15

Stella awakened by slow degrees. She registered the sunlight on her face, the distant barking of a neighborhood dog, and Michael’s delicious smell. It was all around her, warm and concentrated, and she burrowed into the sheets with a happy sigh.

A heavy weight over her side kept her from rolling the sheets around her like a burrito, and she frowned. What was that? She lifted the blankets and stared in shock at the muscular arm wrapped around her waist. Her naked waist. She’d slept in her bra and panties last night.

And she hadn’t gone through her night routine. She was covered in nastiness. Her mouth. It was probably forming an ecosystem for antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria. She shot up in bed, her entire being focused on running straight to the bathroom. Floss, brush, shower, pajamas. Floss, brush, shower, pajamas.

Michael yanked her back down and kissed her nape. “Not yet.”

“I’m gross. I have to get clean. I—”

He sucked on her neck and pulled her hips back as he rocked forward, making her achingly aware of the firm flesh prodding against the backs of her thighs through his boxers.

Her body went into total system failure. Her limbs weakened. Between her thighs, she flushed and tingled with wanting. The intensity of her desire frightened and embarrassed her. She needed to be in control of herself and her body. Control was gone.

“Good morning.” His voice was a husky rasp that sent shivers down her spine.

“G-good mor—” A hand dipped inside her bra and cupped her breast. He stroked the tip until it ached and pinched, sending a burst of sensation straight to her core. When he headed downward, smoothing a hand over her belly, her stomach muscles clenched.

“I want to touch you here.” He palmed her sex with a bold grasp, and the heat of his touch spread through the cotton of her panties, searing her.

She gripped his wrist, fully intending to pull him away, but her hands refused to cooperate. His forearm was firm with defined muscle, his skin smooth, utterly distracting.

“Is that permission?” he whispered.

She’d given him permission last night. She wanted this, but she didn’t know how to handle this side of herself. Her body told her to say yes. Her mind told her to say no.

Her body won the fight, and her hips arched against his hand. He edged the crotch of her panties aside. He kissed her nape as he traced the slick entrance to her body with his fingertips. A sharp breath tore from her lungs. Panic and pleasure collided.

“You’re wet already, Stella. You’re like a Lamborghini. Zero to sixty in two point seven seconds.”

“You like Lamborghinis?” She tried desperately to cling to coherent thought. She needed to think at all times, to weigh her actions and her words. When she let go, she always made mistakes. She did the wrong thing, hurt people, mortified herself.

He continued touching her lightly, trailing around and around her opening in maddening circles. His teeth scraped against her neck before he licked and kissed her. Goose bumps spread over her skin.

“Yes, I like them. No, don’t get me one,” he said.

“Why not?” She rubbed her feet against his shins, dug her fingernails into his arm. Push him away. Pull him closer. Regain control. Let go.

“It doesn’t suit my lifestyle, and my mom would be very, very curious how I got it.” He emphasized the word very with barely there strokes over her clitoris. Her sex spasmed and trembled at the edge of release.

He bit her earlobe. “You’re about to go off, aren’t you? That’s all it took.”

“It’s because I’ve been fantasizing about you ever since last Friday.” Oh God, what had she just said?

He removed his touch and sat up. His expression was soft as he brushed tendrils of hair away from her face. “What does Fantasy Michael do?”

“Everything.”

He laughed before his eyes went intense. “Does he make you come with his mouth? Real Michael wants to do that.”

She squirmed as the need to please him warred with her inhibitions. That was one thing Fantasy Michael hadn’t done. “I’m more interested in giving oral sex than receiving it.”

“Maybe we should work on it,” he said in an unusually subdued tone. “I’m not the only guy who loves going down on women.”

She sank her teeth into her lip and fisted the sheets. Women. Plural. For a regular man, that meant anywhere from one to ten, maybe twenty. For Michael . . . hundreds. It might even be thousands, for all she knew. A new type of anxiety weighed down on her. Could she possibly measure up against all of his past clients?

“I don’t want to disgust you.”

“You won’t.”

“How do I make it good for you? Are some women better at receiving oral sex than others? What do they do?” She badly wanted to be good at it. She wanted to blow all the others out of the water—but there had been so many of them.

“What is going on in that beautiful brain of yours?” he asked in bafflement.

