Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Laurence…” Ellen moaned.
A quiver of pleasure passed through her, starting in her breasts and traveling all the way down to her toes, as his tongue and hand worked in tandem against her center.
Pleasure had reverberated throughout her core as he had burrowed his head between her thighs and slaked his thirst in those first few moments, but she’d never felt anything so exquisite as the tender touch he was paying to her body now.
Ellen let her head loll back as she gave herself over to him, feeling her body sink deeper into the couch with every stroke of Laurence’s tongue. She had fought him so hard, and she could not help but feel that his mouth and hand were now rewarding her for that determination.
She was still mad, if only a little, that Laurence had allowed her to get so aggressive—that he had not blocked the swipes and slaps and kicks she’d given to him when he so easily could have. But she would think about that later, when a mighty wave of pleasure was not building between her thighs.
“Do you have any idea how sweet you taste?” Laurence rasped, his lips still brushing against her most sensitive place as he spoke.
Ellen blushed at his words, both spurred on by his praise and embarrassed that he’d said such a blunt thing. She shook her head, thrashing against the pillow beneath her.
“Would you like to?” he asked, his deep voice dripping with sinful promise.
Ellen’s lashes flew up at his words, and she sat up just enough to give him an incredulous look.
The moment she saw him between her thighs, his mouth pressed against her mons, and eyes so dilated that they were nearly black, she nearly fainted.
She’d never seen such a mask of pure pleasure before, and something wicked within her rejoiced in the look on Laurence’s handsome face.
The word no was on her lips, but it couldn’t break free before Laurence swiped his tongue over that sensitive spot at the top of her mons, and his finger thrust deep inside her.
Pleasure flooded, breaking through a dam she didn’t know existed, and she threw her head back in ecstasy as his name, rather than the word no, exploded from her lips.
Her nerves trembled as pleasure coursed, over and over again throughout her body, leaving her breathless, limp and dizzy.
Laurence rose from between her thighs as he dragged his thumb through her slickness one last time, and brought it to her parted lips.
Still panting from her release, Ellen felt him drag his wet thumb across her bottom lip, then over the top.
Fresh heat flooded into her cheeks as she realized what he was doing, but before she could ask him to wait, his thumb was sliding into his mouth and rubbing over her tongue.
Sweet musk exploded on her taste buds, and with it, her want to say no vanished.
She suckled his thumb further into her mouth, swiping her tongue boldly over the tip of the finger.
A tortured groan erupted from Laurence’s chest, and before she could take a breath, his thumb was gone, and his lips were crushing against hers.
They kissed one another greedily as Ellen’s hand boldly snaked between them and cupped the bulge straining against his trousers.
Laurence broke away with a groan and bucked his hips into her hand as if he needed her to continue.
Emboldened by the shift in power, Ellen’s touch grew bolder.
She slipped her hand between the waistline of his trousers and his flesh, and as her fingers wrapped around his girth, she gasped.
She had known he was big. She’d felt it the last time she’d writhed in his lap like some wanton creature in heat.
But now? With him pulsing, long and hard in her hand, she had no idea such parts could be so large.
With no instruction to go on, Ellen found her own rhythm, stroking him as she swirled her thumb over the tip, and was deviously pleased as she found wet droplets forming there.
She swirled her palm over the liquid, then drew her hand back down in a stroking manner.
Laurence uttered her name—a sound so feral and desperate that it took her breath away as his hips began to buck into her palm.
He had made her come apart, and now she wanted him to unravel.
“Now I wonder what you taste like,” she confessed, blushing at her own wicked words.
Laurence’s lust-filled eyes widened as his lips parted on a ready moan.
“Are you as sweet as I am?” she wondered aloud as her strokes grew bolder and faster. “Or do you have a taste entirely your own?”
A curse broke from Laurence’s lips as he pressed his forehead against hers.
“You are perfect in your wickedness. Do you know that?” he gritted out, his deep voice growing more feral by the second.
“You transform me into something else. Something I have—” His words cut into a low groan as she squeezed his shaft, and his entire body went rigid. She pumped her fist again, and as he roared, hot liquid shot over her hand as she felt him grow impossibly hard and begin to spasm in her grasp.
For the next several moments, the only sounds that filled the room were their breathless panting.
They did not move. Did not break, nor did they move closer, as they both drifted back into their bodies.
Then exhaustion hit Ellen with force. She slid her hand away from Laurence’s still-pulsing shaft, and she weakly wrapped her arm around his lower back.
She found it sweat-slicked, and grinned at the knowledge that it was she who had made him perspire.
Then, Laurence lifted his head. The look in his eyes had her grinning and her satisfaction dropping instantly.
“Laurence?” she asked.
The pleasure in his gaze had faded, and that black that had eaten up the green of his eyes was now pressed tightly back into tiny center circles around his irises. He swallowed, the action seeming forced, and he pulled himself away from her.
Brows furrowed, Ellen lifted herself up onto her elbows and watched him as he picked up his ruined shirt.
“Did…did I do something wrong?” she asked.
“No,” he snapped, and she flinched at the coldness in his voice.
He looked to her, for a moment almost appearing apologetic, then his expression hardened again as he looked toward the crackling fireplace.
“I burned your dress,” he said after a stretch of tense silence. “I did not mean to.”
Ellen sat up, using the pillow to cover herself as she looked to the fireplace. Sure enough, she could see the burned edges of her buttercream dress sticking out from the grate.
“I have others,” she said, not sure what else to say.
Silence stretched between them again.
“That was…” Laurence began to say. He expelled a breath, his eyes still on the flames as he ran a hand through his tousled hair. “That was too much. Too far. I should not have pushed you.”
Heat licked at her cheeks as Ellen looked around the room, searching for anything to cover herself.
Her gaze landed on a jacket Laurence had abandoned on the back of his leather desk chair, and she stood to get it.
Her legs trembled with every step, giving her another reminder that just moments ago they had both been in the throes of passion and neither had cared about the clothes they had lost.
“You did not push me into anything,” she said, pulling the large jacket over her much smaller frame. “I asked you to make me forget, and you did.”
A scowl settled over Laurence’s features, but he still did not look at her.
“I lost myself. This is not what I promised you.”
Another stretch of silence as Ellen’s old insecurities began to creep back in.
“I…I do not know how to respond to that,” she finally said, her tone meek. “I do not understand why you are upset with me.”
Laurence’s gaze was cutting as he finally looked at her, his jaw clenched tight.
“It is not you I am upset with,” he gritted out.
Ellen braved a step toward him, ready to ask him what he meant, when Laurence took several steps backward until he reached the door.
“Stay here,” he commanded, his tight grip on the doorknob making the metal creak. “I will fetch Sarah for you. She will bring you something to wear.”
“Laurence, I do not understand,” she said, hurrying toward him. “Please—”
He was out the door and shutting it behind him before she could say another word, leaving Ellen alone with worries and feelings she did not know how to deal with.
She had thought their arrangement was simple and mutual, but Laurence had practically run away from her, so she was not so sure of anything anymore.