her eyes and lost some of the frenzy.
So he didn’t hurry. Lacing his fingers with hers, he fixed his gaze on her face as he slowly flexed into her, one slow millimeter at a time.
He drank in every nuance of her expression as he filled her.
The friction was an exquisite torture, and his body trembled with the effort to maintain control.
When he was buried to the root in her tight, wet heat, he dropped his brow to hers. “Fuck, you’re perfect.”
Her body clamped around him as she arched up, tightening her legs around his waist, and his eyes all but rolled back in his head.
“You feel so good.”
Sebastian kissed her again and began to move, taking everything she gave of her body and more, until they were both gasping, and she was begging. Harder. Faster. More. More. More.
And as her orgasm struck her like a blow and the hard clench of her body dragged him over behind her, he knew when it came to this woman, he’d always have the same demand.
More.