Chapter Twenty

Moon

I had a date that night. With Cross. Jana claimed she was missing Beau, which I believed, but not more than her desire to play matchmaker. When she’d taken Beau and his backpack filled with games, snacks, pajamas and a clean outfit, I took advantage and texted Cross a dinner invite. Dinner was on the menu, I’d just put a casserole in the oven about five minutes ago, but Cross was the entrée as far as I was concerned. It wasn’t often—okay it was never—that I got a night like this to enjoy a man and I planned to enjoy it. Even if it was just another night of crazy sexy bliss.

It was enough.

The doorbell rang and my breath caught, which shocked me. Nervous. I was nervous about spending an unsupervised evening with a man. Not just any man though. Cross. He of the searing deep blue eyes and kissable mouth. And that tattoo-covered body appealed to the artist in me like nothing else ever had.

Checking my reflection one last time, I didn’t recognize the woman staring back at me. Her long salt and pepper hair was fuller and shinier than mine, her green eyes shimmered like emeralds compared to the minty green color of my own. But most of all, the woman staring back at me emanated a sensuality I had never possessed other than in action.

Sex had always come easily but it had been a long time since I’d felt sensual. Or sexy.

“You gonna open the door or do I have to whisper some magic code to get inside?”

His voice shouldn’t have startled me on the other side of the door, but I was too lost in my own thoughts and concerns. I took a deep breath and blew it out as I walked to the door and smoothed the long green dress I’d worn tonight. For Cross. I opened the door and asked, “Do you know the magic code?”

His lips quirked into a lopsided grin as his heated gaze raked over my body and made me wish I’d worn a bra. “I know the code, Moon. You look…fucking delicious.”

Cross looked beyond delicious tonight in a pair of light-colored jeans that hugged his thighs like a cowboy. I couldn’t wait to see his fine backside. He wore one of those long-sleeved t-shirts that made his already delicious muscles drool-worthy. My only complaint was that it covered up his beautiful art, though I planned to see it all.

Later.

“I’ll take it. Come on in.” I stepped back and sure, maybe it was a tad bit creepy, but I breathed in his scent. Long and deep until it was in my lungs and my brain. Every part of me. “You smell good,” I said, unable to hide my smile.

He grinned back and cut a look at me from the corner of his eyes. “Thanks.”

“What happened?” I pushed the door closed and locked it before turning back to Cross and the bruise forming on his jaw.

“Nothing worth mentioning. I’d rather talk about you in this dress.”

“I’ll let you get away with that. For now, and only because I smell sugar in that bag.” I didn’t eat refined sugar nearly as much as I wanted to and right now I didn’t know if it was Cross or the sugar making me salivate.

“Sugar and booze.”

“Magic words to these ears.” I turned my back to him and signaled him to follow me into the kitchen. I felt his eyes burn through the back of my dress. It was held together in back by nothing but a series of intricate straps.

“Damn, I love that dress.”

I turned around at that. “Thanks. It’s new.” I suddenly felt like a school girl on her first date, blushing at every little compliment. “What’s in the bag?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Cross licked his lips, eyes never leaving mine as he pulled the items from his bag.

Finally, I broke the intense stare before I lost all control and stripped down and spread across the countertop, begging Cross to have his way with me. My lips curved up. “You brought the blueberry wine!”

“It’s the canna-wine. And dairy-free pastries, in case there are any left over and Beau wants some.”

Was it possible for ovaries to explode? Because I was pretty sure that low vibrating hum in my body was the sound of my ovaries preparing for detonation. “Are you going to have any?”

“Why not? Your food usually sounds a bit weird but so far you haven’t let my taste buds down. Not even once.” His smile grew wider when his words gave me a shiver. “Dirty girl.”

“Because that’s not what you meant?” He shrugged and I rolled my eyes as I reached for the wine. “Aside from the mystery bruise, how are things?”

“Good. Still up in the air. You?”

Okay, so he didn’t want to talk. “Fine.” I poured the wine and slid a glass to him before raising my own. “To keeping things good and fair, now and forevermore.”

“Forevermore?”

I shrugged. “What? I’m feeling a bit poetic tonight. Just wait until the wine kicks in.”

“I look forward to it.” Finally, Cross tapped his glass against mine and we both drank the wine. It was cool and delicious with just a hint of pot flavor.

