CHAPTER 15
By the time the door closed behind them in the hotel room, Jess’s entire body was engulfed in flames of desire. She stopped in the middle of the room as uncertainty overwhelmed her. She knew what she wanted to happen. There was no ambiguity on that front. Her challenge was not to let her mind wander to what the aftermath of this decision would be.
Ethan stopped behind her and slid his jacket off of her shoulders. Her inner muscles clenched with need as she watched his reflection through the glass of the window as he folded the garment and laid it over a chair. She knew she had it bad when seeing him do something as simple as that made her tingle from the inside out.
His hand traveled up her bare back and the heat from his fingertips danced along the base of Jess’s spine. Her hair was half up and half down. He gently brushed the pieces that fell over her shoulder off, revealing her neck. When he did, Jess automatically tilted her head to the side, offering herself up to him like he was Edward and she was Bella from Twilight.
His lips brushed the tender skin at the base of her shoulder, and she shivered beneath his light kisses. He continued traveling up her neck and stopped just below her ear.
“Ethan?”
“Do you want me to stop?” He whispered against her ear, his lips grazing the sensitive area.
“No. Don’t stop.” Needing to touch him, she reached behind her and gripped his thighs. She felt the tension in his body amp up as his muscles clenched beneath her fingers.
His lips continued moving down her neck. “This, right here, this is where I’ve always wanted to kiss.”
“You’ve always wanted to kiss me there?”
“Yes. Here.” He pressed his lips to the hollow area. “And a lot more places.”
The low, gravelly quality of his voice penetrated through her. She didn’t just feel Ethan’s mouth on her body physically, she felt it in her soul. So much of today had been a whirlwind of emotion, and it seemed to be getting even stronger. There was a tornado of feelings whipping through her.
His hand slid lower, over her hip and then beneath her skirt. Her body trembled beneath his self-assured touch as his fingers traveled up her leg, taking the material of her dress with him. Her bare skin pebbled with goosebumps as the cool air of the hotel room hit it.
Luckily, she had Ethan’s body to warm her, and he was getting hotter by the second. She could feel his temperature spike as waves of heat radiated off of him. His lips caressed her skin in open mouth kisses, and his breaths grew shallower with each second that passed.
His hand dipped between her legs and brushed over the thin fabric of her lace panties. She watched his fingers graze her most sensitive area in the mirror and her knees buckled. Not wanting to be the only one losing themselves in this slow seduction, she shifted forward slightly so she could slide her hand up and over the bulge that had been pressing into her back.
He inhaled sharply as her fingers molded around the thickness of his erection. The next thing she knew she’d been spun around so she was facing him and his mouth crashed down on hers. Her lips opened on a gasp and Ethan drove his tongue into her like a conqueror claiming new lands.
She grew dizzy with lust with each pass of his tongue and grasped his broad shoulders to anchor herself to him and to this moment. Her body ached as she writhed against him, trying to get as close to him as humanly possible.
Wild need crashed into her with unrelenting, punishing force.
“I want…to feel…you…your…everything,” she stammered between kisses as she tugged at his shirt with a jerky, unsuccessful effort.
But, thankfully, her lack of suave moves turned out not to be an issue.
With David-Blaine-level skill, Ethan not only stripped himself of his shirt but he also liberated her from her dress, taking it up and over her head before she even knew what was happening. She was still reeling from his magic act when she noticed that her bra had joined the growing pile of discarded clothes on the ground.
Jess had never been a girl, teen, or woman that worried about her weight. She’d been underweight most of her life, and the doctors were always suggesting that she put on ten to fifteen pounds. After her heart transplant two years ago, she’d finally been able to reach a weight that was considered in the “healthy” range, and she liked having a little bit more curve to her hips, thighs, and even belly.
Her body issues were centered around the scars that lined her chest. She’d undergone two open-heart surgeries as a baby, one as an adolescent and then the (hopefully) final surgery, her heart transplant, as an adult.
She wasn’t ashamed of her scars, and she didn’t try and hide them with turtlenecks or high collared shirts. And this wasn’t the first time that she’d been topless with a man. But it was the first time she cared about what the man who was looking at her thought, and that pissed her off. Her hands curled in fists at her sides as she felt her insecurity gain momentum.
Take a picture, it lasts longer, or something equally as lame and defensive was on the tip of her tongue when Ethan dipped his head and pressed his lips to the top of her newest scar that ran down the center of her chest. The others were faded and barely visible, but that one still got red when her blood was flowing and right now, her blood was flowing.
She looked down at the top of his head and felt his fingers grip her lower back, holding her in place as he kissed his way down the discolored, raised, mark. There was such tenderness, such care, such awe in the way his mouth grazed her skin that her eyes started filling with tears.
He tortured her with such light pressure that if she weren’t watching the contact with her own eyes, she wouldn’t be sure it was really happening.
