31. Jamison #5
She was trying to be brave. I could see it in the way she held my gaze for a second too long before her lashes dropped. In the way she kept her hands on me even when nerves moved through her body. In the way her thighs stayed around my hips after I had told her I would only take what she gave.
Good girl.
My good fucking girl.
“I mean that,” I murmured, brushing my thumb along her cheek. “Nothing happens because I’m hard enough to lose my mind. You tell me what you want, and I listen.”
I kissed it from her cheek, then lower, slow along her throat, because I was beginning to enjoy the exact second embarrassment turned into need under my mouth.
Her head tipped back again, and I felt the surrender through her entire body.
“See?” I whispered against her neck. “So good for me.”
She made a tiny sound.
I dragged my lips down to her collarbone. “That sound, baby. I’m going to become unreasonable about that sound.”
“You’re already unreasonable.”
“True.”
Her laugh broke into a breath when my tongue traced the hollow beneath her throat. I took my time there. The taste of her was so soft, so clean, so Sienna, that my fingers tightened in the sheets beside her shoulder.
She had been in front of me for years.
Years.
Holding out that small hand, asking for a scrap of touch while I sat there too blind and vicious to understand what I was refusing.
And now she was under me, and all I could think was that I had wasted time I would never forgive myself for losing.
I kissed lower.
Her chest rose sharply when my mouth reached the top of her breast. I paused there, letting my breath warm her skin, giving her space to say something if she needed to. She said nothing. Her hand slid over my shoulder, fingers curling against my shirt.
“That’s it,” I murmured. “Hold on.”
I licked her slowly, and her back lifted from the sheets.
The sound she made ruined me.
“Fuck.” My voice went rough against her skin. “You are so beautiful.”
Her face turned away, overwhelmed.
I caught her chin gently and brought her back to me. “Don’t hide from that.”
“It’s hard to hear.”
“Then I’ll say it until it gets easier.”
“Jamison…”
“You’re beautiful, Sienna. So fucking beautiful. In the bath, in my bed, at breakfast with your hair half falling down because the children climb all over you. In those ballet shoes you pretend don’t hurt. In every dress I acted too stupid to praise. All of it.”
Her eyes filled, but she smiled a little through it. “You’re making me emotional while naked.”
“I’m talented.”
She laughed, and I kissed the laugh right out of her mouth before she could use it as armor.
Then I moved down her body.
Slowly, because I promised,and every inch of her deserved more reverence than I had shown her in three years of public neglect.
My mouth traveled over her ribs. Her thighs shifted when I reached her lower stomach.
I lifted my head and looked up her body at her.
“Good girl.”
I kissed the inside of her knee. She trembled.
I kissed higher, then paused, resting my cheek against her thigh. “Would you mind if I lick you, baby?”
Her whole body went still.
I stroked her hip with my thumb. “You can say no. You can tell me you’re too nervous, and I’ll come back up and kiss you until you forget you were embarrassed.”
Her throat worked.
I waited.
That was the fucking point. No taking because I wanted. No pushing because she went quiet. Sienna had spent too long saying yes out of fear.
“You want to?” Her voice came out barely above a whisper.
I closed my eyes for a second.
God help me.
“Yes.” I kissed her thigh again, slower. “I’m hungry, and I’ve waited years for you.”
Her thighs pressed together slightly.
I kept my hand steady at her hip. “Talk to me.”
“I’m nervous.”
“I see that.”
“I want…” She swallowed and looked toward the ceiling as if it could help her confess. “I want you to. I’m just embarrassed.”
“That’s all right.”
“It is?”
“Yes, baby. Embarrassed and wanting is still wanting. I can work with that.”
A breathless laugh slipped out of her. “That sounds very professional.”
“I run clubs.”
“You’re impossible.”
“And you’re avoiding giving me a clear answer.”
Her eyes came back to mine.
“Yes,” she whispered. “You can.”
Something much darker, pleased and possessive, held tightly under control because this was hers as much as mine.
I kissed the inside of her thigh.
I held her gaze as I kissed higher, giving her time to feel every inch of approach, every chance to change her mind. Her hand moved from the sheet to my hair, then loosened, unsure whether she was allowed to guide me.
“You can touch me,” I said.
Her fingers sank carefully into my hair.
My eyes closed from the feeling.
“That’s it,” I murmured. “Use your hands if you need to. Pull me closer, push me back, I’ll listen.”
She nodded.
I lowered my mouth.
The first taste of her hit me hard enough that my grip tightened around her hips.
Sienna gasped.
I went still immediately. “Too much?”
“No,” she rushed, then caught herself and breathed. “No. Please don’t stop.
