CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO #2
“Last night, you said you were keeping me, as if I didn’t have a choice.” I swim around him until I reach the catercorner wall and hoist myself to perch on the travertine. “So, if I tell you this doesn’t work for me, you still won’t let me go?”
“Fuck no,” he growls, teetering on the manic edge of that snapping he mentioned.
“You’ll need to decide whether that makes me a controlling dick, a man obsessed, a friend with your best interest in mind, or a combination of all three.
” His teeth gnash, all his features sharpen, and his baby blues morph to a black abyss as he rakes them over me.
“But I will not be the asshole I used to be. I have no intention of fucking you when you’ve got one foot out the door. ”
I like his possessiveness more than I should.
“Noted.” I lean back on my hands and kick my legs in the water to the beat of “Come Together” by The Beatles. “Both feet are in the pool now.”
He doesn’t find my quip cute in the least. His focus darts to my breasts again, and the man appears to be battling something fierce. “Please go inside.”
“Or what?” I loosen the knot on the T-shirt and toy with the hem.
His molten eyes track every smidgen the material moves. “Or I’ll fuck all the choices out of you and chain your goddamn body to mine.”
There he is.
“Okay.” I pull the sodden T-shirt over my head, dropping it beside me, so that I’m in nothing but my red silk thong. “That’s what I want. Everything you said, but definitely that.”
In the span of one frenzied heartbeat, he leaps across the pool, throws me over his shoulder, and clomps up the steps.
I assume he’s carting me inside since I’m practically naked on the roof of his family’s penthouse, but he messes with his phone for a second before dropping it and sauntering over to a huge closet.
I can’t see what he’s doing at first, but I crane my neck to get a better angle, which also keeps all the blood from rushing to my face.
With my upper half still dangling behind him, he pulls out what appears to be a massive fabric float, tosses it into the pool, and jumps into the water with me.
He drags me down his body, fisting my hair and conquering my mouth the second my legs wrap around his waist.
Every swipe of his tongue is like the flick of a match.
Sparks and embers and kindling for a tinderbox of desire.
One I tried to snuff out, to no avail. We’ve long surpassed exploring each other.
This is determined decimation at its finest. His belief that we could set a forest on fire burns through our union.
Soaking wet and set aflame. Like our kiss in the ocean.
Our bodies writhe, and he presses me against him, revealing how untethered he is, how ravenous he is for me. And how ravenous I am for him.
“I want you inside me,” I mutter against his mouth, rolling my hips to grind against his steel-hard length and reveling in the groan he bestows upon me in response.
He yanks my head back, his lips trailing to the hollow of my throat and collarbone and back to my battering pulse point, where he sinks his teeth into me with an invigorating nip. “I should edge you all night for the hell you put me through.”
A perplexing cocktail of thrill and torment courses through me at the thought of him leaving me needy all night, but I don’t have time to dwell on either reaction because he tosses me onto the floating makeshift bed.
It bows slightly from my weight, but swiftly straightens out for him to tow me toward him.
My ass is butted up to the edge, and my legs dangle off it.
Without another word, he bites my thong, his teeth skimming my clit with the most delicious prickle. Then he tears the silk down my thighs. The strings on the sides graze my skin, and when I boost myself up on my elbows to watch, his eyes never veer from mine.
So hot.
He pushes my legs together and disappears beneath the surface, only to emerge a moment later with my soggy panties in his mouth. He flings them onto the travertine, not far from the shirt. They make a thunk when they land, a sundering gong before he announces his decision.
“I’m not going to deny you tonight because I’ve craved this too much.
” He shakes the water from his hair and face, spreads my thighs, and moves his mouth within an inch of my pussy, his breath fanning the sensitive skin.
“So, we’ll do the opposite. I came in my pants for you on your birthday. Now we’re doing things my way.”
“And what way is that?” I ask as he nips at my heat, and I buck my hips with a purr.
He chuckles, his grin equal parts wicked and wanton. “A marathon”—his flattened tongue sweeps over my cunt so slow and languid that it’s divine torture—“of you begging.”
He spears my opening with his tongue as his thumb circles my clit, and while I didn’t see the appeal of doing this on the plush raft initially, I get it now.
