Chapter Three #2
“I want to,” I say, and the words surprise me less than they should. I’d thought about his hands all night. I want to know what he sounds like when he stops holding it together.
His eyes darken, and whatever was holding him still snaps. “Then come here, little rabbit.”
I lift my hand to touch him but quickly pull it back. “Um.”
“Scared?” His voice is low and rough—daring me, the way it was meant to. Not soft. Not soothing. A challenge.
“Not of you,” I say, surprising us both. For a beat, neither of us moves. He’s watching me—those dark eyes pinning mine, hungry and patient at the same time, like he’s letting me feel the weight of what I just said. Like he’s giving me space to take it back.
I don’t take it back.
I step forward instead, close enough that I can feel the heat coming off him, close enough that my breath catches at the smell of him—soap and skin and something deeper that I don’t have a name for. His chest rises and falls slowly. Mine isn’t slow. Mine is racing.
I lift my hand and rest it lightly against his stomach—just there, palm flat against warm muscle, feeling him breathe under my touch. His abdomen tenses, and a low sound rumbles in his throat. His eyes never leave my face.
“Ashley.” My name in his mouth sounds like a question and a warning and a plea all at once.
“I know,” I whisper.
My fingertips trail up his stomach, mapping the ridges of muscle, learning the shape of him because I want to.
Because I’ve wanted to since yesterday. Up over the surgical scar at his shoulder—gentler there—and back down, slower this time, his skin hot and alive under my hand. He doesn’t move. He lets me touch him.
It’s the letting that undoes me.
This man, who answers to no one, who shouted at his brother to leave him alone, who growled at me on his front porch—he’s standing perfectly still and letting me put my hands on him. Letting me decide.
My fingers reach the waistband of his sweats and pause there. I lift my eyes to his.
He doesn’t speak. Just watches. Waiting.
I slide my hand into his sweatpants, and the moment I touch the warm skin of his erection, a low groan tears from his chest.
“Ah!” I gasp when he jolts against my hand, but I don’t pull back. My fingers close around him slowly, learning him the way I learned the shape of his stomach—exploring, careful, awed by the heat and the size of him.
I’ve come this far. I’m the one who crossed the line. I’m the one who’s going to keep crossing it.
I keep my eyes away from his as I wrap my hand around his girth, or try to anyway.
There is nothing little about him. He’s big, stiff, and very warm.
He inhales sharply when I start stroking him gently, and I force my eyes to his.
“Like this?” I whisper, sliding my hand up and down, hoping I’m doing it right.
“Too dry,” he says through clenched teeth.
“What—”
I gasp when his hand closes around my wrist, firm but unhurried, drawing my palm to his lips.
With his eyes locked on mine, he licks my palm—slow, deliberate, possessive—before guiding it back into his sweatpants.
The wet drag of his tongue against my skin sends pleasure rushing through my core, and I can’t look away from him. I don’t want to.
He guides me into stroking his cock, his hand a heavy weight over mine. He exhales sharply, and those eyes darken but he doesn’t look away from me once. Soon, the room is filled with his sharp intakes of breath, the needy whimpers that leave my lips, and the wet sound of skin meeting skin.
“Faster,” he rasps, his breathing growing labored. “Stroke me faster, little rabbit.”
“Don’t call me that,” I hiss, tightening my hand around him, to which I am rewarded by a loud groan.
“Fuck,” he growls, thrusting into the grip.
His hand tightens around mine as he guides me into stroking him faster and faster.
My panties grow damp and sticky, my core aching with need unlike anything I’ve felt before.
I ache, everywhere, and I crave his hands on me, but he doesn’t touch me.
He’s holding himself back—I can see it in the strain of his jaw, the way his free hand fists at his side. He wants to. He’s choosing not to.
“Close.”
“Huh?”
I get the warning only seconds before he explodes into my palm.
His muscles tense, and a shudder rolls through his body as wetness coats my hand.
He grunts roughly, keeping those dark eyes trained on mine, jaw clenched tight as he thrusts into my grip, spilling onto my fingers.
He guides me into stroking him slowly, drawing out the climax before he exhales harshly, a tremor running through his body once, twice before he releases my hand.
Slowly, I pull my hand out and finally break my eyes from his to stare down at it. My palm is streaked white with his release, the warmth of it surprising me, the musky scent less unpleasant than I would have guessed.
“Bathroom,” I whisper.
“Down the hall, second door to your left.”
I turn around and walk out of the room without a word and follow his direction, stepping into the bathroom and locking the door behind me. I run my hand under the tap and watch his cum wash away.
I shut my mind to all thoughts as I clean my hand, refusing to think of what this could mean for my career if it ever got out.
I take comfort in the small fact that this man doesn’t seem like the kind to engage in mindless gossip.
He’s not the type. The way he watched me—careful, possessive, like he was already deciding I was something worth keeping quiet about—that’s not a man who’s going to use this against me.
I don’t glance up at the mirror but simply turn around and head back to the workout room. Matt looks up, his gaze stopping me in place. He’s changed out of his gray sweatpants into black ones, and those dark eyes track me all the way back to him—assessing, claiming, deciding.
“Okay,” I say, my voice steadier than I expect. “Let’s begin the session now.”
He nods once. Just that. And we begin.