I SLIPPED MY HAND from his and stepped back, all nerves again. We’d been alone before, but everything felt stripped away right now. Exposed. He’d seen the painting. I couldn’t pretend anymore that he didn’t affect me. He knew he did, and he wasn’t going away this time. I couldn’t make him leave.
I didn’t want to.
I slipped the strap of my small handbag from my wrist and dropped it onto my cluttered desktop. His feet moved in a slow half circle as his eyes followed me.
“How long have you been working on that painting?”
Oh. He was going right for the jugular then and cornering me about the painting. I angled my head as I slid off his jacket and draped it on the back of my chair. Shrugging lamely, I slipped off my earrings. Dropping them on my desk, I said simply, “I don’t want to talk about the painting.”
“Say nothing. Reveal nothing. That’s your MO.” He approached me with slow steps and I felt stalked. I moved aimlessly, staying just out of his reach, wishing the room was bigger right then as he closed in on me. “But silence reveals, too, you know.”
“Yeah? And what have I revealed?”
“You’re scared of me.”
I shook my head fiercely.
“Yes,” he announced, smiling grimly. “Because you feel something for me.”
My heart beat faster. “Arrogant, aren’t we?”
“That’s my face up on the wall at your fancy art show. Not any other guy’s. Admit it. You like me.”
I snorted. “Maybe I just think you’re hot . . . a good subject to paint.”
“You like me,” he repeated, pausing to reach behind his neck and pull his shirt over his head. My chest ached, actually hurt as I took in his masculine beauty. At the hard abs that could probably break a fist.
“Maybe I just want to fuck you,” I flung out, waving at him with a shaky hand. “You said I’d beg you to. And I mean, look at you. You look like someone who would be good at it.”
His eyes almost appeared dilated they were so dark. His smile deepened with satisfaction, and there was such wicked promise in the curve of his lips that I knew I was in good hands.
His gaze dropped, skimming my body. “Nice dress.”
“Thanks.”
His hand toyed with the thin blue belt that wrapped around my waist. It took me only a second to realize he wasn’t merely toying with it. As though he knew exactly how it functioned, he undid the tiny silver bow that clasped at the front. It fell to the floor with a soft thud.
“I bet it would look even better on the floor.” He bent slightly, watching my face as he clutched the hem of my dress and pulled it up over my head in one swift move.
A cool draft swept over me. It was just me in my bra and panties. Black satin and lace. His breath caught. Just a few inches separated us, but he didn’t touch me. I could feel the warmth radiating from his body to mine but he didn’t lift a finger to touch me. He only stared at me, his gaze hot and devouring.
I moved to kick off my heels but his voice stopped me. “Leave them on.”
I froze under his perusal, resisting the urge to cover myself with my hands. I had never been the shy type, but with him I was. With him everything was different. Everything was new.
He wrapped his arms around me. I reveled at his maleness, at the flex of his biceps. Our foreheads touched as he spoke, the words fanning my lips, “I’ll take what you’re willing to give me, Emerson.” His hands gripped my bottom. “For now.” In one move, he lifted me off my feet and guided my legs around his waist. “We can start here.”
Then he was kissing me again. Hot, drugging kisses as he carried me slowly to the bed, his big hands clenching on my bottom, singeing me through my panties as his mouth slanted one way and then the next.
I wrapped my arms around him, relishing the sensation of his back under my fingers, the quiver of his smooth flesh as he carried me.
He sat down on the bed with me straddling his lap. His hands moved to my face, broad palms cupping my cheeks, fingers burrowing into my hair as we kissed, our heads angling as if we couldn’t taste enough of each other.
There was no such thing as too close. My breasts smashed against his chest. I was desperate, hungry for more of him, loving the hard strength of him surrounding me. The pressure of his mouth increased. He nipped me with his teeth before dragging his open mouth down my throat. When he got to where my shoulder and neck met, he bit down, not hard enough to hurt but enough for me to release a shuddery moan.
He slipped the thin straps of my bra down my shoulders until the cups sagged loose. He closed both hands over my aching breasts. I arched into his palms. His dark head descended and his mouth closed over one nipple, drawing it deep into the warm heat of his mouth.
