Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Her own sated shouts threatened to pull her from the ecstasy of her orgasm, but Honesty refused to allow reality to intrude so soon. She would ride out her satisfaction, and she would enjoy every nuanced second of it.
When her thighs were shaking and her breath was thin, only then did Dante ease her panties back over her bare skin, climb her body, and place two sweet kisses onto each of her breasts.
Then his naked chest was resting on hers, his nose nuzzling her cheek. “Better than any single bite of food I’ve ever eaten in my life.”
Her laugh was throaty, weak. She didn’t care if that made her transparent. She hummed when he rested his cheek against hers, her hand once again finding his hair and toying with its length. “You need a haircut.”
“I know. I got busy.”
“Some things never change.”
Only then did she sober. The conversation was so…them. A conversation they’d had back when they’d dated. He had always needed a haircut. He had always put off making an appointment. She had always pointed out when it’d been time to make one.
His expression showed no sign of that memory intruding. He leaned over and snagged a crostini and crunched into it, the honey dripping off the ricotta and trickling down his chin.
She licked it off, smooching his bottom lip when she was done. “Famished already?”
“Fueling up for the big one.” He nudged her center with what she knew for certain was his “big one.”
She propped herself up on her elbows and then ate the rest of the crostini when he fed it to her. When he offered a fig, she ate that too.
“Should we talk before—?” she started to ask.
“No.” He forked a buttery scallop and ate that next. “We should only do what feels great right now. We can talk after.”
“About…?”
“Whatever you want. I’ll be very agreeable.” He dropped the fork, grabbed the champagne bottle and eyed her naked torso. One of his eyebrows lifted and dropped. “Don’t make me regret saying that.”
Hand in hand they walked to the bedroom as he tipped the gold-labeled bottle to his lips and sucked down some bubbly.
When they were next to the bed, he turned and spilled champagne down her front. She gasped when the cold liquid contacted her warm skin, but soon he was licking the path from her breasts down to her stomach.
“Now I’m going to be sticky,” she complained. “And you’ll have to sleep in sticky sheets.”
He set the bottle on the nightstand with a thunk. “Don’t care.”
“You might.”
He kissed her long and slow. So long and so slowly that she almost forgot what they had been talking about when he finally came up for air. “Unless you’d rather do it in the shower.”
“‘Do it,’” she quoted. “So charming.”
He tweaked her nipple with his fingers, cradling her close at the same time. “Would you rather I say make love?” When she wrinkled her nose, his eyes narrowed. “I know you wouldn’t like it if I said I could fuck you in the shower.”
Her breath caught. She hadn’t been expecting him to say that.
His eyebrows shot up. “Really? Well, that’s new.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.” He released her to shuck his pants, shoes, and socks.
Then he bent and rolled her underwear down her legs.
She stepped out of them one foot at a time.
As he stood, he kissed her thighs, her hip, her belly button.
When he reached his full height she was out of breath and a tad feral.
She rested her wrists at the back of his neck, pushed to her tiptoes, and placed her lips against his. Without kissing him, she whispered, “I would love if you would fuck me here on the bed. On my knees. And then you can fuck me in the shower.”
His eyes darkened to black, like a shark that spotted its prey. She felt more powerful than ever, so she decided to continue…
“And after you can fuck me bent over the counter, and then, if you’re still up for it—”
He caught her unsaid words in his mouth. His erection was rock hard and pressing into her torso.
“No deal on the knees thing,” he growled as he palmed her ass and lifted her into the air.
He laid her on her back on the bed and was on top of her before she could blink. His length was snuggled against her and he caressed her center, each shift gliding against her clit.
She cried out.
“I have condoms,” he told her before another mind-numbing slide caused her to see double. “Unless you want to go bareback. I can promise a very clean ride.”
She clawed at his back. That sounded incredible. “I’m on the pill and have a clean bill of health.” It seemed an inconvenient conversation, especially when she wanted him to tilt his hips and drive into her, blanking her mind of this nuisance of a topic.
“I suspected.” He kissed her mouth gently, his palm sliding along her ribcage. “Say the word, Honesty. And I won’t hold back.”
She looked up at his handsome face, his earnest expression, framed by hair that was a touch too long. He was not the boy she’d fallen in love with eight years ago. That boy had gone away and become a man—a man with a skillset in bed that rivaled his twenty-one-year-old counterpart.
She would have been crazy not to take him up on this offer of sex. To indulge, and bury what was unresolved between them in high-thread-count sheets and expensive champagne.
She licked his bottom lip, and then his top lip, and then whispered what they both wanted to hear. “Fuck me, Dante. Please.”
He rewarded her in the best way, driving into her smoothly. But instead of pulling out and pushing in again, he froze, his member pulsating against her vaginal walls.