With the open sky and fresh air, the city lights and picturesque pool, and the sensation of hovering somewhere in the middle of it all, every touch and brush and caress is intensified.
I have very little leverage like this, but still, I manage to raise my hips in rhythm with his mouth.
My hand grips his wet strands to shove his face deeper into my pussy.
He grunts in approval, and I briefly wonder if he forgot about his promise to make me beg all night.
But I don’t dither there because every atom of my body is lit from the inside out.
A balmy breeze swoops over us, and the air against my dewy skin has goose bumps littering my arms and legs, all while Cash has lightning striking between my thighs.
His scruff scrapes my delicate flesh. I roll one of my nipples between my fingers, moaning as the euphoric storm crests in my core.
And when I’m right on the precipice, I lift my heel to the raft, forcing myself into him further.
In an instant, he rips his face away, that wicked grin even more sinister now. “Beg me, Palmer.”
My breaths pant out. My libido is an angry beast, but my pride is a stubborn bitch that’s not going to be reined in easily. War. “You said no edging.”
“I said I craved this, so”—he licks his lips, glistening with my arousal—“I wouldn’t deny you, but I also told you it would be a marathon of begging.
And by that, I mean, if you aren’t both satiated beyond all comprehension and hypnotized by the sound of your own hoarse voice, pleading, I haven’t done my job. ”
He swirls my clit with his tongue again, making my entire body jolt with need. “Greedy girl. What’s it gonna be?”
I grit my teeth to tamp down my hunger, letting my pride have another beat in the limelight, though mostly, I just enjoy pushing his buttons and upping the ante in his own game. “Looks like you might need to work a little harder if you want that type of response, Noire.”
“Good advice, Sly.” His hand comes out of nowhere, meeting my pussy with an unforgiving smack.
The sound cuts the night, melding with the fire-bowl fountains and an odd song from the ’80s. Stars flit before me, and a zing shoots up my spine. By the time his fingers and tongue resume their previous stations, tears brim in my eyes.
And that’s it. I can’t resist a bit of pain mixed with pleasure. Something he evidently learned in our steamy-bathroom soiree. It gets me every time. The thought of him stopping now is maddening.
So, with his eyes—practically obsidian from his desire—latched to mine, I relent. “Please, Cash, don’t stop.”
My conceded entreaty becomes a chant that might make my voice hoarse, but will absolutely accentuate my climax. I see the appeal.
“Good girl,” he praises. “Come on my face.”
He keeps to his word, circling and laving and planting himself between my thighs with unwavering devotion until I’m moaning and writhing and soaring with the inky clouds. Every muscle coils tight, only to rejoice with a tingling release.
A blustery gale of cinders and spoils and a bone-deep inferno.
Bathed in delirium to plunder a fortune.
And maybe since I’ve already conceded once, I don’t think twice about doing it again. I clutch his hair, pulling him up to me. “Shove that pretty pierced dick of yours inside me. Right now. Please.”
That earns me a chuckle.
“That’s my girl.” He strips off his swim trunks, throwing them to join the other garments on the travertine, and strokes his cock beneath the water. “Birth control?”
“Yes.”
“I was tested in April. I’m clean, and I’ve never gone bare before.” Hope and conflict clash in his eyes. “But if you want to see the results, we can pull them up on my phone or go down to my room and get a condom. I don’t have one up here.”
“I’m clean, too, and I trust you.” The moment the words leave my mouth, I realize how true that is. I’m confident that what he said is how it will always be—he’d never hurt me intentionally.
What’s even more profound is how exhilarating that statement is for him. His whole demeanor lightens. That’s all he wanted—to know that I trusted him.
He shifts me so my head is at the far end of the raft.
It must be at least six feet long, so there’s space beyond my feet.
Once he guides the float so the upper portion is docked on the sun shelf for extra support, he climbs up.
We rock, and it bows, but it seems sturdy enough for both of us.
He kneels in front of me, lifting my ass to rest on his thighs with my feet planted on his chest.
Amusement paints his face as he peers around us. “I made sure no one will come out here, so don’t worry about that. But this may have been one of those better-in-my-head ideas.”
The setting is undeniably romantic. Flames and water and the glow of the city reflected in the pool. Night air and cloudy skies. But, yeah, balance may be an issue.