“Oh, God,” I cried, burying my hands in his hair and holding him to me. “Don’t stop.”
He moved his mouth to my other breast, his words fanning over my moist nipple. “We’re just getting started. This is going to take all night.”
A shudder ran through me at his words, at what his mouth was doing to me. I felt his hands at my back, unhooking the clasp of my bra. It fell down between us. The only thing barring me from complete nudity was the slight scrap of my underwear. His hands gripped my waist and ground me down harder against his erection. Moaning, I widened my thighs and rocked against him, searching for relief. He felt delicious, hard and insistent against the heat of me, and I throbbed. My belly clenched with need and I writhed, wiggling desperately against him, losing whatever rhythm I’d found in my rocking movements. My panties grew wet. I couldn’t take another minute of this. My fingers dug into his back, urging him on.
My dazed gaze focused on his face. “Please.”
“What? What do you want?”
My hands went for his belt, fingers fumbling, hating that he still wore his jeans. That I wore my panties. That there was any barrier at all between us. “This. I want you. Inside me.”
There. I’d said it. I didn’t even regret it. I just wanted it to happen. Now.
In one swift move, he lifted me off him and set me down on the bed. I watched, every part of me trembling as he stood and made quick work of removing his boots and jeans.
He stood before me in tight black briefs that did nothing to hide the hard outline of him. My eyes widened at the sight of his bulge. I squeezed my thighs together in an attempt to assuage the pulsing ache at my core, but it didn’t work. There was only one cure for that and I was staring right at him.
I slid off the bed and stood before him. I touched his face lightly, loving the bristly scrape of his cheek under my fingers.
His eyes ate me up. “Emerson,” he breathed. He pressed an open-mouthed kiss to my palm. Wrapping his arms around me, he lifted me off my feet, his forearm coming under my bottom, bringing me to eye level.
He came down over me on the bed. I felt small and delicate as he kissed his way down my body. He was so much bigger than me, hard and muscled, and I felt fragile. Cherished. Loved.
His hands hooked around my panties and slid them down my thighs and past my ankles. I couldn’t summon the slightest will to resist. No protest jumped to my lips. Shockingly enough, I felt like everything in my life had been leading to this moment where I finally released control. When I finally trusted someone else. When I let Shaw in.
His fingers touched me, feather light, skimming up the inside of my thighs, I arched, clawing my duvet cover as his fingers found me, parted me, and delved into my heat.
“Shaw,” I choked out, bewildered as his thumb found that tiny, hidden nub and pressed down on it, and then rolled it between his fingers. He’d done this to me before, but the memory paled in comparison to this moment. To now. “Shaw, please.”
“Not yet.” He slid down my body and put his mouth there. I screeched and came up off the bed. He flattened a hand against my belly, holding me down as his fingers pushed and pulled back the tiny hood of my clit, drawing it between his lips, his tongue playing against me as he sucked.
I gasped and shuddered, sensation eddying out from the spot where his mouth worked on me to every single nerve in my body. I seized his head, fisting his hair. His hands slid under my ass, lifting me higher and holding me in place for him like I was some kind of feast.
“Shaw, please!”
“Tell me, baby.” His lips moved against me and this only made me wilder. I tugged on his hair, trying to bring him back up on top of me. He continued to work my oversensitized flesh with his lips, tongue, and teeth, toying with me. I released a long, keening moan as he eased one finger deep inside me, adding to my torment.
“Tell me,” he demanded, adding a second finger inside me, pushing deeper, hitting a spot that sent me spiraling. His mouth sucked me harder then, only adding to the intensity of my orgasm, making it go on forever.
I was still shaking, pleasure rushing through me when he disappeared from my body.
“Shaw,” I moaned his name, squirming where he left me on the bed, watching him in a daze as he shed his briefs and fumbled with his discarded jeans. I heard a slight crinkle of paper and he was back, settling between my thighs. There was a rip of paper and I knew he had a condom—that he was putting it on.
Still no panic. No urge to jump off the bed and run away. I wanted this. I wanted him. Unbelievable as it all seemed.