“I just—I want—I need—I think—”

“No more thinking,” he said as he touched a thumb to her lips.

He ran warm hands from her shoulders down to her wrists, interlaced their fingers and squeezed their palms together. Her muscles tensed as she worried she wasn’t responding the right way. What was she supposed to do? Now that she understood he wanted her to feel pleasure, she wanted to give it to him, wanted to make him happy.

“Stella, you’re locking up on me.” His eyes searched hers, worried now.

“I’m sorry.” She felt the sweat between their hands and fingers and winced. Her heart pounded. She was screwing this up.

He gathered her in his arms and held her, smoothing a hand through her hair in slow sweeps. “This is because of oral sex? We don’t have to have it.”

Stella pressed her forehead to his neck and breathed in his scent. By slow degrees, she relaxed into his embrace. “I’m very competitive.”

He brushed a kiss against her temple. “Okay, but how does that factor into anything?”

“It means I want to please you more than all your other clients have.”

“Stella, I’m the one who’s being paid to please here.”

“I’m not paying you for sex anymore, remember?”

He made a frustrated growling sound and held her tighter. “What am I going to do with you? I have you hot and naked in my arms, and you’re still not ready.”

She sighed and rested against him. She idly traced the dragon scales on his bicep. “We could floss, brush, shower, and dress.”

He threw the covers off. “Let’s do it, then.”

---

“Don’t you have any casual clothes?”

Michael swept her damp hair to the side and kissed her neck as she stared at her wardrobe, trying to make her clothing selection for the day.

“I didn’t need them when I started working, so I gave them all away,” she said.

“You had them, though? Or were they all knee-length skirts and button-downs?” As he spoke, his arms stole around her bathrobe-clad waist and hugged her to his naked chest. Her body couldn’t decide if it wanted to relax or stiffen.

She suspected he was seducing her. It was almost working. It was definitely making her mind fuzzy, but that was a good thing. He was distracting her from her headache and the fact that she was terribly off-schedule today, something that normally filled her with irritation and frustration until she could start over and do things right.

“They were skirts and button-downs. How do you know me so well?”

His hot breath fanned over her ear as he chuckled. “You are my favorite puzzle lately. I want to see you in sundresses, Stella.”

“I don’t have any.”

“It’s Sunday. We could go shopping.”

She turned around, feeling a spike of anxiety at the thought of going out in public, going somewhere new, and worst of all, trying on itchy, scratchy clothes that were probably dusted with rat feces from warehouse floors. “Can you make me sundresses? I was serious when I said I wanted custom Michael designs. I’ll have to get anything I buy seriously altered before I can wear it, anyway.”

Instead of answering, he pulled a pink shirt off its hanger and inspected the inside seams. “French seams. The fabric is . . .” He rubbed it between his fingers. “It’s plain cotton.”

“I love cotton. Silk, too. I don’t mind synthetic fabrics like acrylic and Lycra, as long as they’re soft, but I can’t stand crisp denim or wool or cashmere or angora.”

A pleased smile curved over his mouth as he continued to check out the construction of her shirt. “My practice girlfriend might know more about textiles than I do. Impressive.”

His compliment made her feel warm and bubbly, but her mind snagged on her “practice girlfriend” title. She didn’t like it—namely the “practice” half—but she knew she had to be realistic about what she could and couldn’t have. Better to focus on the irony of her tactile defensiveness leading them to a common interest. She restrained herself from reading off fabric types and qualities like an encyclopedia.

He hung her shirt back up neatly and stepped in front of her, resting his hands on her hips. “I really want you in sundresses, Stella. I love the pencil skirts. They do fantastic things to one of my favorite parts of you, but they’ve also been torturing me.”

“How? Why?”

“They don’t let me do this.” Watching her with heated eyes, he drew the end of her bathrobe up. It made a brushing sound against his jeans as he bared her thighs to the cool air. His palm scraped up the outside of her leg, paused at her hip, and reached behind her to squeeze her rear, making need shock through her body.

The brown curls between her thighs were visible, and she caught him eyeing them darkly. Without asking, without hesitating, without giving her time to think, he slipped his hand over her hip and down to her pelvis. Daring fingertips threaded through the hair and massaged the peak of her sex.

Her skin burned where he touched her, and her knees weakened. She braced herself on his shoulders.

