Chapter 23
Niall
Several hours later, Niall was lying on the couch staring at the fire when Carli appeared in the doorway.
Naked.
Fuck!
‘Woah, Cass!’ He shot up.
‘I just got out of the bath and I’m kind of hot.’ She twirled tendrils of damp hair round her finger. ‘But I can put my robe on if you’d rather.’
Niall paced across the room, never taking his eyes from her. ‘No,’ he growled, moving towards her. ‘Come here.’ Then, after a beat, he added, ‘Are you okay?’
She nodded, gazing up at him, her dark, weighted lashes blinking slowly like semaphore that said ‘kiss me’, and smiling in a way that knocked any remaining willpower of his for dead.
He was done for. Gone.
Niall crushed his mouth to Carli’s, possessing her with his kiss, the way he wanted to possess everything about her, from her smile, to her incredible soul, to that place of perfection between her legs. He never wanted to let any of this go again.
Running his touch down the soft skin of her back onto the smooth, curved globes of her ass, he pulled her to him so her stomach was flush with his erection.
‘Feel what you do to me, Cass? You feel it?’
‘I feel it. And I want it inside me.’
‘Oh, you’re going to get it inside you, angel. Again and again and again. I’m going to remind you how good we can be together.’
‘Good. Because I’ve been imagining that a lot these past few days.’
‘Oh, have you now?’ Niall leaned one palm on the wall behind Carli and sank his hand down between those exquisite legs, sliding his finger through her slick heat.
She was soaking. It couldn’t be the bathwater; she was wet from wanting him. And, boy, did that ratchet him up to one hundred.
‘This for me?’ he asked. ‘This…’ Raising his finger to his lips, he sucked Carli’s juices from it.
‘…Fuck, you taste even better than last night.’ Niall sunk his fingers in and out of her again, then dabbed an imprint of Carli’s own arousal onto the soft rosy skin of her bottom lip, pulling it back as he swiped down to her chin.
‘Tastes good, huh?’
She nodded, cheeks flushed pink. God, she was art incarnate.
All ripe from the bath and the fire, coiled up with sexual need.
So natural, so vulnerable. The way she’d casually wandered into the lounge with nothing on only highlighted what he’d been entrusted with, and the compulsion he had to look after her, to protect her from pain and bring her only pleasure was never more potent than right here and now.
Carli gazed at him whilst toying with the collar of his flannel shirt and licking the exact piece of lip where his thumb had been, eyes glinting with devilment. She might be vulnerable, but she wasn’t shy or innocent. This was first-class teasing and feral need rode roughshod through Niall.
He unbuttoned and shrugged off the shirt, let it fall away, and yanked off the tee underneath.
How the hell did we go seventeen years without this?
He licked his thumb and forefinger and rolled Carli’s nipple, swiping the pad over the tip, noticing the tiny shock of air she gasped in.
How have we gone seventeen years without each other?
‘I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, Cass.’ Niall tucked her hair behind her ear and whispered. ‘I am going to take this beautiful body and I’m going to make up for all the lost years by fucking you exactly how you need.
‘Please. Yes.’ Carli trailed her fingernail down the centre of his torso, teasing towards the line of hair that led into his jeans. Glacially.
Well, he’d let her take her time. The pain was pleasure. Her doing it slow made him harder. The anticipation of revealing what she did to him was the mother of all turn-ons.
Buttons undone, zip down, Carli tugged at Niall’s jeans so they rested on his hips, affording her the freedom to drop and kiss the strip of hair that ran from his belly button to the band of his underwear.
With her nose, she planted sweet little nuzzles, tapering into licking him like he was made of syrup.
Up and down, the tip of her tongue painting a line towards his cock, away from his cock, towards his cock, breathtakingly feral in her action, like licking only him could sate her appetite.
‘Holy Christ, Cass!’
She tugged forward the band of his underwear, pulling it down to the same point as his jeans, enough to let him spring free.
Thank fuck for that.
The way she was handling him was sublime. There was already pre-cum glistening on his head. Carli spotted it too, rubbed it with her pinkie and brought the finger to her tongue whilst looking him dead on.
Jesus! Is this real?
Glancing at his cock again, palm curved around it like she owned it, which, as far as he was concerned, she did, Carli licked her own lips then placed a delicate kiss on the blunt end. She raised her gaze to his and looked at him with those dark eyes glittering like Australian night skies.
‘Oh, Niall,’ she said. ‘You know, it’s only ever been you.’
Niall groaned. ‘Fuck, Cass. You’ve destroyed me.
