Chapter Thirteen #2
I turned on the couch, watching Christopher’s back as he rolled up his sleeves and started to rinse plates and cups before stacking them in the dishwasher.
I had no frame of reference for this kind of thing. So I was surprised to find that, apparently, watching a man do chores could be a kind of kink. Because I swear to God, something in me went from a flickering flame to an inferno when he sprayed down the table and started to wipe it clean.
It was from that position that he finally glanced over and saw me.
“You okay?” he asked, brows pinching.
“Yeah.” That totally didn’t come out squeaky or anything.
“You sure? You’re flushed.” He tossed his rag in the sink, washed his hands, and made his way over toward me. With his slutty rolled-up sleeves that were doing something to me. “Do you have a fever?” he asked, pressing the inside of his wrist to my forehead.
“No.”
“No, doesn’t seem like it,” he said, moving his hand to the back of my neck. “You’re a little warm, though. Want me to turn the heat down some more?”
“No. It’s cool enough in here.”
“But if you’re overheating…”
Maybe if he hadn’t sat down at the edge of the cushion with his body all pressed against my legs, I wouldn’t be overheating.
“I’m okay.”
“Maybe you just need to get some rest. How about I bring you to the bathroom to wash up, then you head to bed? It’s been a day.”
It was probably evidence of something fundamentally wrong with me mentally, but I overall had a pretty nice day.
Sure, there’d been pain and some guilt about Tuna not being taken care of when I’d been spaced out.
But I had Christopher storm into my life to take charge.
He got Tuna sorted, saw to cleaning me up, helped me get dressed…
The memory that had been buried somewhere beneath all the craziness of the day sprang back to the forefront of my mind.
Christopher. On his knees. Sliding my panties up my legs. That look in his eyes I knew was heat, even if he would never admit it. Like his mind was exactly where mine had been right at that moment.
“You’re getting even more flushed. Maybe I need to take your temperature.”
Before I could object (as if I was going to do such a thing), he had me scooped up in his arms and was walking me into the bathroom.
He set me on the counter before rummaging around and coming back with a temporal thermometer.
“Normal.” His brows furrowed. “Maybe it’s not working.”
“Chris?”
“Mm?” He was only half paying attention as he glowered at the thermometer.
“I don’t have a fever.”
“You’re really pink,” he said, setting down the thermometer with a sigh and focusing on my face.
“And it’s not from a fever.”
“The meds?” he asked.
“No. I don’t feel those anymore.”
“Then what?”
I shook my head at him and reached down to glide a fingertip up his forearm.
“Your slutty sleeves, that’s what.”
“My what?” He screwed up his brows, watching me like he thought I really had lost it. That not only did I likely have a fever, but it was high enough for me to be hallucinating or something like that.
“Your slutty sleeves. Well, I guess the sleeves themselves aren’t slutty. It’s the way they’re rolled up and the arms that are exposed.”
I watched realization dawn with a slow, cocky smirk on his lips.
“Really? Forearms are doing it for you? Been a while, huh?”
“I know. It’s stupid. I feel like a man from the 1800s who lost his mind over seeing a flash of ankle.”
“Losing your mind, huh?” he asked, his voice taking on that deep, raspy timber that came with interest, with attraction.
“Yeah. That whole wiping the table down thing was really doing it for me.”
“Doing what?” he asked, eyes going hazy with his own desire.
My gaze flicked down, then back up.
“You know what.”
“Do I?” he asked, his hips pressing against my knees in a way that he could have claimed was an accident.
Only when my legs parted for him, did he press into the space between.
My finger, still on his forearm, slid upward, moved over his elbow, his bicep, as I watched his gaze triangle between my eyes and my lips.
I watched the way he sucked in a breath, then exhaled it with a whispered, “Fuck it.”
He caught my mouth, and I moaned against his lips as a tremble of need moved through me.
The sound had his hands sliding up the sides of my thighs, over my hips, ribs, the sides of my breasts, then framing my face as he tipped my head back and deepened the kiss.
My own arms went up and wrapped around the back of his neck, pulling him closer as his teeth nipped my lower lip until a soft whimper escaped me.
A lazy ache curled up my spine, slow, relentless, as Christopher’s tongue teased over mine.
One of his hands moved down, sliding over my breast, his lips swallowing my whimper as his hand squeezed, his thumb teasing around the hardened point.
“Christopher,” I whimpered, using my legs to try to pull him flush against me so I could feel the outline of him where I was aching for the friction most.
But he wouldn’t let me pull him closer.
Instead, his hand glided downward, slipped into the waistband of my panties, and teased down my cleft.
A surprised cry escaped me, the sound swallowed by his soft hiss of a curse. “You’re so wet for me already,” he murmured, his lips near mine. All I could manage was a soft whimper as his thumb slid up to pass over my clit and two of his fingers slipped down, pressed in.
“Fuck,” he hissed, his forehead hitting mine as his fingers glided inside me, my walls tightening around them.
Christopher’s head ducked, his breath warm on my neck. “You need to be quiet for me, okay?” he murmured, his lips brushing my skin.
