Chapter Sixteen
Adelaide
Ididn’t intend to be Zander’s present when I arrived at his apartment, but I’m not mad about it.
Zander tosses the box with his brand new socks onto the coffee table and leans into me.
His mouth finds mine, but it’s different this time.
It’s messy and open-mouthed and hot. It sends need pooling in my lower belly, aching for him to deepen the kiss, run his hands all over my body, leave me in ecstasy.
I grab hold of the collar of his shirt, attempting to pull him closer to me even though we’re already on top of each other.
He cradles the back of my head, finds the elastic keeping my bun together, and tugs.
Waves of hair fall over my shoulders. Zander breaks from the kiss, fans out my hair, and smiles.
“God, Addie,” he says, slightly breathless. “You’re beautiful. You’re incredible. You’re—”
I catch his mouth, cutting off whatever compliment he was about to add to the list. My body sings. Sings. I have never felt this way before. Like every nerve ending is electrified and somehow needs more. So much more. Every bit of him.
His hand falls to my knee, the fingers flexing, inching their way up.
He grips my thigh and stays there. I feel the indents in my flesh.
I know I’m gripping his back just as hard to satisfy this need starving the both of us.
He frees my mouth and trails kisses along my jawline, making me gasp as his stubble scrapes along my skin.
I tip my head back and find myself falling onto the couch under us, supported by his hand between my shoulders, then his weight above me.
For a brief moment, he pauses, eyes dark with want.
I run my tongue over my swollen bottom lip and part my legs for him.
He settles between, but still stares, as if committing this moment of me beneath him to memory.
I find his hand, still on my thigh, and guide it upward, under my skirt.
He swallows hard as his fingers brush my wet panties.
It’s all the invitation he needs. He brings his mouth back to mine and moves the fabric of my underwear aside.
A high pitched hum escapes me when he finds my clit, circling at a steady pace.
A wave of pleasure rolls through my body as he works my most sensitive parts.
I raise my hips to him as he slips a finger inside me.
“Oh, fuck.”
Zander’s hand pauses and his head snaps back. A muscle ticks in his jaw. “Adelaide Ramsay, did you just say fuck?”
“I might have,” I say on a pant. My hips buck as he adds another finger and a sharp gasp leaves my lips. “Zander,” I breathe out. “Zander, you should know that I’ve never been able to come with someone else.”
He pauses again and his eyebrows draw together. “What about yourself? Please tell me you haven’t gone twenty-nine years without an orgasm. Not when you’re this wet. You deserve better than that.”
I flush. “I…have. I’ve had an orgasm before.”
“Good. Show me.”
“Wait, what?”
“Show me what you like so I can fuck you right.”
My pussy clenches at his words, and I know he feels it.
He removes himself as my hand moves down my body.
I find the waistband of my underwear and slide them off, throw them away.
I bunch up my skirt, run my fingertips over the trail of red hair, and immediately find my clit.
My eyes stay glued to Zander’s as I begin making a come hither motion with my middle finger.
He groans, low and primal, a noise that makes me ache. It rips a moan from me.
“Take off your pants and join me.” My breath comes out shuddery. “I want to watch you too.”
“You’ll have lots of time to watch me. But this is about you. I want to see you make yourself come for me. I want to watch you shake and shatter, hear you calling out my name. I need to commit it all to memory and I can’t do that if I’m touching myself. Fuck yourself for me, Addie.”
“Oh my God.”
“Tell me what you’re doing to yourself.”
“I’m—I’m getting myself off for you,” I manage, picking up speed on my clit. “But I need more.”
“How are you going to give yourself more?”
I close my eyes. Holy shit, I’ve never been this turned on in my entire life.
“I don’t have enough hands for everything I want,” I say and Zander chuckles. “I need you.”
“You’re sneaky, aren’t you?” he says, then his fingers slide inside me again. I cry out in shock, my pelvis tipping his way. “How’s this?”
“Uh huh. Good,” I say, chest heaving. “Good, thanks.”
“What’s that other hand going to do?”
I momentarily forget I exist on this earthly plane, both hands completely frozen. Zander’s fingers curl inside me. I close my fingers around his wrist, push him in further. He wordlessly obeys, pulling out, then all the way back in. I tilt my head back and moan.
“Fuck, Addie, you’re beautiful,” Zander growls. “Touch yourself.”