Come here. Please.’ She stood and his mouth fell to hers, hovering millimetres from her swollen lips.
‘It’s only ever been you for me, too.’ He kissed his words over that decadent cupid’s bow, onto the mound of her top lip and into her hot, hungry mouth, leaving them there for her to hold on to while he would make good on his promise to fuck all the tension away.
‘Let’s go to bed,’ he muttered. He was going to show her why they belonged together. Would prove that he meant it when he said it had only ever been her. Niall wanted forever with this woman, and he had to make her believe it.
Barefoot, with his jeans hanging off his hips, he scooped Carli up and carried her down the hall.
‘I love your kisses,’ she said in a flurry of tenderness. ‘I always loved your kisses. I’m so glad you were my first.’
Turning to look at her, Niall was a goner. He couldn’t even begin a response with the words ‘I love’ because it would end up coming out with way more than he should declare right now.
‘Same here, Cass,’ he said. He kicked the bedroom door open, a lemony glow from a bedside lamp lighting up the space, the warmth of the room enhanced by the now driving wind and rain outside, the bed in the centre of the room tastefully fitted with white cotton linen.
‘Nice clean sheets to get dirty on.’ Niall placed Carli down on the pristine duvet. ‘And, by the way,’ he said, tenderly cupping her cheek in his palm, ‘you being my first was the best thing that ever happened to me. Question is, are you ready for me again?’
Carli inched herself up the bed, and with her knees coquettishly tipped together in a pose that he was desperate to prise apart, she said, ‘I’m so ready.’
Kneeling on the crisp cotton, Niall coaxed her knees from one another. ‘I need to make sure.’
Dropping down, he buried his face into Carli’s soft heat and let his tongue explore every hot and swollen moment of her, lapping at the sweet tang of her arousal, her urgent whimpers fuelling his need to satisfy her and to bring his name to her lips, to hear the affirmation that he was it for her. Because for him she was absolutely it.
‘Nothing has ever come close to this.’ Niall sunk his fingers inside her. ‘You drive me insane.’
‘Mmm. Show me what I do to you,’ she intoned, evidently needing to see as much as he needed to show her. ‘I missed you.’
‘Since the hall?’
‘Yes, and half my life.’
Niall reeled. His heart was entirely out to sea with this woman.
And this. This thing they had. Holed up here in a tiny little cottage on the end of a rocky peninsula in his home country of Scotland.
It was about so much more than a desperate longing for each other’s bodies.
Tonight was about Carli forgiving him. Putting her trust in him again.
And letting him show her what he could be for her.
After everything he’d put her through, that blew his mind and fired up every protective neuron in his brain.
Never again would he take her trust for granted. Never.
Because she deserved to feel only pleasure, never pain.
‘Me too, Cass. I’ve spent half my life missing you, too.’
‘Show me,’ she said, as if his hard cock was proof of how much he’d missed her.
Raising himself up on his knees, Niall showcased exactly what Carli did to him, a throbbing vein pulsing down its length.
‘I’ve got a lot of making up to do,’ – he palmed his erection – ‘will this ease the pain I caused?’
‘It might obliterate it.’
Fuck. Her talking about him like that made it harder than ever. And witnessing her need was like looking in a mirror. That had always been the thing about him and Carli; everything was mutual – and now they were in this together.
‘But first,’ she said, and all he could do was watch as she crawled towards him. ‘I need to finish what I started.’
This wasn’t an offer Niall would or could refuse, although he wouldn’t compromise on his promise to protect her from pain. ‘Are you sure?’ he said. ‘I don’t want you to hurt yourself.’
‘Bit big-headed, isn’t it?’ she winked, and laughter shot out of him like a bullet.
‘I meant with the Fibr…’
‘Shhh. I’m fine. I know my own limitations. Stand up, gorgeous.’
What else could Niall do? Stunned into submission, he watched as Carli took his cock into her firm, warm grip and worked her own magic on it.
Flames licked through his entire body.
Then, when she slid him into her hot mouth, he feared his legs might give way. Holy fuck! It was out of this world sensational.
She raised her gaze to him, olive skinned and flawless, naked brown eyes searching for confirmation that he was enjoying it, and his heart almost exploded.
Threading his fingers through her damp hair, he grasped the strands, carefully but confidently.
It wouldn’t be long and he’d be losing it into her mouth.
‘Cass.’ Niall took her head in his palms and eased back out of her. ‘I’m not coming like this. It has to be in you. No arguments.’