Reese
He devoured me.
Being eaten alive had never felt so good.
His lips. His hands. His heat. My entire being was overwhelmed by him finally, finally touching me.
The kiss started hard, desperate, the inevitable conclusion to the tension that had been building between us for two weeks. With my eyes closed and my breasts flattened against the wall of his chest, I gave into it, surrendered to the moment. My mouth clung to his as he tilted my head to the side, changing the angle to deepen the contact.
His hands moved over me restlessly, hungrily, skimming down my back on the way to my ass, then back up my sides to frame my face, his fingers leaving a trail of heat behind on every inch of skin he claimed for himself. I pulled at his shirt while he pushed me against the solidness of the door. My heart tripped over itself in its race to keep up. Muffled sounds came from both of us, vibrating in our throats but not escaping our lips because we hadn’t even parted for a breath yet.
Who needed fucking air when Laird Bronson was kissing them? Not me.
His lips were somehow firm and soft at the same time as he slanted them over me again and again. It was like being called up to the major league from the minors. Nothing in my past compared. I shivered from the intensity of it, from the innate authority of his mouth as he consumed me. Like I was made to bend to him, as inevitable as the moon ceding to the sun.
I lifted on my tiptoes to get closer, one of my hands snaking up to tangle in his dark hair. The strands were barely long enough at the top to grip, and when I gave them a tug, he rolled his hips against me, showing me just how much he liked it. I moaned and felt an answering wetness gather at the juncture of my thighs.
Dear sweet rosy-cheeked baby Jesus and all the saints in heaven.
His mouth needed to come with a warning label. Danger. Highly flammable.
But it was too late. I’d had a taste and I liked the burn.
We were so close, I could feel his heartbeat thumping against my chest, half a beat off from the allegro tempo of my own. The fingers of my other hand slid under the soft cotton of his shirt, impatient to feel more of him. As my thumb mapped the grooves of his abs, the firm squares of muscle flexed beneath me. Laird growled his approval.
His knee nudged my legs apart, his thick thigh filling the opening, and then his hand pulled my leg up, hooking it around his hip. The hard length of his erection throbbed between us, separated only by two layers of denim and some thin cotton. I shifted beneath him and reveled at the heady friction.
His tongue traced the bottom curve of my lip, then the seam, begging for entrance. I parted my mouth, stole a hasty breath, and then welcomed the slick invasion of his tongue. The calloused hand still cupping my jaw shifted, slid down my throat until the pulse at the base of my neck fluttered against the pad of his thumb.
And somewhere along the way, the kiss softened. Conquering melted into exploration. His lips traced a wet path up my jaw to the tender spot beneath my ear, then journeyed south and discovered another, even more sensitive point where the curve of my shoulder met my neck. He lingered there, licking and nipping my skin while I shuddered beneath him, his name both a plea and a homage as I murmured it twice, three times.
Rational thought disappeared.
His hands gripped my ass and lifted until I wrapped both legs around his waist and he propped me against the door. My hands wandered the bulge of his biceps, the breadth of his shoulders, the planes of his chest, and I repeated the path a second time, because I couldn’t decide which part was my favorite.
His shoulders. Definitely his shoulders.
Laird’s muscles hardened beneath my palms, rising to meet my touch. Our mouths clashed again, my greedy lips seeking his, and the rough stubble on his jaw scratched my cheeks and chin. I’d never kissed a guy with stubble before. The boys I’d known in high school had always been smooth-shaven, and it just highlighted the difference between them and Laird.
I liked the roughness of his jaw, how it tugged at my skin, demanding I pay attention. I wanted to feel it on other, softer places. On the swells of my breasts. The back of my neck. My inner thighs.
“Reese,” he groaned, tearing his mouth from mine. But he was back a moment later like he couldn’t help returning for another taste, his teeth nipping my lower lip until I yelped. I caught a quick glimpse of the tortured expression twisting his face before he buried it in my neck, exhaling harshly.
I pushed my hips against him restlessly. His mouth was addicting and I wanted more, but his arms tightened around my ribs to keep me still when I tried to recapture it.
“We have to stop,” he panted raggedly. His chest rose and fell against me in staccato bursts. “We have to stop or I won’t be able to.”
My head fell back against the door with a thud, my body protesting every word he just said. I cracked my eyes open to see if he was serious, but his gaze was fixated on the arch of my throat in that position. He licked the length of it and his dick grew impossibly harder.
“Do we?” I barely recognized my own voice.
“Yes.” Reluctance was carved on his face as he loosened his grip and I slid back to solid ground. I swayed against him when my knees threatened to give out. “No. We have to pause at least. Relocate. Because we are not doing this in Bubba’s fucking bathroom with the rest of the drumline on the other side of that door.”
I could see the logic in his argument but my body was screaming at me more, please, and now.
“My place is closer.” Who was this person controlling my mouth? “My roommate isn’t due for seven more hours.”
“Good. Because when you scream my name the first time, I don’t want anyone hearing it but me. That moment is mine and I don’t share.”