“That’s my girl,” he whispered as he leaned down to kiss her.

The taste of his clean mouth was heavenly, and a high-pitched sound hummed from her throat as she kissed him back. She tried to kiss him as well as he’d taught her, but she couldn’t concentrate. His fingers were doing diabolical things to her. It was all she could do to stand, and she wasn’t doing a good job of it. Each stroke of his fingers melted her a little more. She was starting to tremble.

Without breaking the kiss, he picked her up and carried her to the bed. The feel of her back sinking into the down blankets brought her to reality. They were finally going to do this. Sex. Without structure, without a plan. She was going to be bad at it, and he’d have to show her what to fix, how to improve, and she’d try very hard to take the criticism in stride even though it humiliated—

He tore her bathrobe open, and his mouth fastened on her nipple, drawing deeply. She arched into him with a gasp that turned into a moan when his hand slid between her thighs again and stroked her. Her sex clenched so hard it hurt.

“Shhhhhh,” he whispered against her breast.

One long finger slipped into her, and grateful sighs and murmurs tumbled from her lips. That was exactly what she needed. He worked a second finger in, and the stretching sensation had her head falling back. No, this was what she needed. Her heels dug into the bed as she pushed into the penetration. His fingers eased in and out, curling against her to breathtaking effect.

When he removed his touch, she couldn’t bite back a protesting sound. “Michael, more, I—”

He lifted his glistening fingers to his lips and sucked them into his mouth. The intensity of his eyes coupled with his devilish grin had her bunching the blankets in her hands as her core tightened on itself.

The caresses resumed with deep, slow thrusts. It was good, so good, but he wasn’t touching her where she needed it. Her hips writhed as she tried to relieve the growing ache. When he withdrew again, she stroked her hands down her stomach in rampant frustration, but her own touch did nothing to excite her.

He gripped her knees, pulled them apart to bare her sex to his eyes. His chest expanded on a sharp inhalation, and his dragon tattoo rippled. His throat worked on a loud swallow. “I should have known you’d have the prettiest little—”

“Michael, don’t say it,” she said quickly.

He paused, considered her with a naughty glint in his eyes. “You mean . . . pussy?”

Flames burned her face, and she wanted to hide inside herself.

The corner of his mouth kicked up. “No wonder my mom likes you so much. It’s very Vietnamese to be modest about sex. I didn’t even know the correct Vietnamese word for girl parts until I was twenty. Most people call it a little bird. My aunt refers to it as a sweet potato. Those aren’t the right words for yours. You have a pussy, Stella.”

Her face burned even hotter, and the blush spread down her neck to her chest, touching everything. “That’s a cat. They purr and catch mice. Me—that part—it doesn’t—the image is so ridiculous—I can’t—”

“It’s a pussy, Stella, and it’s wet for me, and I want to eat it.” Focusing a dark look between her legs, he traced her folds, dipped inside briefly, and began circling the part of her that wanted him most. “And this, this is your clit. It wants my mouth so bad it’s bright red. Put us both out of our misery, and let me taste you. If you hate it, I’ll stop.”

It hit her then that he truly wanted this, her. He liked what he saw. His unabashed craving for her most private parts was real. And dirty. And . . . exciting. A secret Stella woke up and stretched, drawn to Michael and his words.

“Will you be disappointed if I don’t like it and I don’t respond like other women?” She wanted to like it, wanted to orgasm for his mouth like so many other women had, and because of that, her arousal started fading away as performance anxiety took its place.

“If you don’t like it, then we’ll move on.” Running his hands down her inner thighs, he spread her wider. The tip of his tongue pressed against his gorgeous upper lip.

He bent down close to her wet flesh, making her nervousness spike to heart-pounding levels, and took a deep breath. “I’m beginning to understand your addiction to my smell. It’s a good thing you don’t smell like this everywhere, though. I’d have a constant hard-on for you. I’m having enough trouble as it is.”

A gentle closed-mouth kiss landed on her clitoris, and her entire body stiffened. That was not what she’d expected.

“Hate it?” he asked.

“I—I . . .”

Another kiss, followed by a slow tasting. He hummed his approval and covered her with his mouth, sucking with slight pressure as his tongue laved her. Soft and warm and delicious. Stella’s body went limp as heat bloomed inside her.

