51. “I can do it better.” #2
His body bucked, and a raw sound tore out of him. His hands lifted from the back of the couch before he caught himself and slammed them down hard enough to make the frame protest.
I pulled away immediately.
“Still behaving?”
“Yes.”
His fingers flexed open and closed. His breathing had gone rough. “Yes,” he repeated.
“Good boy.”
I took him into my mouth again, slower this time, my tongue working along the underside while my hands stroked what I couldn’t fit.
His thighs trembled beneath my hands. Every muscle in him fought the urge to move.
I liked knowing he could stop me whenever he wanted.
I liked even more that he did not.
“Had enough?” I asked.
No answer.
“I haven’t.” I licked another line up his dick. “You taste good, Hale.”
He shuddered.
“Fine,” I said, starting to pull back. “I’ll stop.”
The sound that left him was too rough to be a word.
I paused. “No?”
“No.” The word came through his teeth.
“That’s what I thought.”
I rose and settled over his lap again.
His whole body went still beneath me, blindfolded and breathing hard, strong enough to end the game whenever he wanted and choosing instead to wait for what I gave him.
“You want to touch me?” I asked.
His answer came immediately, hoarse. “Yes.”
“Where?”
His mouth curved without humor. “You sure you want that list?”
Heat climbed my throat. “Let’s start here.”
I guided him into me and sank down slowly. The stretch pulled a breath from both of us. I stayed there, seated fully over him, and rolled my hips once.
“How’s that?” I whispered.
“More.”
“Don’t get greedy.”
“Keep teasing me, sugar.” His voice had gone low and rough. “When you finally turn me loose, I’m going to fuck every smart word out of your mouth.”
Heat rushed over my skin. Fuck, this man turned me on.
“Promise?” I murmured.
His chest rose beneath my palms.
“Let me touch you.”
“No.”
The couch creaked.
I kissed him before he could argue.
Frustration sharpened every movement of his mouth. His hands stayed where they belonged, but his restraint was no longer effortless.
I could feel it thinning beneath me.
I set the pace. Slow, because slow was worse for him, and I had learned that within the first ten minutes. Every time I sank down, the leather strained under his hands. Every time I lifted, he stopped breathing.
He pushed up half an inch as though he wanted to follow, then caught himself and held still. Sweat gathered at his temples, and the tendons stood out in his forearms.
“Darlin’,” he said. “Let me.”
“Not yet.”
I kept going until I could no longer be clever about it.
Until the rhythm stopped being a choice, my arms winding around his neck as I pulled him close, my breath somewhere I could not get it back from.
He knew.
His whole body strained toward me and stayed exactly where he had promised it would.
“Yasmine. Honey. Baby. Please.”
I could have strung this along, and he would have let me. But as much fun as this was, he was right about one thing. I did like him in control.
I leaned close enough for my mouth to brush his. “Now.”
His hands came off the couch. That was all the warning I got.
One caught the back of my neck. The other locked around my waist, and his hips punched up so hard I cried out. He tore the blindfold away and his mouth crashed into mine as he stood.
I grabbed his shoulders and locked my legs around his waist as he took us to the floor.
“Hale—”
He caught both my wrists, pinned them above me, and drove into me hard enough to knock every clever thought out of my head.
His patience was gone.
His hand closed harder around my wrists, his mouth found the side of my throat, and every thrust dragged a broken sound out of him that he had refused to give me on the couch.
“Yes,” I breathed.
His head lifted.
The look he gave me should have warned me.
It did not.
His free hand caught my thigh and drew it higher against his side, changing the angle until the next stroke made my vision flash.
A cry broke out of me.
“That all I get?” he hissed.
“Fuck me. Fuck me just like that. I want to feel you in my throat.”
He did it again.
The room fractured around us into cicadas, sunlight, the rough drop cloth beneath my back and Hale above me, done holding himself back.
The pressure built low and fast. I pulled against his grip, no longer sure whether I wanted my hands free or wanted him to hold them tighter.
He held them tighter.
His pace changed. Harder. Deeper.
His mouth came down over mine as I came apart beneath him, my body tightening around his, his name breaking against his lips.
His control went with mine.
A rough sound tore out of him as he buried himself deep and held there, his forehead dropping against my shoulder.
For several seconds, neither of us moved.
Then he released my wrists.
His hands slid beneath me, gathering me closer as he lowered his weight carefully, one arm braced beside my head.
We stayed like that for a while, breathing hard and sweating against each other as the room came back in stages. The cicadas first. Then the hammer lying where I’d dropped it, dust turning in the light from the window we still hadn’t finished framing.
Hale pressed his mouth to the side of my throat and left it there, breathing.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hey,” he said against my skin.
“You never answered me,” I said.
“Mm.”
“Earlier. What you get out of it.” The drop cloth was rough under my shoulders and I did not care even slightly. “You gave me a line and I let you have it because I was ahead.”
“You were not ahead.”
“You were on the defensive.”
He rolled onto his back and took me with him, and I ended up against his chest listening to his heartbeat. Above us the molding hung off the ceiling at an angle, still half attached, exactly where I’d left it.
“So?” I poked a finger in his side.
“I gave you the answer. You decided it was a line.”
I lifted my head off his chest. “Making me feel good.”
“Mm.”
“Hale.”
“I like it because you like it.” His voice had gone lazy, but the answer came without hesitation.
I squinted at him. “Fine, don’t tell me.”
I started to push up, but his hand curled around me and tugged me back.
“I did.” He stroked the side of my neck, tipping my head back until I met his eyes. “You want it plainer?”
“Yes, please.”
“You get loud. You stop thinking. You get wet and you stay wet, and you say things you’d call me a liar for repeating later.” He shrugged underneath me. “I like you like that. I like being why.”
I blinked at him.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“That’s it?”
“Never done any of it with anybody else, if that’s worth something to you.” He said it without ceremony. “Didn’t come up before. Came up with you.”
A silly smile stretched my mouth before I could stop it.
His hand settled on my ass. “Like that, huh?”
“I do,” I said, and put my head back down on his chest.
His mouth moved against my hair. “I’m a simple guy, darlin’.”
“Apparently.” I snuggled in closer. “The molding’s still coming down.”
“You’re still not getting back on that ladder.”
I sighed. “Did you learn nothing?”
His mouth curved, his eyes closed. “Learned plenty.”