Then his mouth was on mine again and I arched up, my tongue parrying with his. The hard length of him slid along my wetness, not penetrating, just teasing against my opening. The friction tantalized me, and I lifted my hips, my breath in shallow pants. “Please. Please,” I begged.
“What, Emerson? What?” His dark eyes glinted down at me. “I won’t. I’m not moving a muscle until you say it. What do you want from me?”
“I want you.” My nails dug into the skin of his back.
“What do you want me to do? Say it.”
“Take me . . . fuck me.” I moistened my lips, something else running through my mind.
And like he knew that, like he could read my mind, his hand cupped my face. His mouth brushed my ear. “I’m going to do that, baby. But what else?” Goose bumps broke out across my skin at the hot fan of his breath against the whorls of my ear. “Say what else I’m going to do to you. You know.”
I knew what he wanted to hear. I remembered what he had promised to do to me.
“Make love to me.” Was that my voice? I didn’t even recognize the low purr. “I want you to make love to me . . .
He pulled back to smile, slow and wicked, at me, and a shiver rushed through me. “All right then.”
I felt him then. The head of him right there, his hardness easing inside me. It was surreal. My fingers clenched his biceps like I was clinging to a lifeline. My wide eyes flitted everywhere, seeing nothing, feeling everything, excited and alarmed at what was happening.
At what was finally happening.
“God, Emerson,” he groaned, dropping his head in the crook of my shoulder, his mouth moving against my sensitive flesh as he added, “You feel so good.”
His hands slid under my back, his fingers curling over my shoulders, anchoring me between his body and the bed, pulling me even closer, if possible.
And then he plunged, pushing deep inside me, tearing through the thin barrier of my virginity, seating himself to the hilt, his fingers tight on my shoulders.
“Oh!” I gasped at the sudden invasion, at the sharp pain. I felt stretched, full in a way I had never imagined possible. My muscles stretched to accommodate him, burning and throbbing around his hard length.
He stiffened over me, his head lifting off my shoulder. “Look at me.” I fixed my gaze on him. He smoothed a lock of hair from my forehead. His dark eyes gleamed with emotion . . . something that looked suspiciously like regret. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I shook my head, unable to form words, too busy adjusting to him, processing everything. Like how he actually seemed to grow inside me. How my muscles clenched around him and that shot sensation to every nerve in my body. How could I explain anything at a time like this? Certainly not that I was a fake. A virgin. It was my secret. At least it had been. Now it was neither a secret nor true and I just wanted to move on to the obvious benefits of not being a virgin any longer.
I wiggled, testing out the feel of him in me.
“Oh, God,” he groaned. “Baby, don’t. When you do that, I just . . . don’t.” He started to withdraw and that slight movement made me moan. My hands flew to his ass, dragging him back inside me. That slight thrust made me gasp and arch under his body. “Don’t leave me.”
“Oh, Emerson, I couldn’t if I wanted to.” His bracketed arms trembled on either side of me. “But you probably shouldn’t move right now,” he hissed.
“I can’t.” I had to move. It was like something propelled me. It certainly wasn’t experience that had me lifting my hips up and down, seeking a repeat of the friction that I’d just experienced. With him over me, pinning me to the bed, I couldn’t move enough and I let out a sound of frustration, my nails clawing him.
His hips lifted then, pulling out almost completely. I whimpered at the drag of him against my aching flesh, clenching his firm ass, hoping this was it. He would finally move, finally satisfy my desperate hunger.
His cock hovered at my entrance. I felt the top of him there, and it killed me. Small, animal-like sounds I didn’t even recognize escaped me. Finally, he thrust deep once again, his hands anchoring on my hips. There was no pain this time, just pleasure. “God, Emerson. You’re so perfect, so tight.”
He kept a steady pace then, slow and even, cautious, almost like he was worried that he would hurt me if he let go, if he went faster. The friction drove me wild. A pressure built at my center, coiling in my belly. My body demanded more, needed it harder.
I angled my hips, taking more of him inside me, following my instincts, searching for a way to bring him closer, deeper, to assuage that ache that only seemed to pulse and grow. “More,” I pleaded.
