WE ALL BUT RAN TO our clothes as the night air bit at our exposed skin. He bent down, scooping up our belongings, and I couldn’t help but note that he had a nice ass. No. Not just nice. Amazing. The kind of muscle I wanted to sink my teeth into.
Yearning bloomed in my stomach.
We made a break for the house, and I stole as many glances as I could of his glorious body. The slope of his back, muscles rippling from his every step. The small dip at the hem of his briefs I imagined kissing there slowly, nipping at his skin.
How long had it been since I’d been inside the arms of a man? Since I felt the heat from a hungry gaze grazing over my body? I was treading in dangerous territory when I followed him inside, our underwear clinging to us, leaving nothing to the imagination.
He reached for one of the white sheets and wrapped me up in it, then grabbed one for himself. The air felt awake. Eager. Biting its nails in anticipation for what would happen next.
He was standing in front of me, rubbing his hands up and down my arms, trying to put some heat back into me. If only he knew how little he had to try.
“There’s a shower upstairs if you want to grab one,” he said, standing so close I could see small, faded freckles just below his eyes. “I can start a fire for us in the meantime.”
He was waiting on me. Waiting for that last green light.
After all, I was the one notorious for running.
But shivering so hard my bones felt like they rattled together couldn’t stop me from wanting him.
Desire sat like warm, sticky candy against my tongue, offering sweet words. “Or…” I said as I dropped the sheet somewhere near my feet. “Maybe you could take one with me?”
“Are you sure?”
I nodded, never more sure about anything in my life.
Longing lit like a match within his eyes. “This won’t be soft. I’ve wanted you for too long to make it soft.”
It was funny how the right man’s words could make me feel like he was already inside. Already claiming me in all the delicious ways I’d imagined. And I wanted nothing more than to let him. I was putty. A tightly pulled string on the edge of snapping.
Trailing a finger down his chest, I batted my lashes and said, “Good. I don’t like soft.”
With a guttural growl, he swept me up, cradled me to his chest, and hauled me up the stairs with hulking steps, taking them two at a time toward the shower. It took but seconds for us to be standing face to face, under the spray of water, naked except for the desire painted across our skins. Wonder and excitement passing between our gazes as we held our breath and took the plunge.
His mouth clashed against mine, his tongue hungry and greedy and warm. Swirling and tasting and claiming what we’d put off for too long. He was fire and spice. A heat wave crashing over me.
It was overwhelming at first, that feeling of falling and floating as his hands found my hair, pulling me closer and closer to him, as if he wanted us to be bone to bone. Heart to frantically beating heart. I couldn’t get enough. Couldn’t get close enough.
His tongue moved down the side of my neck. Tasting. Sucking. Teeth gently sinking into the sensitive flesh of my shoulder. My thoughts dissipated as my head fell back, and his hands rose to my breasts. Rough, calloused, starving hands. Thumbs caressing my nipples, sending shockwaves of pleasure throughout my body. He was deliciously aggressive in his movements. The perfect amount of pressure. He liked to play… just like me.
I wanted him. God, how I wanted him.
He groaned when he took my nipple into his mouth. Feasted on it with a frenzy as his other hand slid down my stomach and disappeared between my legs.
“You’re so wet,” he said, his eyes finding mine. I thought tipsy looked good on him, but tipsy didn’t stand a chance against desire.
“You made me that way.” My words dripped from my lips as I met his gaze head on. I wanted him inside me. Fast.
“And now I’m going to make you come.”
His throat clenched with restraint as I took his finger into the warmth of my mouth. Lightly sucking. Teasing. Letting him feel what I wanted to do to him. He was the one in charge, and I could tell he was finding it hard to stay in control.
“Sit,” he said, gesturing past me to the small seat inside the shower where a few shampoo bottles rested.
I did what he said. Of course I did what he said.