“I can tell you don’t like it,” he rasped. “Just let me . . .” His tongue stroked into her, lapping at the moisture that flooded from her. “One last taste.” He returned to her clitoris, scraping his teeth against the sensitive nerves before he kissed her again, sipped at her, licked her.

She buried her face in the blankets as pleasure concentrated low and deep. His tongue was so clever, but release stayed just out of reach. This was too new. Her body was in a state of shock from the sensations bombarding her. When he stopped she was going to cry.

Two fingers worked into her, and her eyes rolled back into her head. He began a steady rhythm as his tongue flickered over her, and she couldn’t prevent her hips from rising to meet his thrusts. Oh God, she was riding his hand, smothering his face with her sex. That had to be bad. She told herself to stop. She couldn’t.

Somehow, she found her hands tangled in his short hair. Her body was coiling tighter, grasping at his fingers, so wet now she could hear the slippery sounds every time he drove back into her.

“I’ll stop, Stella. Clearly . . .” His tongue rubbed over her fast and hard, and she clenched helplessly around his fingers. “Clearly, you hate this.”

“Michael.” That breathy, needy voice was hers. She didn’t care. She rubbed her hungry flesh against his tongue, nearly sobbing when he took her back into his mouth.

He sucked with perfect pressure, and she came apart with strong, wrenching convulsions. He rode out the orgasm with her, dragging out the pleasure with soothing flicks of his tongue. As the aftershocks spaced out, he pressed a parting kiss to her sex and rose over her to blanket her with his body. She buried her face against his chest, feeling more exposed and vulnerable than she’d ever been.

She’d let him do that to her. She’d made all those sounds, lost all control.

“You came on me like a porn star, Stella. I almost spilled in my jeans.”

“Did it take me too long? Was that a lot of . . . work?” It discomforted her that she’d been the only one to derive pleasure from that act. She much preferred to be on the giving side of things.

He laughed softly. “I drew it out on purpose, Stella. You were sexy as hell.” Peeling away from her, he sat back on his heels and extracted a small foil from his pocket. “Do you want to?”

She pushed herself up, and the bathrobe slipped off her shoulders. She stifled the reflex to cover her nudity but couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes. Her pulse was out of control. “Yes, I want to.” She took the foil from his hand and tore it open with shaky fingers.

He got down from the bed and unbuttoned and unzipped his fly. His muscles bunched and shifted, and the dragon tattoo winked at her as he stepped free of his pants with masculine grace. This was Michael in all of his naked glory. He was perfection. Even that part of him.

Oh God, especially that part of him. His erection stood at attention, thick and veined, in flawless proportion to the rest of his beautiful body. She’d just had the most intense orgasm of her life, but she wanted more. She wanted that. It made her mouth water, and she’d never given a man oral sex.

She couldn’t remember how to breathe as he kneeled on the bed and wrapped one of her hands around him. He was so hot, satiny soft, but rigid underneath. Want, want, want. In any way she could. In whatever way he liked.

“Stella, the look on your face.” His voice was hoarse, almost a groan. He guided her fist up and down his length, saying, “This is my cock. When you want it, when you need it, that’s the word I want you to use.”

Unable to speak, she nodded. Secret Stella loved the idea of demanding his . . . cock . . . and him providing it, though she didn’t think she’d ever be able to get that word past her lips. Not unless they were talking about farm animals. Probably not even then.

“Do you want to put it on me?” he asked, indicating the forgotten condom in her other hand.

She licked her lips and cleared her throat. “Yes.”

Her hands weren’t steady, so she and Michael ended up doing it together. When they finished, he pulled her close, and she shivered at the feel of their skin coming in contact. Her nipples grazed his chest, and his solid length burned against her lower belly. He swept his hands up and down her back as he angled his head, trying to catch her gaze.

“Why won’t you look at me?”

She trained her eyes on the notch at the base of his throat and hunched her shoulders forward. “I’m feeling very self-conscious.”

“We’re both naked.”

She didn’t know how to explain that it was on the inside that she was feeling naked. If he looked into her eyes, he’d see all of her, the person she kept hidden away. No one wanted to see that. This was supposed to be fun and educational, not soul-baring.

He tipped her chin back, and she caught a glimpse of tender eyes before she squeezed her own shut.

“Kiss me, please,” she said.