His mouth moved up and down all four of her scars, several times. He kept his hand firmly in the center of her back as he made his way around each of her breasts, circling them with as much reverence as he had her scars.
As sweet and loving as her mind was interpreting his actions, her body was responding to it as slow, deliberate torture. A deep, throbbing need pulsed in between her legs and she heard desperate sounds coming from the back of her throat.
She and Ethan’s relationship had always been a game of tug-of-war, and this encounter was no different. Except this was next-level. It was like all the years between their first kiss and this night had been foreplay, and it was all coming to a head.
Once she’d learned to tell her partners what she wanted, she’d had good sex, great sex, a couple of blow-your-socks-off encounters. But this was different. This was more than just the physical, but damn if the physical hadn’t just blown her metaphorical socks off. She was torn between wanting to demand he give her the pleasure that her body was craving or letting this play out and see where it went.
Her decision was made when his hips rolled into hers, and she felt the evidence of his arousal pushing against her belly. Desperation flooded her as she threaded her fingers in his hair and did her best to guide him to one of her pert, taut nipples. But the stubborn man didn’t budge, not even a little.
If she wasn’t mistaken, she felt his lips tug up in a smile.
Her fingers that had been raking through his silky hair, curled into fists. “I hope you’re enjoying yourself, but remember, payback is a bitch.”
With that declaration, she found her feet being lifted up off the ground and she was set, rather abruptly, on the round wooden table in the middle of the hotel room. Her eyes shut at the momentum of sensations bombarding her as she reclined back.
At that moment she felt a thrilling combination of vulnerable and empowered. Exposed and sheltered. Defenseless and protected, both physically and emotionally.
It was amazing and terrifying. The questions that she’d been keeping at bay infiltrated her mind.
What came after this?
What were the rules of their “relationship” after they went back to Whisper Lake?
How was she going to survive living in such close proximity to a man that she knew could make her body feel like this and not break into his house and wait for him in his bed naked?
He’d chosen her to be his girlfriend because she didn’t like him. But she did like him. She more than liked him.
She was still wrestling with her thoughts when she noticed that since Ethan had laid her down, he hadn’t touched her. She opened her eyes and saw that he was standing between her parted legs gazing down at her.
“What?” Her tone was sharper than she’d intended it to be.
He didn’t seem to notice or care that she’d snapped at him. “I was just waiting for you to come back to me.”
Well, damn. Him saying things like that didn’t help the emotional barricade she needed to double reinforce around her heart. But right now, the way he was looking at her had her lady parts smothering any self-protection that was trying to surface.
“I’m back,” she whispered.
“Good.” The smug smile on his face didn’t even bother her. For once she didn’t want to slap it off of him. She just wanted him.
He began closing the distance between them, and she expected him to kiss her, but instead, his hands moved to each side of her, and he pressed his palms down on the surface of the table as he lowered his body so that he was hovering just above her. His eyes never left hers as his face stilled just above her breasts.
The heat of his breath fanned over her bare chest and her nipples puckered with need.
A soft whimper fell from her lips and she was at the point that she was ready to beg, plead for him to suck her, lick her, touch her. And usually, she’d have no problem doing that, but a little voice in the back of her head was telling her that she might enjoy the experience more if she kept her mouth shut. So she bit her tongue. Literally, she had the sucker between her teeth.
And holy shit was she glad she did. She would never have suggested what he proceeded to do.
Instead of kissing, licking, sucking, pinching or rubbing her nipples, he teased them in a different way. His chin, covered with a five o’clock shadow, brushed the tip of her puckered bud. The prickly stubble grazed her sensitive nub and sent all kinds of sensations shooting down between her legs.
He repeated the motion on her other breast and when he did, her back arched up off the flat surface of the table. That’s when she felt the heat of his palm spread on the bare skin of her belly, securing her in place.
Their eyes were still locked as he tilted his head and rubbed his whiskered cheek against her nipple. The bristly sensation combined with the visual of what he was doing was making her inner walls clench, and her panties wet. As her breaths came in shallow pants, her belly moved up and down in a faster pace beneath Ethan’s touch.
Just when she thought it couldn’t feel any better, get any more erotic, his tongue appeared between his lips, and he licked each of her taut nipples that were begging for his attention.
A soft cry fell from her lips when his own lips covered the dark pink halo of soft skin surrounding her pebble-hard tips and sucked. She just about came right then and there. Her lids slammed shut as her fingers clutched the edges of the round table and she did her best to hold her body still and just surrender to his tantalizing expertise.
It wasn’t as easy as it might sound. Every instinct in her was screaming to demand that he strip, jimmy up, and put her out of the sweet, punishing misery that this decades-long build up was finally reaching.
She opened her eyes and saw from the amused grin on his face that her internal turmoil was not lost on him, and he was actually enjoying watching her wrestle with overwhelming desire. She stored his amusement in the back of her mind; she’d given him fair warning that turnabout was fair play.