I drank more than half the glass and grinned up at Cross. “Delicious. Hungry yet?”

“Starved,” he said and I knew he wasn’t talking about the casserole I’d put in the oven. The way his gaze lingered like a caress all over my body was intoxicating all on its own, the wine only giving everything a radiant tint that was almost dreamlike.

“Dinner won’t be ready for another thirty-five minutes.”

“That’s plenty of time.”

I knew what he was thinking but I really wanted to hear him say it. “For?”

Cross drained the rest of his glass and pulled me close. My chest heaved and blood flowed through me, hot and thick, like lava.

“This,” he hissed.

Then his lips were on mine, demanding and insistent as they slicked across my lips, top and then bottom and back to top. Teasing and tasting my mouth like it was a magnificent feast fit for a king. I was too far gone to resist, too far gone to do anything other than take it. Absorb the heat and passion he transferred from his big strong body to mine.

There was something different about this kiss. It was almost surreal the way his kisses took me out of my body and carried me off on a cloud of lust and need. Want.

“Cross,” I moaned when he broke the kiss, blinking to clear the fog from my brain but nope, he was still there looking good enough to eat.

His blue eyes were so dark they may as well have been black but when his lips melted into a smile, my legs buckled just a little.

“This time, I’m fuckin’ you on a bed.”

Why those words sent another shiver through me, I couldn’t say. But this version of Cross tonight was darker and grittier, hungry with a raw need that was one hundred percent focused on me.

“Oh, okay.”

He grinned, like he was satisfied with the effect he was having on me and scooped me up in his arms like I was one of those dainty women that men always carried around simply because they could.

“The correct answer is, ‘Yes, Cross’.”

I laughed and licked his neck up to his jaw line. “Yes, Cross.”

I couldn’t help it, I inhaled his scent at the crook of his neck and shivered as it hit my nostrils. I craved his scent more than I realized.

“Fuck, that’s hot.” Cross was on a mission and I was his target but rather than being scared, I was thrilled. Turned on. Inside my bedroom he tossed me on the bed and then turned on all the lights.

“Stay right there,” he ordered.

I was about to sit up and take my off my clothes but then Cross began to undress. I was transfixed by the sight of all that flesh, all those muscles on display, bunching and flexing with every move he made.

“Yes, Cross,” I said again, just to get another rise out of him. But this time the rise was growing longer and thicker by the second behind those blue and white striped boxer briefs. I licked my lips at the sight he made.

“I feel overdressed.”

He grinned and knelt on the bed. “Let’s see.”

Cross pushed up the fabric of my dress to my knees and stopped. “How dressed are you?”

His hands slid up my thighs, warm and slightly rough, making me shiver. “Panties. Too bad.”

“I wore them for you.” My legs parted just a little, enough to make him groan.

“Yeah?”

I nodded, and a wide, satisfied smile crossed his face as he dipped under the skirt of my dress and put his mouth on me.

He didn’t even bother to remove my panties, just licked and sucked my pussy through the silk.

“Oh, Cross!”

His wide shoulders pushed my thighs further apart as his tongue licked my clit, my lips and he sucked hard and then soft. In little soft pulsing sucking motions and harder, slurping motions. It was fantastic. It was too much pleasure at once, but I never wanted it to end.

Then he sat up and ripped off my panties, pulled my dress off over my head and I was completely naked. Bared to him.

“Mine,” he growled and settled between my legs again, this time his mouth moved with a ferocity I couldn’t resist. Hard and fast, he licked and sucked, nibbled and laved every inch of me until my body shook with the undeniable need for orgasm.

“Cross, please.”

I didn’t know what I was begging for other than more of him. I didn’t want it to stop but I felt the orgasm start in my toes. “Yes! Oh, yes!”

The room was silent aside from my moans and cries, and the completely erotic sound of Cross’s mouth bringing me to the brink of ecstasy. I should have been embarrassed about how wet I was, but Cross seemed turned on by it considering the intensity of his mouth on me.

“Oh!” I kept moaning, over and over.

While his mouth made love to my body, I floated on the air above us, watching with a wild fascination I couldn’t explain. Then he slipped one finger between my cheeks into that forbidden hole where only his tongue had been before.

I shouldn’t like it.

It felt strange. Overwhelming.

Wickedly delicious.