He brushed a kiss across my temple, his hands smoothing my shirt back into place. Crouching just a bit, he rattled off instructions against the shell of my ear, his lips skimming my skin with each syllable. Ten minutes. His truck. Third row over in the parking lot, halfway back. Avoid Marco.
I twisted my head, until the tip of my nose grazed his. “I only need five.”
He caught my wrist, pressed my hand to his zipper. “I need ten.”
The door to my dorm room hadn’t even fully closed before his mouth was on me again. We didn’t bother with the light, and I was already so lost in his kiss, that if I hadn’t heard the thunk of Laird latching the deadbolt behind me, I wouldn’t have even thought to lock the door.
What a difference a change in scenery made.
Gone was the hesitation from before. When I yanked on his shirt, he ripped it over his head and threw it across the room. Mine followed seconds later, and then his hands were covering my breasts, kneading them over the silky fabric of my bra.
I moaned into his mouth, and his tongue delved inside to celebrate with me. Impatient, and feeling bold within the familiar space of my own room, I reached behind my back to unclasp my bra. It sailed through the air, meeting the same fate as our shirts.
And then my bare chest was flush against his for the first time. Laird hissed out a breath of pleasure as I wrapped my arms around his back, sealing us together. Goose bumps prickled the skin of my arms and furled my nipples. Since modesty wasn’t going to get me what I wanted, I made shameless and wanton my new best friends. Unable to resist the temptation, I rubbed myself against him like a cat in heat, and Laird threaded his hands through my hair, tugging until I tipped my face up to his.
“You’re better than the fantasy I had of this moment,” he confessed. His green eyes were dark with lust and something more, something deeper. “And I had a pretty damn good fantasy.”
I laughed, leaned up to nibble his lower lip, and then hummed in appreciation when his fingers tightened their grip. “Sounds like it’s time for some new ones.”
He groaned. “The way you don’t hold back in anything you do? It’s sexy as fuck, Reese Holland.” At his words, the heat inside me splintered. Half of it stampeded to my wet core and the other half settled in my chest, draping me in a soft, fluffy warmth, like a down comforter straight out of the dryer.
“That dirty mouth of yours is pretty hot too,” I whispered, dipping my hands into the back of his jeans.
“We’ve barely started.” The husky promise in his voice made me forget any doubts I had about the wisdom of hooking up with the snare line captain. Because right now, that wasn’t who was in this room. That guy could’ve been a million miles away for all I cared. But the person in front of me, the one who couldn’t take his eyes off me and whose hands were stroking my breasts like he intended to sculpt them later, was the guy I’d seen whenever I’d closed my eyes at night for the last two weeks.
And I was done fighting it.
Maybe I was just horny. Maybe it was the insane chemistry that sparked to life whenever we were near each other. Whatever it was, I was succumbing to it.
His confidence and innate sex appeal had caught my attention the first day of auditions, but it was the vulnerability that sometimes slipped through the cracks of his raw masculinity that showed me his real strength. Hell, I think I’d been his since I’d heard him call dibs on me with Eli at the hospital. It was just in my nature to make things difficult, to prove I could do it solo, that had me resisting so much.
But why the hell would I want to be in this room alone, getting myself off with some vibrating plastic, when he could take care of it for me?
“Tell me—” I paused to lick his neck while my fingers undid the button of his jeans, “—tell me what happens next.”
My boobs were swollen and achy when his hands dropped lower, his palms rubbing the flare of my hips. “Your shorts come off but not your panties, and you lay across your bed, spread your legs, and wait for me.”
I turned around so my back was to him, then bent over at the waist to undo my sandals, purposefully pushing my ass into his groin. And when I worked my hips from side to side to remove my shorts, I rubbed against him some more. By the time they were off, his jaw was clenched tight and the look in his eyes was feral. I was halfway to orgasming already.
“Bed, Reese. Now.” He slapped my butt hard enough to make me gasp, but not enough to hurt.
When I was settled against my comforter, head centered on the lone pillow, I bent my knee up and placed my wrist on top of it, crooking my finger at him to come closer.
He laughed. “Do you really think you’re running this show?” He took a step closer and stopped again. “Open your legs. Hands on the headboard.”
His assertiveness made me shudder with arousal, but even so I cocked an eyebrow at him, silently asking if he was serious. He stood stone still. Watching and waiting. My panties, only covering half my ass, were the same dusky pink as my sex and if the look he was giving me as he stood at the side of the bed was any indication, probably just as saturated.
I licked my lips in anticipation and rearranged myself.
Laird’s eyes were the only part of him in motion as he studied the curves and angles I presented to him. Flared hips. Rounded breasts. Spread thighs.
“If you’re waiting for an invitation, consider this it.” I writhed on the quilt, never dropping his gaze.
His jeans hung low on his hips, the button popped and the zipper down. The top inch of his royal blue boxer briefs showed above them. What was it about that V of muscle narrowing down from a guy’s hips that was so fucking sexy? While I stared, mesmerized, he reached down and stroked himself slowly, the head of his impressive cock coming into view as he fisted his hard length.
