“I know, baby. I know.”
He stepped even closer, backing me against the island until I was pinned between the counter and his body. Then he dipped his head and dropped his lips to mine. The relief I felt at being near him, touching him, kissing him, was overwhelming. My whole body exhaled tension I hadn’t realized I was carrying.
Let me find out all I needed was a man to kiss me and suddenly the world made sense again.
Within seconds, the kiss was a deep, groaning frenzy, his hands in my hair, fingers tangling in the curls I’d just freed. I grabbed fistfuls of his t-shirt and pulled it up, needing to feel him under my palms. I found warm, smooth skin and the rapid thump of his heartbeat.
Cole’s hands moved to my blouse, working the buttons open. He pushed the fabric off my shoulders and let it flutter to the floor. Then his mouth was on my neck, my collarbone, trailing heat everywhere he touched.
“Cole, we haven’t?—”
“I know.” He was already reaching for the zipper to my skirt. “This is not what you came over here for. If you want me to stop, I will. But if you don’t want me to stop, then let me take some stress off your shoulders. Then we can talk about what we do next.”
I was a sucker if I ever saw one, but I didn’t care.
We shed clothes fast—my skirt hitting the floor, his jeans following, items discarded in a trail from the kitchen to the living room and eventually the large, plush couch.
This wasn’t like the desperate fuck in the supply closet at the hospital. This was need and release and two people trying to forget the outside world for just a little while.
His hand slid down my body, fingers hooking into the waistband of my panties. He paused, looking up at me with a wicked grin. “If I have to take these off, I’m adding them to my collection.”
“Oh, hell no,” I managed to say, though I was rapidly losing the ability to form coherent thought. “You cannot keep all of my expensive unmentionables, Cole.”
I lifted my hips and pulled them off before he could confiscate them. His hands trailed over my thighs as the fabric slid down my legs. Then he was kissing lower—my ribs, my stomach, my inner thighs.
When his tongue ghosted my clit, I couldn’t hold back the guttural moan that tore from my throat. His hands gripped my thighs firmly, holding me open and exposed to him.
Every time I got close to the edge, close enough that I could feel my orgasm building like a wave about to crest, he’d slow down or change rhythm. He kept me hovering on that knife’s edge between pleasure and release for so long I wanted to cry.
“Cole, please!” I begged, my fingers gripping his skin.
“Mmmhmmm,” he hummed, and I felt the vibration all the way up to my core.
Finally, mercifully, his mouth sealed over my clit, sucking with steady pressure while his fingers pushed inside me. They curled to hit that spot deep inside that made me see stars and practically levitate.
I came so hard my vision blurred, my body shuddering in his grasp. I heard myself crying out, his name tangled up with a string of words that barely sounded like English. Cole held me through the aftershocks, his mouth gentling, then kissing light as rain along my trembling thighs.
Only when my breathing slowed did he move up to lie beside me, cradling my head against his chest. His heart was hammering as loud as mine. I realized, a little dazedly, that hehadn’t even taken himself out of his boxers. I dove for him and, before he could stop me, pulled him free, wrapping my hand around his thick length, marveling at the flush of it, the velvet heat, the way he shuddered when I stroked him.
He let out a ragged groan as I took him. I craved that sound, the tremor that ran through him, the way his whole body tensed, as if he was fighting to keep himself from losing control.
I loved being in this position, asserting this much power over his body and this moment.
His hands fisted in the couch cushions, his jaw locked against whatever sounds wanted to escape, and when I ran my tongue along the underside of his dick, he exhaled a shaky groan that felt like a little victory.
He tried to gently guide my rhythm, one hand on the back of my head, but I ignored it, taking him deeper, working him with my mouth and hands until he bucked, beginning a slow, rhythmic roll.
I wanted to taste his surrender, wanted to make him come. Hard.
“Hey,” he whispered, pulling me from him. I thought I’d done something wrong until I saw the hunger in his eyes. “Not that this isn’t mind-blowing, but I want to be inside you when I come. You ready for me?”
I was ready for him in ways I didn’t even have words for. My body was still pulsing from the aftershocks of the orgasm, nerves alive and skin hypersensitive to every point of contact between us. “Yeah,” I whispered, lying back, fingers clutching at him to come near me, needing the feel of him, the weight and heat and everything.
He grinned, then stripped off his boxer briefs and sank between my thighs. The solid weight of him pressing me into the couch was so intense I thought I might shatter. His hands gripped my hips, anchoring us.
“Look at me,” he said, his voice pitched low, rough.
I opened my eyes and met his gaze. The intensity there stole what little breath I’d managed to recover.