I was deliciously anxious and starving for him. He lowered himself before me, and then pushed my legs open. Gave me one long, slow, torturous lick, keeping his eyes on mine. I felt it all the way up my body. All the way into my soul as his tongue danced around the edges of my clit, teasing, tasting, waiting for me to beg.
My eyes fell shut as a pent-up moan surged past my lips, the sound awaking the animal within him.
His lips devoured me then, sucking and licking. Tasting and consuming. I was barely hanging on as he slid a finger, and then two, inside me, tongue driving me to the edge faster than I’d ever been. A feral feeling awoke in me. A wild being that wanted to slip out of this skin and fill up on him. My hands dug into his hair and my hips thrust up, wanting to give him more to taste.
He groaned against me and I spilled over the edge, grinding against his face as he soaked up every inch of me. My eyes were closed in satisfaction when his mouth found mine. Tentative. Gentle. Waiting for me to open for him again.
I parted my lips. Wrapped my arms around his neck, letting him take whatever he wanted from me.
And then he was gone.
I opened my eyes. He was fiddling with something near the counter. A second later, he appeared, a condom wrapped around the full length of him. He’d grown bigger than he was but moments ago.
The length… Jesus. Could I handle that?
I sat straight. Shoulders back.
I was damn sure going to try.
He chuckled. He must have had that reaction before.
“Stand up,” he said, stepping back into the shower.
I did.
Softly, he ran his lips over mine, winding his hand through my hair. With a light tug, he pulled my head back. I groaned as his tongue slid over my neck again, sucking, leaving marks of ownership behind.
When he let go, his hands found my ass and he lifted me up, pressing my back against the wall, already resting at my opening.
“You’re so fucking sexy, Hartley. I want to fuck you senseless.”
“So stop talking and do it.” I was barely hanging on.
He pushed inside me, slowly, filling me all the way up to my spine. I gasped, wrapping my arms around him, trying to settle around the length of him. He slowed his kisses, allowing my body to adjust.
“Fuck,” he said, his voice shaky and deep. Body trembling against mine.
I’d never felt so full. So completely taken by someone as he began to pull out and push back in. A slow rhythm that pressed against the tension coiled inside my belly, waiting for him to unwind me.
When my lips found his, the frenzy started over again. He was slamming into me, driving me higher and higher to the stars. Stealing my breaths. His groans feeding my exhales. I hung on as the coil popped and unwound, and then the stars burst behind my eyes as he spilled into me with small, exhausted thrusts.
We clung to each other, our skin sticky with sweat. Hearts beating wildly behind our chests, trying to break out and claim one another. When his eyes found mine, we both kind of laughed. There was no other way to describe the shaky, consuming high we had just climbed. No way to process the emotion we’d exchanged.
After he set me down, we washed off, laughing as we soaped each other up. Sighing as we lathered each other’s hair. And then I found myself lying next to him, skin to skin beneath the covers, collapsed in a tangled mess on his bed.
This was new territory for me as he wrapped his arm around me, pulling me against him. This was when I left. When he was supposed to want me to leave, but we both knew neither of us wanted that.
We were safe inside a moment we’d created, hanging onto the ends of it by our fingertips. Knowing sunlight would surely steal it away.
“You can stay if you want,” he said as the moon peered inside his room, stars blinking sluggishly. “I’d like it if you did.”
“Okay.” I snuggled closer, too tired to protest as the lull of mind-blowing sex and good wine tugged at my eyelids.
I could feel it happening then… happiness grabbing me by the hands, pulling me into her lively dance. I avoided her when I could. Kept to myself in the corner of the room while I watched her waltz with everyone else.
Because being happy meant being sad. It wasn’t possible to have one without the other. I’d been content living my life in a safe medium of dull and gray. I couldn’t be let down, because I never let anyone in. I couldn’t be sad, because I’d never truly been happy to begin with.
But for one small moment… just for this day, I let happiness pull me to the center of the floor, and I rested my head on her shoulder, smiling within the darkness of his room for the first real time in my life.