I pressed one kiss against her. “Good girl.”
Then I licked her again.
Learning the difference between the sound she made when surprise caught her and the sound she made when pleasure slid through her body and stole every practiced piece of composure from her face. I watched everything.
The hunger in me sharpened, but it changed as it moved through her. Became focus. Devotion. A need to take her apart so gently she trusted every piece of the fall. She tasted sweet, and so fucking mine.
She tugged my hair.
I lifted my head. “Good. Use me.”
Her eyes were hazy. “I didn’t mean to pull.”
“You can pull. I said use your hands.”
“You’re very calm about this.” Her blush deepened. She covered her face with one hand.
I caught her wrist and kissed the inside. “No hiding.”
“I can’t look at you after you say things like that.”
“You’re going to.”
“Bossy.”
“Yes.” I moved up her body, dragging kisses over her stomach, between her breasts, to her throat. “And you love it.”
Her lips parted, but no answer came.
I smiled against her jaw. “That silence is an answer.”
“It is not.”
“It is, baby”
She huffed, and I kissed her because the little argument was going to make me more obsessed than I already was. When I drew back, her hands slid down my chest, stopping at the damp shirt clinging to me.
Her gaze dropped.
Then returned.
A question sat there.
I took her wrist and brought her palm flat to my stomach over the shirt. “What?”
She shook her head.
“Baby.”
“Do I get to see you?”
My cock pulsed so hard I had to pause.
“Yes.”
Her eyes widened a fraction at the change in my voice. I sat back on my knees between her legs and reached for her hands. She came with me, rising slightly against the pillows. I brushed it back from her face first.
“You want to undress me?” I asked.
She looked at my belt, then back at my face. “Can I?”
“Anything I give you, you can take.”
I guided her hands to my belt.
Her fingers were a little shaky against the leather. My fiancée, naked in my bed, trying to undo my belt with the concentrated seriousness of a girl diffusing a bomb.
“Slow,” I murmured, brushing her hair back again. “You’re doing fine.”
She glanced up. “It’s just a belt.”
“It’s my belt.”
Her blush returned.
Beautiful.
She worked the buckle free, a little clumsy from nerves, and I let her take her time.
I could have done it in two seconds. That wasn’t the point.
The point was her choosing to see me. Her hands on me because she wanted them there.
Her learning she could touch the parts of me that had scared her and find no punishment waiting.
“That’s my girl,” I said, I touched her cheek, thumb beneath her lower lip. “You’re doing so well, baby.”
She drew the belt loose.
I hissed out a breath despite myself.
Her eyes dropped immediately to the sound, then to my hands as I let her pull the leather free. She placed it beside us, as if she didn’t quite know what else to do with it once it existed outside my clothing.
“Good girl.”
Her hands returned to my waistband, bolder now by a fraction. She looked at me for permission, and I gave it with a nod. The button came next. Then the zip, slow enough that my control thinned to a thread.
I watched her watching me.
The hunger in her face was shy. Her fingers brushed skin, and my stomach tightened.
She noticed. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.” I caught her wrist and pressed her palm harder against me. “You felt good.”
“Oh.”
That tiny, pleased sound.
Fuck.
I leaned down and kissed her again, rougher for one second, then slowed because I had promised. Her hands stayed between us, trapped against my body, the restrained violence under my skin. I kissed her until her breathing matched mine badly.
I brushed the hair from her face again and lowered my forehead to hers. “I want you seeing me, baby. All of me. But I want you feeling safe more.”
Her hands curled against my open waistband.
“I do,” she whispered. Her fingers moved again, braver this time. Her fingers moved against my waistband again, braver by a fraction, and I had to remind myself that I had promised slow. Slow meant every inch of her learned me without fear.
I helped only when she got caught on the fabric, lifting my hips enough for her to draw the trousers lower. Her attention dropped with the movement, curiosity and nerves fighting across her face. Then she saw me properly.
Her eyes widened. Her fingers froze against my hip, and for one magnificent second, Sienna Bellemere looked at me stunned.
“No,” she said.
I stared at her.
Her gaze stayed locked below my waist, deadly serious. “No, Jamison.”
“No?” I asked, trying for calm and failing internally in ways that would have embarrassed better men.
She finally looked up at me, eyes huge, cheeks burning. “That can’t fit.”
I should not have enjoyed that as much as I did. Enough that sainthood turned around in whatever shallow grave I had left it in and gave up.
“It can.”
Her expression did not change. If anything, she looked even more convinced. “It cannot.”
“It can, baby.”
“You’re saying that because it’s yours.”