Warm lips took hers, tasting of her and him and sex. His hands grew urgent as he caressed her. He grabbed her thigh and hooked her leg around his hips, opening her to him. With a flex of his hips, he stroked over her sex. The friction sent blood pooling fast and hot.

“Now, Stella.”

She wrapped her arms around the barrel of his chest and pressed her lips to his neck. “I’m ready.”

He lowered her to the bed, and his body covered her. He nuzzled against her jaw and ear, pressed soft kisses to her cheek, the corner of her mouth, her lips. “You have to talk to me, okay? If something hurts, if you don’t like it, if you want something more, if it’s perfect. Say everything.”

Eyes still shut, she said, “I’ll . . . try.”

Unexpectedly, he flipped her around so she was on her hands and knees. “I think you’ll feel less self-conscious this way.”

She opened her eyes, taking in the rumpled pillows and wooden headboard. He was right. This was better. He couldn’t see her. She immediately relaxed. “Will it be good for you this way?” The other men had all preferred the missionary position.

“No, it’s going to be excellent.” Rough hands glided down her back and massaged her with voluptuous motions. His firm chest brushed against her shoulder blades as he propped an arm on the bed next to her. Reaching in front of her, he slid a hand up her inner thigh. He searched through her folds and sank his fingers deep, working her until her hips were rocking and fresh moisture drenched the both of them. Withdrawing, he teased her clitoris with gentle touches.

“Michael . . .”

“Stella,” he replied, breathing heavily in her ear.

Something hard prodded at the entrance of her body and pushed inside slowly. Stella stopped breathing. Sex had hurt in the past, but there was nothing now but a sensuous stretching that went on and on until Michael seated himself fully inside her. She tried to swallow, to talk. Couldn’t. They fit perfectly.

For long moments, Michael remained immobile. Sensing the tension in his body, she looked at him over her shoulder.

“Michael?”

His face was drawn as if in pain. “I’ve been wanting this too long. It’s too good. You feel . . .” He exhaled. “If I move, I’m going to lose it.”

She couldn’t stop herself from smiling. She wasn’t alone in this. “Move.” She arched her back and rocked against him. The motion pushed him in even deeper, filled her.

A raw groan escaped his throat. “Stella, I’m serious. Give me a moment to cool down. This is our first time. I want fireworks for you.”

Our first time. He made it sound like there would be lots of times. The thought made her so happy her heart wanted to burst. She didn’t need fireworks. She just needed him.

Wet kisses landed on her neck, interspersed with teasing nips and greedy licks. He traced the folds stretched tightly around him before sliding his slick fingertips higher. When he rubbed her there, she clenched on him and moaned.

Only then did he begin moving. He withdrew, thrust back into her, retreated, returned, picking up a driving rhythm. The twin assaults of his fingers and invading sex kindled flames beneath her skin that spread outward in widening rings.

“Stella,” he said with a groan. “You feel too good. Sweet Stella, my Stella.”

His words soothed and excited. She tried to speak as he’d asked her to, but all that came out were gasps and sighs of pleasure. Instead, she communicated how she felt with her body. She spread her thighs wider and writhed to match him thrust for thrust. Did he like that? Or was she being too debauched? The hand propped against the mattress captured hers, and he interlaced their fingers.

“Just like that,” he whispered. “Perfect.”

Her sex fisted tight. For a timeless moment, she hovered on the brink, breathless, possessed, loved. The orgasm crashed over her. She rippled around him as he drove into her relentlessly. She attempted to meet his thrusts, but the strong convulsions gripping her body stole her coordination.

His lips traveled from her neck to her jaw, and when she turned toward him blindly, he captured her mouth, stroking his tongue deep. The caresses between her legs did not ease, and before the last orgasm had finished, she felt another building. Her muscles fluttered around his impalement, clamped down, and exploded yet again. With a hoarse groan, he surged into her one last time.

He rubbed his jaw against her cheek and neck and lowered her shaking body to the bed, held her close like she was his. She stroked clumsy hands over the strong arms wrapped around her and held him back.

Until she remembered sex didn’t mean anything to him, and she loosened her grip somewhat. Michael enjoyed physical intimacy. That was all.

Emotion clogged her throat, anyway. If this was just practice, she never wanted the real thing. How long could she live in a fantasy?