I nodded, not trusting myself to part my lips even to answer him as his fingers started to thrust, as his thumb began to circle.
I leaned in, pressing my face into his neck, pushing my lips against his skin, muffling my whimpers as he drove me up, up—
The jingle of keys in the lock had us springing apart.
A cry of disappointment escaped me, and I could see a similar look on his face as he quickly yanked the door open.
Just in time, it seemed.
“Just let me know when you need a lift to bed,” he called, sounding calm, casual, not like he’d almost been caught with his hands down my pants.
“Thanks,” I called back, kicking the door closed with my good leg before letting out a pathetic whimper.
I took a second to pull myself together before climbing off the cabinet, stripping, and hopping into the shower, all the while wondering how the hell parents tolerated interruptions like that.
And these were older kids. It must be a thousand times harder to get busy with nosy little kids around.
What, were you relegated to the middle of the night, quiet, missionary sex until the kids were older?
I suddenly felt the need to sit down with my sister and ask. Then offer to watch the kids so she and Brio could get a hotel room and bang as loud as they wanted.
It wasn’t until I was out of the shower and wrapped in a towel that I realized my mistake.
“Dammit.” I put on my boot and hobbled over to the door, cracking it. “Um, problem,” I called, spotting Christopher and Liam talking near the kitchen.
“What’s up?” Christopher asked.
“I forgot to bring any clothes in here.”
“I’ll grab you some,” Christopher said, shooting me a tiny smirk as he made his way into his room to fish around in the luggage that Brio had one of his associates drop off earlier.
He came back two minutes later with panties rolled up inside a t-shirt and shorts, along with my toothbrush.
I struggled into my clothes, brushed my teeth, then made my way out of the bathroom, finding Liam in his room with the door closed, and toward my temporary room.
Where I paused with another whimper caught in my throat.
Because Christopher’s clothes were in that room, and he was getting ready for bed too.
He stood there in nothing but a pair of scandalously low-slung black sleep pants… and nothing else.
I hadn’t been prepared for how fit the guy was under his clothes. But clearly, the man did something daily to keep himself in shape because there were some delicious indents I wanted to run my fingers and tongue through.
He shut his dresser drawer, coming out of it with a black tee in his hands. It was then that he noticed me standing there.
The smile he gave me was at once amused and regretful.
“That’s, um, sluttier than the sleeves thing,” I told him, getting a snort of laughter out of him as I clomped over to the bed, sat down, and removed the boot.
“Weren’t you supposed to sleep in that?”
“It’s too heavy. And I sleep on that side anyway, so it won’t be moving.”
“Alright,” he agreed, pulling his shirt over his head. “Don’t make me pull an ‘I told you so’ in the morning.”
“I will make sure not to hurt it just so you don’t get the pleasure of saying that,” I told him as I slid under the covers.
“I’m sure you are exactly that stubborn,” he agreed with a small smile before making his way to the door. “I’m right out there if you need me. I sleep lightly, so I will hear you if you call.”
“Thanks. I don’t think I’m moving from this spot now. Charlotte was right about this stupid pillow. And this blanket.”
“She’ll be glad to hear it. Goodnight, Alara.”
“Goodnight,” I said, hating the way my stomach clenched as he flicked off the big light, pulled the door, and disappeared.
Alone, I turned on the TV, unable to take the distant sounds of the street below and what sounded like a couple fucking a floor above, but, thankfully, not directly over my head.
I was having enough issues already trying to think past my own desire.
I didn’t need to listen to someone else reach completion while I was still feeling a deep ache between my thighs.
I stared out the window, listening to the drone of the TV, expecting to fall asleep quickly, given how long the day had been.
But I just kind of powered down while still managing to stay awake.
Though I must have drifted off slightly at one point because I heard nothing. I didn’t notice anything being awry.
Until a body slid in behind mine and a hand pressed over my mouth.
“Shh,” Christopher murmured in my ear as his hand wasted no time sliding into my panties and started to work me like he’d been doing earlier. “Couldn’t sleep knowing I didn’t get to feel your pussy clenching around my fingers.”
His words sent a shiver through me as his fingers started to thrust. Slowly at first, then faster as I rocked and writhed against him, my sounds muffled against his palm.
He was just as turned on as I was, his hard length pressing against my ass. But his full focus was on me, on driving me up slowly, but relentlessly.
“There you go,” he said, his lips on my ear. “Come for me.”
Everything clenched and released, the pleasure pulsing through me as Christopher groaned in my ear.
As soon as the climax released its hold on me, his fingers were sliding out of me, then my pants.
He pressed a kiss to my neck, then he rolled off the bed.
“Wait,” I called, turning onto my back.
“Not tonight,” he said, watching me as he slipped his fingers into his mouth, letting out a groan as he tasted me.
With that and nothing else, he disappeared like he’d never been there.
As for me, I drifted right off.
And slept like the dead.
Apparently, all my touch-starved self needed to sleep well was an orgasm.
Though I had a sneaking suspicion that it was less the orgasm itself and more to do with the man who gave it to me.