“Fuck me,” he repeated, but it wasn’t a command. More like he was cursing his inability to think straight. “You are tight. Wet.” He kissed her slowly. “Hot. And you requested at least three rounds.”
“Afraid you can’t hang in there?” Her breath caught as he pushed in deeper than before. She was filled with him, surrounded by him. As close as she could be without becoming him…
“I am not afraid of anything. I’m up for as many rounds as you want. Did you mean it?” He tugged out of her and slid in slower than before.
“I meant it.” Her eyes rolled back. “Please.”
“Stop saying please.” He weaved his fingers with hers and pressed her hand over her head. His other hand tucked under her ass. He tilted her hips up and sank in again.
She cried out.
“That’s what I want to hear. More of that,” he said with some effort. She wrenched her eyes open to take in his muscular frame, the taut biceps standing in stark relief as he held her hand in his, and the look of sheer concentration on his face.
Committed to his task, he kept rhythm while paying particular attention to the angle of her hips. He found her G-spot without error. When her cry of approval became higher and more desperate than any before it, he knew he’d struck gold.
That was when he focused on her face, his eyes never leaving hers. He untangled their fingers to nest his hands in her hair. His hips continued slamming into hers, her thighs taking the shockwaves, as he repeatedly hit the bullseye of a target he was incapable of missing.
Her mouth was open, her cheeks hot and flushed. She kept her eyes on his as she spun out—out of this room, out of this city, out of this galaxy…
Pressure built within her, intensifying until she couldn’t hold it in any longer. Only then did she let go, pulsing around him as she cried out again and again.
She didn’t have to wonder if she’d pleased him back. His shouts of release followed. He dropped his face to the bed, his guttural groans coating her ear and sending shivers down the length of her body.
He collapsed into her, her ass still cupped by his hand, his fingers still caught in her hair. His breathing slowed gradually, his weight pressing her deeper into the bedding.
“Fuck me,” he rasped before biting her earlobe.
She heard herself laugh. Again. She couldn’t seem to help herself. Being with him made her happy.
“I don’t know whether to say thank you or you’re welcome,” she said.
That drew a hoarse laugh from him. Only then did he pull his face from her neck to look down at her.
Their smiles faded at the same moment, the intensity of what had happened settling between them.
There was sex. There was fucking. And then there was whatever that was. Not quite making love, but close.
Nervously, she licked her lips and sorted through her head until she found the words to ease the tension of this moment. Because she couldn’t—wouldn’t—gaze up into her ex-boyfriend’s eyes and feel what she was tempted to feel right now.
Instead of traipsing into a war zone littered with heartbreak, she asked, “Why didn’t you want me on my knees?”
From within her he stirred to life again. He tilted his head and gave her a look of warning before sliding free of her body. She shut her eyes and enjoyed it, only opening them when he spoke.
“We’ll get there.” He pushed himself off the bed, his feet on the floor, his fists bracketing her body. “If not tonight, then eventually.”
“Eventually?” She pursed her lips. “I might not be available ‘eventually.’”
“Two weeks, Honesty.” His tone didn’t allow for any argument from her. “Give me two weeks.”
Two weeks wasn’t a one-off sweet treat. Two weeks was a binge. A habit. A way of living that she shouldn’t attempt or get used to.
But two weeks was also a lot of orgasms. A lot of feeling really good. And sex was healthy, she further amended. If masturbation cured migraines, imagine what multiple orgasms from Dante might do for her.
“You’re smiling. That looks like a yes,” he pointed out.
“Well, it’s a very good deal. Luxury penthouse in the sky, a bed the size of my office. Fine wine. Good food…”
“…a gorgeous naked woman singing my praises.”
“I didn’t sing.”
“Oh, you sang. You sang like a fucking canary.” He laughed at his own dumb joke and then kissed her on the lips. “Get your very fine ass in the shower. We have more work to do.”
Even having just come, a thrill shot through her body at the offer of more sex. And her mind buzzed with another type of thrill—knowing she didn’t have to do everything she wanted to do with him in one single solitary night. Apparently, they had two glorious weeks.
The only thing she had to remember was to keep her wits about her, not to let these two weeks mean more than they did. It was simply convenient for both of them. And fun. A hell of a lot of fun.
As she stepped into the huge walk-in shower, she released every thought from her head that remotely resembled a warning. She was a grown woman who was in charge of her faculties.
She would be seeing him again anyway, because she had more questions about the nonprofit. And if they were going to be seeing each other, they might as well see each and every inch of each other while enjoying life to the fullest.
It was the least she deserved after the hectic year she’d had. And as much of a gift as this was to her, she understood that this was a gift for him too.
The feeling being mutual made this arrangement easier to accept. They could indulge and then walk away.
No regrets.
No shame.
And definitely no falling in love.