I released the headboard with my left hand and slid it down my body, pausing to squeeze my nipple, before continuing south. My fingers made one good pass under my panties and through the slickness between my legs before he caught my wrist, stopping me from repeating the motion. He held my hand captive as he climbed onto the bed, his knees settling between my parted legs. “That’s mine,” he warned me, his voice thick and low.
And then he licked my fingers clean, looking me in the eyes the entire time, his Irish green gaze making sinful promises. Promises I very much hoped he’d keep. When he finished, he pressed a kiss to my palm, and then to the delicate underside of my wrist, lingering with his lips against my racing pulse. “Headboard.” He repeated the husky order as he released my tingling hand. “I told you to hold on to the damn headboard.”
My mouth was dry as I followed his direction. While I normally craved control over every aspect of my life, yielding to Laird was instinctive. He waited until my fingers were curled around the nondescript metal bed frame. “That’s better.”
Planting his hands on the bed near my waist, he dipped his head to place a soft kiss to my flat stomach, the breadth of his shoulders a little overwhelming on my narrow XL twin mattress. But the tenderness of his kiss was nearly my undoing. That single touch of his lips silently vowed that his focus was on my pleasure first, not his.
I trembled beneath him. His eyes filled with dark hunger as he raked them over my body. “Breathe, Reese,” he chided. I hadn’t even realized I was holding my breath, and the air escaped in a whoosh. He grinned wolfishly. “I won’t bite. Unless I think you’ll like it.”
My head fell back on the pillow. Unless I think you’ll like it. His words echoed in my head.
Dear Peter, Paul, and all the apostles, even the shitty one, Judas.
I would. I would like it.
His nose stroked a line down the center of my underwear, and then he nuzzled deeper when he reached the part where the damp fabric clung to me like a second skin. He exhaled and the heat of it against my very core had me squirming beneath him.
And then, in the space of a dozen heartbeats, my panties disappeared and his mouth delved into my slick heat, learning my most intimate secrets. That the flat of his tongue, drawn slowly up my crease, made me arch my back to prolong the contact. That short flutters on my clit made me buck helplessly beneath him. That two fingers buried deep inside me made me quake and grip his hair, headboard be damned. That those same two fingers curving upward made me clench my eyes shut until tears leaked out. And that when he closed his lips around my clit and sucked, I came hard and loud, moaning his name as my thighs quivered around his head.
The aftershocks were still making me shudder when he cuddled next to me, hauling me on top of his chest. His fingers combed through my hair while I caught my breath and his jean-clad legs tangled with my naked ones.
“Reese?”
I mumbled incoherently. That orgasm to end all orgasms had completely robbed me of my ability to speak. I raised my head to look at him and forced my heavy eyelids to open a crack. A chunk of hair was blocking half my sight. I mumbled again, some garbled attempt at so good, can’t think, thank you that sounded like gibberish. My body might have been sprawled across his, but the rest of me was still floating around in weightless bliss, and I was in no hurry to discover gravity again.
He chuckled and smoothed my hair back. “I could eat you all day, every day and never get tired of your taste.” His fingers cupped my face and he kissed me, his lips lazy and unhurried. The tang of me on his tongue mixed with his own cinnamon flavor.
When he tucked me back against his shoulder, his hands meandering over my back, my arms, my ass, any piece of me he could reach, I was surprised. Honestly, this was when I’d expected him to rip his pants off and sink balls deep inside me. But he didn’t seem like he was in a rush.
I lowered my hand to his jeans in case he was waiting for a signal from me, but he captured it and pulled it back up his chest until my palm rested over the inked G. “Not tonight, hotshot. When you’re ready for that, we’ll go back to my place.” His voice was rough. “We need a larger mattress and a morning after where we don’t have to do anything but sleep and eat and fuck some more. You’re not something I want to rush.”
And just like that, I dropped back to earth, my imagination working overtime on what it would be like to be slowly savored by Laird. I planted an opened mouth kiss on the star tattoo on his other pec. “I could…” I licked his skin, demonstrating what I was offering.
When he shook his head no though, insecurity unfurled inside me, sharp and prickly.
“No?” I questioned softly, incredulous.
“If you put those lips around my dick tonight, I won’t be able to stop. And I’ve got bigger plans for you and me than a blowjob and quickie.” He sounded like he was in pain.
“Bigger, huh?” I smirked.
He rolled his hips, letting me feel just how big. I whimpered. As I started to respond in kind, his arms banded around me, stopping my undulation.
“Don’t tease me, Reese. I’m completely serious when I say I plan on ruining you for every other guy, fucking you hard and fast, slow and deep, and every combination in between.” He paused for a minute to let that sink in before he continued. “And then there’s all those other sexy fantasies I’ve had about you. I’ve been dreaming of us for two weeks now. Get your rest tonight. You’re gonna need it, because my imagination is one horny motherfucker.”