“Oh, oh Cross!” My body was on fire but not like a regular old building fire, no, this was like a explosives warehouse had been set on fire by an arsonist. This was a thousand alarm fire inside of me, a raging inferno that shot out of me with my orgasm, threatening to burn everything and everyone within a ten-mile radius.

“Yes!”

I grabbed his head and rode his face, grinding my ass on his finger until my whole body twisted and curled into the most powerful orgasm of my life.

“Damn, Moon,” he said when he finally eased himself up.

He licked his lips, staring at me with a smile slick with my juices.

“I think that’s my line.” He smiled again and brushed a kiss to my lips so I could taste myself on his tongue. “Delicious.”

“Now I know that was my line.” He kissed me again, long and hard and with complete confidence in skill, which he’d more than earned. He kissed me until I was breathless and clinging to his wide, muscular back. In too much of a hurry to be buried where I needed him the most, Cross didn’t bother to remove his boxers, he just shoved them down until all the best parts were uncovered.

My legs wrapped around him as soon as he did that, urging him closer to where my body still pulsed for him.

“That was incredible,” I cried, pleading for more.

He laughed and lined our bodies up before he thrust in so slow my moan came out long and low.

“You feel incredible. Fuck, your pussy is always so damn wet. Is that all for me?”

“I don’t know, is it? Oh!”

His hips pushed forward to that spot, the one that made smart women stupid for another press of that erotic button. Over and over he hit that spot until another orgasm, forceful and fast, shot through me.

“Cross!”

But he didn’t let up, not this time. His blue eyes glazed over and took on that faraway look as they stared deep into my soul. He reared up on his knees and flung my thighs over his so I was spread wide while he watched.

“Moon, look at me.” When I did, Cross licked his thumb and pressed it to my clit.

“Fuck, yeah,” he groaned when I quivered and pulsed around him. “Fuck. Your pussy is so good.”

I loved his dirty talk. It was raw and dirty, not polite. Not PC. Just raw, hot and nasty.

“God, Cross. I need more.” My nails dug into his shoulders and he didn’t seem to care, which only ratcheted up my desire even more.

He growled at my words and let one hand slide up the center of my body, leaving a trail of heat I couldn’t ignore. Then his hand was at my throat and though I knew I should have been scared, I wasn’t. Not when his big hand wrapped around me with just enough pressure to be scary.

“Blueberry wine. You like it,” he said when I pulsed around him again. And again.

“Maybe,” I whispered, teasing him until he applied a bit more pressure. With that pressure came another surge of his cock, long and thick and hard, I felt him deep inside of me. He filled me up good, choking me while he fucked me hard, making me feel like the dirty girl I’d never been.

“No, that’s what you say if you want me to stop. Blueberry wine.”

“Oh.” I licked my lips and nodded. “Got it.” I put my inner muscles to work, squeezing him tight and loving the way his eyes slammed closed against the force of his own desire.

“Oh shit, babe.”

Harder and harder he thrust into me, long sure strokes that kept me on the wrong side of my next orgasm, which I was pretty sure might kill me anyway.

“Fucking hell, Moon!”

“Yes!” I could barely get the word out but I wasn’t worried. Not yet anyway. “Cross!”

“I need you to come for me one more time, Moon. We’re on the clock, remember?”

That made me smile, which was pretty incredible since I was sure my body was ten seconds away from total combustion. His other hand went to my clit and pinched, and that was the push I needed to jump off the building and float in a slow sweeping motion, only vaguely aware of the man on top of me, thrusting deeply with his face twisted in sweet, beautiful agony.

“Whoa!”

A rush of liquid between my thighs spread out in a warm pool between us and if I had been thinking about it, I might have felt some kind of embarrassment but I felt too good to care.

A grin split his mouth but his hips never stopped moving, pounding harder and deeper into me until I felt it, that moment he thickened and grew harder inside me.

“Oh fuck, Moon! Ah, Moon!” Head thrown back as his hips thrust into me one final time, he looked beautiful.

At peace.

Then his big sweaty body fully covered mine the way his lips did, kissing me long and slow with emotion I knew shouldn’t be real, but it felt real and, in that moment, with my body so spent and my mind so open, I couldn’t tell the difference.

And when he pulled back with that sexy, lazy smile, I knew I was in trouble.

I had it bad for Cross.

Which was bad.

Really bad.