Chapter 20
TWENTY
Ben
Every second of this evening since we agreed to our time-out seems to have been stretched into a minute. Every minute into an hour.
We’re in traffic back to Fifth Avenue, but it feels like time has frozen and tonight is going to last forever.
I feel like I’m bathing in Avril, soaking her in. It’s delicious torture. Of course, I could have cut our dinner short. I know from the way she’s looking at me, her gaze filled with lust, that once the decision was made, she just wanted to get back to the apartment.
But I don’t want tonight to be over.
“What are you thinking about?” I ask.
She turns her head from the window to look at me, her expression unreadable. “What do you think I’m thinking about?”
I glance toward my driver. There are a lot of answers I could give about now, but I’m not going to start something I can’t finish.
“How the next time you go back to the Met, you’ll see it in a new way because you’ve had it to yourself for the night?”
She narrows her eyes slightly. “Nope. Not even close.”
I chuckle and take her hand, threading her fingers through mine. I can’t remember going back to my apartment with her after Deacon and Aurora’s engagement party, but I’m pretty sure we didn’t hold hands. Holding hands isn’t something I do.
Eventually we get to my building, and my driver pulls up by my lift entrance.
Avril doesn’t wait until either I or the driver opens the door, because of course she doesn’t. I roll my eyes at her as I slam the door shut.
“What?” she asks as we head into the lift.
“You’re supposed to let me open the car door for you.”
“Why?” she says.
“Because I’m being gentlemanly.”
The corners of her lips twitch. “I hope your efforts to be gentlemanly don’t last once we’re upstairs.” She cocks her head and raises her eyebrows in challenge.
Heat flares in my body. I’m not sure how I’m going to keep my hands off her for much longer. I want to rip every piece of clothing off her. I hate how covered up she is.
“And by the way,” she says. “I had plenty to eat at dinner. There is no need for any omelet making.”
“Oh, I won’t be eating anything but you tonight.”
Her eyelids flicker, like her brain is short-circuiting at the thought of me going down on her.
She takes half a step toward me, and I can feel the heat between us spark and crackle. I don’t know if there is a camera in this lift. Given the security in this building, I imagine there is. And I don’t want to share her with some underpaid security guard. So I’m going to have to be patient.
The lift doors open and I exhale.
“Now, you’re mine,” I say.
She turns a full 360 degrees as she exits the lift. “Maybe.”
As soon as I’m out of the lift and in my foyer, I scoop her off her feet. She squeals and the sound travels right to my balls.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking the quickest route to my bedroom. You’re way too slow in those heels.”
“I’d be happy to take them off.”
“Absolutely not,” I growl. “I’m going to fuck you in them.”
She slides her hand over my jaw and looks at me with so much intensity, something inside me shifts. It’s such a small movement and she doesn’t say anything, but I know what she’s communicating. She’s telling me that what we’re going to do is far more than fuck.
It’s a terrifying thought, but it’s the only thing I want to do.
“It’s going to be good,” I reassure her, or both of us.
“I know,” she says. “Better than good.”
Fuck.
I set her on her feet as we get into my bedroom and we both stare at each other. It’s like we’re on the event horizon and the slightest movement will have us tumbling into a black hole that neither of us will ever come back from.
“I want you,” she whispers, as she slides her hand up my shirt and under my suit jacket, pushing it off my shoulders.
I want her.
More than I should.
“I want you too.” More than I’ve ever wanted any woman.
“You have me.”
I close my eyes at the overwhelming idea that what she’s saying might be true.
With my jacket off, her fingers find the waist of my trousers. But I’m not ready for that.
“Your turn,” I say, and I set to work undressing her. Carefully, finding the buttons and zips, peeling and pushing fabric this way and that until she’s completely naked apart from her shoes.
She’s a vision.
“You like to get me naked when you’re still dressed.”
She’s right, I do.
“I’m not focused on me. I’m focused on you.”
“But I want to see you too.”
Right now, I’ll do anything this woman asks of me.
I unbutton my shirt and shrug it off, then take off everything else until I’m completely naked standing opposite her.
I step towards her until we’re so close that we’re almost touching.
She pulls in a breath.
“Is that what you want? You want to see me naked?”
She nods. “Yes.” Her voice is a breathy whisper.
I cup her face with one hand and snake my other arm around her waist, pulling her toward me. Having her hot skin against my body is such sweet relief. It’s like this is what I’ve been waiting for, tonight but also…longer than that. Since the last time. But maybe even longer than that.
I sweep my lips against hers. She moans, and I push my tongue into her mouth.
She tastes delicious. The feel of her under my fingers, her chest pressed against my abdomen, her thighs against mine.
It’s almost overwhelming, and I deepen our kiss.
Her hands find my back and I want to cry out at how perfect her touch is.
How perfect tonight is. How perfect she is.
I want this time-out to last forever. Why have we waited this long to be together again? We’ve been living with each other, we slept in the same bed last night, why the fuck haven’t we been kissing, touching, fucking? It makes no sense.
I slide my hand down over her bottom and then lift her. Her legs circle my waist and I’m surrounded by her. Fuck it feels good.