My right hand, still slick, draws back to my clit. I try to match Zander’s measured thrusts, but get carried away, needing my own fingers to move more rapidly.
“Keep going, Addie,” he directs, teasing me with deliberate, slow, deep strokes of his fingers. “You’re fucking yourself so good. What else do you need?”
I need him naked and buried inside me, but I know he won’t give me that yet, so I roll up my shirt and pop my breasts out of my bra. I feel Zander trip up, thrusting harder than he has before. Everything in me tightens and almost tips over the edge, but then he’s back to his teasing rhythm.
“Jesus Christ, your nipples were killing me yesterday.”
“How about now?” I pant.
“Now just confirms I was right to be semi-hard the whole time you were in that pink bra. Look at you.”
My nipples have never been harder. Whether it’s the air or how turned on I am right now, it doesn’t matter. They’re putting on a show. I cup myself with my hand and pinch my nipple between two knuckles.
“I can feel you on the edge. Are you ready to go over?”
“God yes,” I whisper.
“Show me how you’d do it.”
He slips out of me, leaving me no choice but to do it myself.
I replace his fingers with mine and work quickly, with very little effort.
He’s right. I am right on the edge. It only takes four quick strokes before my body arches and my pussy violently clenches.
I close my eyes and feel the earth move.
“Good girl,” Zander purrs. His fingers glide through my wet slit, then he brings them up to his mouth. “Perfect.”
I push up on my elbows, but find myself sweaty and stuck to his leather couch. He helps me the rest of the way, unpeeling my shoulders.
“Are you going to fuck me now?”
His eyes are dark as he looks at me. I’m dishevelled and half-dressed and begging for more.
“I’m taking you to bed.”
He stands, pulls me to my feet, and hoists me up onto him.
His strong arms wrap around me, hands supporting my ass.
My legs circle his hips and my centre collides with the thick bulge in his sweatpants.
Already tender and swollen, this simple act elicits a low moan from my lips.
He kisses my neck as he carries me into his bedroom.
I cling to him, dig my nails into his back, tighten my thighs against him.
I need all of him. Now.
He lays me out on his bed and hovers over me like he can’t quite decide what he wants to do next. I make an executive decision and throw my top and bra away, discarding them on his hardwood floor.
“You keeping the skirt on?” he rasps.
I shrug. “I can. If that turns you on.”
He groans and grabs the hem of his shirt, peeling it off one handed. “Everything about you turns me on.”
My eyes stutter over his bare chest. A completely shirtless Zander is impressive. You can see the years of manual labour on him.
“I can tell,” I say and nudge the outline of his dick with my toes. “Now it’s your turn to show me.”
He laughs and climbs on top of me. “No, now it’s my turn to make you come. You did so well yourself, but you need to let me do it for you.”
Need pools in my lower belly, a deep, longing ache that only one thing will satisfy.
It strikes me, in this moment, how odd it is that the men before Zander never made me feel this way.
Sure, I got turned on and wanted them, but never this intensely.
Maybe it’s because they never asked me what I needed or listened when I requested more or less of something.
Maybe it’s because they put themselves first, always.
Maybe it’s just Zander.
I roughly grab his face and bring it down to mine.
All I have in me are greedy, open-mouthed kisses, but he doesn’t seem to mind.
I run my hands down his body, tracing my fingers down each defined muscle on his stomach, then further down to the delicious V disappearing beneath his sweatpants.
He shimmies his hips as I dip my fingers under the waistband and take them off entirely.
All that separates us is his underwear and a tiny swath of fabric from my skirt that hasn’t ridden up.
I break from the messy kisses as my hand slips down the front of his boxer-briefs, solely because I want to see him in his full glory.
The noise he makes as my fingers close around his shaft is the most gorgeous sound I have ever heard in my life. It’s low and primal, animalistic. I feel myself getting wetter, and I don’t even know how that’s possible.
“Addie,” he breathes out my name in a similar guttural voice. His head falls against my chest. “You don’t know how much I’ve thought about this.”
I run my fist up his shaft. “I’m sure it’s about as much as I have.”
“More,” he says and begins kissing along my collarbones, then down to my breasts. He catches a nipple in his mouth, runs his tongue along the peak, while giving my other tit a generous squeeze with his big hand. “How is every part of you so goddamn beautiful.”
I can’t take it any longer. There is a time and place for us to be slow and deliberate, and it’s not now. I tear off his boxers. He glances up at me from my breasts, nipple between his teeth, eyes on fire.