“Emerson,” he choked. “You don’t know. You’re so small—”
“I won’t break,” I growled. Lifting my head, I bit him, my teeth clamping down on his shoulder and it was like I flipped some invisible switch in him.
“Fuck!” He moved then, his big hands sliding under my bottom and lifting me higher, holding me off the bed, angling me in a way that changed everything. Stars blinded me as he slammed into me, hitting that magic spot buried inside me. I screamed his name, my spine arching, head dropping back on the bed as he did precisely what I asked. He took me. He fucked me. He loved me. And I knew with a sense of shock that this was more than sex. He’d stamped himself not just on a canvas for me. He’d etched himself on me. Indelibly. He was under my skin. In my blood. A part of my soul.
I shuddered, coming apart. His arms wrapped around me, pulling me close as he joined me, pumping several more times until he shuddered and then stilled. I clutched him close, one hand buried in his hair, the other at his back.
The sound of our ragged breaths filled the air. I didn’t want to let go, didn’t want to face the questions I would see in his eyes.
His head turned to press an open-mouthed kiss to the side of my neck. “Emerson.”
A question hung in the sound of my name. I sighed, relaxing my arms around him. He pulled back and studied me for a moment before rising up from the bed. I watched him, a twisting ache in my chest. I’d done it. Given up control. And I was terrified. I pasted a smile on my face and hoped it didn’t look too thin. I sat up and reached for his shirt, pulling it over my head. I curled my knees together, wincing a little at the soreness between my legs.
He watched me carefully as he disposed of the condom. My face burned. He pulled several tissues from my Kleenex box and then sat back down on the bed. “Let me.”
I shook my head fiercely, mortified. “I can do it.” I snatched the tissues from his hand and turned halfway on the bed, cleaning myself off. The sight of the blood on the white tissue only drove home what I had just done. I wadded up the evidence in my hand and rose to dispose of it in the trash can. While I was up, I grabbed a fresh pair of panties from my drawer.
“Emerson.” The sound of his deep voice pulled my gaze back to him. So unbelievably hot and still naked. Not a flicker of embarrassment crossed his features. “Why?” He shook his head like he didn’t even know where to begin.
I decided to make it easy for him and get to the point. “I never said I wasn’t a virgin.”
“But you let everyone—me—assume—”
“I can’t help what people think.” Lame, I know, but if I was honest with him, I would be giving him too much of myself and I’d already given him enough for tonight.
“C’mon.” His mouth quirked into that sexy half grin. “What about Pepper and Georgia? Do they even know?”
I looked away at that, unable to hold his gaze. I let Pepper and Georgia assume I was experienced—maybe even implied it on more than one occasion.
“Wow. Your own best friends.”
“Why should it matter?” I snapped, looking back at him.
“It doesn’t. I still would have wanted you. I still do.” His eyes gleamed fiercely. “But I might have liked to know before this happened.” He motioned between us. “I could have made it better—”
“You were fine.” I dropped on the bed beside him, splaying a hand on his chest, directly over the tattoo. Fine? Try amazing. “Better than fine. It was . . .” I paused, suddenly self-conscious under his intent gaze. “It was beautiful.”
He dipped his head swiftly and kissed me then, long and tender. I would never have suspected when I first spotted this guy at Maisie’s that he was capable of such tenderness. That Hot Biker Boy would be the one to change everything. Change me.
He broke the kiss and whispered against my mouth, “No more secrets. I want to know the real Emerson.”
The real Emerson. The idea of that sent a bolt of panic through me. Could I do that? Could I be real with him? I nodded, determined to try. I’d come this far.
“Good.” He sat up and reached for the lamp, his muscled bicep flexing as he stretched his arm and flipped it off.
He came back down, pulling me against his hard body. Smooth, warm, male skin surrounded me. I found my voice. “W-what are you—”
“Staying the night.”
I swallowed, thinking about my rules. Spending the night with a guy was a big no-no. One of my cardinal rules. But then so was sex and that had just kind of gone out the window. I sighed and nestled my head against his chest.
I guess it was a night for breaking rules.