I break our kiss and lay her back on the bed as I lean over her. I smooth my hands up her legs as I stand. “These shoes are…the only thing you should ever wear.”
“You want me naked all the time?”
“All the time.”
“What would you do with me?”
“Everything,” I say.
Her smile flickers on her face.
I press kisses up her inner leg, going higher and higher. When I get to her pussy, I kiss over her clit, sweep through her folds, once with my tongue and continue my journey kissing her other thigh.
“Ben,” she cries out.
I grin between kisses.
I sweep a hand down each leg and push them wide. My thumbs find her folds and I open her up. She’s wet and swollen and looks completely delicious.
“I’m so wet, Ben.”
“I can see,” I reply. I hold her gaze as I slide two fingers inside her. She coats me in her need for me, and my dick rears against my stomach. I trail my wet fingers up her pussy, and on her stomach, I write out in capitals B, E, N.
“You don’t need your name there to know I’m yours,” she says.
The room shifts a little, and I have to close my eyes and take a breath to steady myself. The idea that she could be mine? Beyond tonight?
I’m too worked up to go down on her now. I need to fuck her. I need to claim her. I need to show her she’s right—she’s mine.
I grab a condom and roll it on and take a deep breath. I don’t want to fuck this up and come as soon as I feel her around me. I press the tip into her, watching the end of me disappear. Fuck that feels good.
She shifts, and I can tell she wants more. She wants me deeper.
“You have to wait,” I command.
“Please,” she begs.
It takes everything I have not to slam right into her. I steady myself and pull out. Her whimper sends blood rushing to my cock. She’s desperate for me. I’ve never felt so powerful in my life.
“Don’t be greedy.”
I start to move in and out of her, half dazed by the delicious pressure that surrounds me, careful not to push in too far. I want this to last.
“Ben,” she cries out. “More.”
“You think you can handle me?”
“I want you, Ben.”
Our eyes lock, and I don’t know why, but it feels so intense, like a thousand confessions are passing between us, back and forth.
This is more than just a bet.
This is more than just sex.
This is something bigger.
More.
Everything.
Slowly, I push into her, taking my time, trying to zone out of how perfect she is, how it feels to have her surrounding me, how her mouth opens wider, the deeper I get.
As I reach the end of her, her eyes shut, like she’s achieved perfect bliss.
“Deep enough.”
“Always,” she says, as she trails her fingers over my shoulders.
A groan rips out of me and I lean over her, our bodies pushed together, me deep inside her. I start to move, trying to start a rhythm, but she feels so perfect that I’m not sure I’m going to be able to fuck her for long.
“Oh god,” she gasps. “I think—” Her body starts to tremble under me. It’s quick. But that’s what I do to her. That’s what we do to each other. It’s like our souls understand each other and direct our bodies to do the exact thing that we need at exactly the right time.
I push into her over and over and she cries out as her body convulses under me.
“Ben!” she cries out.
My name on her lips as she comes makes me feel like a fucking god. I get to fuck this woman, get to make her come, get to understand how she works and undo her.
Me.
How did I get so lucky?
I slow my pace as she drifts down from her orgasm and she opens her eyes. She gasps as I push into her again.
“Ben,” she says, reaching for me and pushing her fingers through my hair. It’s such an intimate gesture.
I push into her again, and she groans again.
“How do you do that?” She wraps her legs around me and the feel of her shoes against my skin sets something off inside me.
“Do what?” I ask. “Make you come?”
I’m so close now. She’s so wet and tight and she feels so good.
I dip down and capture her nipple in my mouth, grazing my bottom teeth against the nub.
She cries out and clenches all around me, and I go dizzy with the burst of pleasure.
I slam into her, picking up my pace, fucking and fucking because there’s nothing else I want to do, no place else I’d rather be than here with Avril.
I reach down under her arse and hold her in place so I can push deeper and deeper and deeper until I explode. She’s there with me, shuddering around my cock, milking every last drip of come from me like that’s the last time she’ll ever get fucked like this.
She’s wrong.
I step away, deal with the condom, and then get back to work.
She’s boneless and floppy after two orgasms, but I’m not done.
I maneuver us so I’m sitting behind her and she’s in my arms, her back to my front.
I hook my legs under hers and pull her thighs open.
I’m hard against her back. But now I want to make her come again.
I want her to know that I own her body. I slip my fingers through her folds, circling her juicy clit.
“You’re so wet.”
“You can make me come so easily.”
“Because I understand your body.”
“And you have an enormous cock.”
I chuckle. “I don’t need my cock to make you come.” I plunge my fingers into her and she arches against me. My thumb circles her clit and pushes through her folds as my fingers slip in and out of her.
“Ben,” she splutters. “Ben!”
“You see? You’re going to come again and my cock has nothing to do with it. I know your body.”
She groans and grabs my wrist like she’s trying to get me to slow down or stop. Except I know she doesn’t want me to. “Ben.”
“You’re so close again, aren’t you?”
“I want you inside me.”
“And you’ll have me. But not for this one. This one I want to feel against my hand.”
She arches again, her juices coating my hand as she starts to vibrate, and I feel like I’ve come home. To Avril.