“Fuck me, Zander.”
Suddenly, I’m on top of him. I let out a whoop at his quick movements, and he steadies me. I straddle him, feeling his hard cock against my ass cheek.
“Skirt has to come off,” he says. “I need to witness me entering you for the first time.”
“Do you have a condom?”
“Bedside table.”
I slide off him and the bed, then let the skirt fall to the floor. Zander palms himself as I stand in his bedroom completely naked. I find a box of unopened condoms in the drawer of his bedside table, crack it open, and pinch one out.
“It’s been a while.”
“What’s a while?” I ask, replacing his hand with my own as I rejoin him on the bed.
He blinks, slightly dazed, then shakes his head. “Six months, maybe. Friend of a friend. Just sex. That fizzled out and I was left with a box of condoms…I’m also all clear, if you were wondering.”
“I hadn’t even thought of that.” I say, sliding a condom down his generous length and delighting in how his body twitches. My hands freeze once it’s fully on, and I let out a shaky breath. “Is that bad? I—I haven’t had sex since Dan. That was almost two years ago now.”
“Okay. You okay?”
Zander grips my hips as I climb on top of him once more. I gather my hair to one side and nod. He runs his hands up my body, pulls me down to him and kisses me, softly.
“We don’t have to do this if you’re hesitating,” he says, running his thumb along my jawline. “You can say no anytime. What we did out there was enough.”
“No, no,” I say and feel my cheeks go hot. “I want to do this. I’m just getting in my head.”
“You’re in charge today, then. Take it at your speed and tell me everything you want.”
I exhale. “I want you.”
“You’ve got me.” He runs his hands along my sides, leaving a trail of goosebumps, until he’s back at my hips, then my thighs. I straighten, throwing my hair back and sticking my chest out. “Now, ride me, Addie. Show me how bad a good girl can be.”
Oh god, this man. I rise up on my knees and he reaches between us to position himself at my entrance. I sink down on him and don’t stop until he’s all in. We both let out contented sighs.
“Jesus,” I hiss. He’s the perfect fit.
“All good?” He runs his hands along my thighs. His fingers follow the line of ink I have tattooed on my upper thigh, hidden from the world unless I’m in a bathing suit or, well, like this. “What’s it say?”
“Remember your fire,” I answer. “It’s from my first book.”
“It suits you.”
The quote has nothing to do with my current situation and everything to do with rising up after the worst possible circumstances. But in this moment, I do remember my fire. For him. For us.
I grab Zander’s hand and drop it right where I need it between us. He grins, curling his fingers.
“How do you want it, Addie?”
“Fast. Hard.”
He does well with direction, immediately working my clit. I gasp and begin moving my hips. I grind against him and smirk as he lets out a low hiss. I don’t have it in me to continue this slow, exploring rhythm, and from looking at the strained muscles in his neck, I can tell he feels the same.
I bring my lips down to his. And just a breath apart, I whisper, “I’m ready.”
I slam down on him and move my hips in a frenzy.
“Fuck, Addie,” he grits out between shuddery breaths. “What do you need?”
“Breasts,” I pant. They bounce with each one of my movements. “Hands on.”
Zander readily grabs hold, one hand wet, adding extra sensation to my already tight nipples. He cups me as I bounce, overflowing into his hands. He circles my nipples with his thumbs and I arch into him.
“I’m close, Zander,” I say, and it comes out with a bonus, unexpected laugh.
“Do you need me to take over or do you have this?” His voice hitches as my walls clench around him. “You’ve got this don’t you, Addie? You’re fucking me so good.” He pinches my nipple hard, and I squeal. “Come for me, Addie. Let yourself have this.”
I close my eyes, dizzy and high on the man deep inside me. I do as I’m told. I let myself have this.
For the first time in my life, I completely shatter while riding a man’s dick. I fall forward onto his chest, and he catches me. We’re a tangle of limbs. His strong arms wrap around me as he thrusts into me one final time, then moans loud enough I swear his neighbours will hear.
When I open my eyes, Zander’s face fills my vision. His eyes are soft, the crinkles at the corner ever-present as he smiles at me.
“You are…something else,” he whispers.
I’m hot all over, spent, and kind of feel like I’m in love with him. I brush my lips against his.
“Thank you for that. For…for listening to me. That was the best.”
“Hey, so,” Zander says, brushing a wayward lock of hair from my face. “Best birthday ever.”