He took his sweet time exploring her body and the resolve to let him keep thinking he was in control dissolved when she saw the twinkle in his eye. She wanted more, and she wanted it now.
Spreading her legs farther apart, she slid her hand between her legs and pulled her panties to the side. His eyes shot down to her exposed sex. She trailed her other hand over her hip and dipped her fingers between her legs. The tip of her finger had barely skimmed her swollen clit when he caught her wrist, and his eyes shot to her.
She grinned, happy to see some of the tension she was feeling reflected in his eyes. “You were taking too long, so I figured I’d handle it.”
The muscles in his shoulders relaxed slightly. A grin lifted on his mouth as he shook his head. “What am I going to do with you?”
“I have some idea-”
Before she was able to finish her thought, Ethan had dropped down on his knees and covered her mound with his mouth. Her entire body convulsed with pleasure from the wet suction of his lips and the pressure from the illicit strokes of his tongue.
The buildup of this release was decades in the making, and it took only seconds of his suckling attention to send her shooting into the stratosphere of mind-blowing climax. She lost herself in the soul-stealing intensity of sensations rioting through her.
Just when she’d thought she’d reached her peak, she felt Ethan’s finger push inside of her. The canal of her sex clamped around it as stars exploded behind her lids and her body shattered into a thousand pieces.
* * *
Ethan watched Jess as she came down from her orgasm and he kept his finger inside of her, pushing in and pulling out in a steady rhythm. He inhaled the sultry scent of her sex. Her body pulsed against his digit as he licked the sweet juices that coated her silky, feminine lips. Her inner thighs clenched against his ears but he was still able to hear the gasps and whimpers that were the soundtrack of her release.
Even though every single one of his senses were being stimulated by her, he still couldn’t quite believe this was happening and that it was even better than he’d ever imagined.
When her body finally went limp, he didn’t waste any time tugging her panties down her legs, picking her up, and carrying her to one of the queen beds. She surprised him by wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face in his shoulder. He’d expected her to give him grief about her legs working just fine, but she didn’t. She melted into him.
After gently laying her down he tried to straighten, but she made a disagreeable noise and tightened her grip. “Don’t go.”
“I’ll be right back,” he promised.
She dropped her arms to her sides with a sigh, and her lids fluttered open. “Okay but hurry. It felt…nice…to hold you.”
It wasn’t an admission of love, but his heart swelled as if it were. Not as much as his dick was swelling, though. That sucker had his ticker beat by a mile.
He started to unzip his pants. “It’s about to feel a lot nicer.”
The smile that spread on her face had both regions of his body expanding. She looked so damn sexy lying on the bed, naked, waiting for him.
After getting undressed, he stroked himself several times before slipping a condom on. Jess watched his movements with rapt attention. Her eyes followed his hand as it gripped his shaft and sheathed himself.
Tonight hadn’t gone as he planned. He never dreamed that he’d tell anyone about his origin story. Sure, he might share that he was adopted, but not the gritty details he’d never even come to terms with himself. But if sharing an intimate part of himself with Jess led them here, to this moment, then it was all worth it.
Not that that’s why he’d opened up to her. He honestly hadn’t had a choice. The connection that he shared with Jess was unlike any he’d felt before. Revealing his past to her had felt like the most natural thing in the world to do. He’d heard people throw around the term soulmate, but he’d never really given any thought to what that would look like in practice. But that’s what being with Jess was like. From the time he sat down next to the girl who was crying on the pier, to standing in the alley that he’d been abandoned in with her, it was like his soul recognized hers as its match. Its partner. Its mate.
“I said hurry,” she prompted as her hips squirmed.
“Yes, ma’am.”
He smiled as he moved onto the bed loving how demanding she was. How responsive she was. How sensual she was.
He covered her knees with his palms and parted her legs in order to give him an unobstructed view of her core glistening with the evidence of her release. His fingers trailed up and down her inner thigh until she was whimpering and writhing beneath his touch.
She started to rise up on her elbows, but he wrapped his fingers around the back of her knees and tugged so that her ass cheeks hit his thighs and she was once again on her back.
In the new position, all he had to do was tilt her hips up half an inch, and the head of his cock was lined up perfectly at her opening. His erection was throbbing painfully being so close to heaven. Reaching between them, he grasped the base of his shaft and guided his engorged head up and down the slick seam of her sex.
Her hips started bucking up, seeking him to fill her. He tightened his grip to keep her pinned down. She bit her lip in frustration, but didn’t protest in any further.
When he saw that her clit was swollen with arousal and that she was so wet he’d be able to slide into her in one thrust, that’s what he did. He plunged into her in one smooth, powerful motion. Her body pulled him in as her inner walls clenched around his member. Even through the latex barrier, he could feel the ridges of her tight channel as her suctioning heat surrounded his throbbing shaft.
She cried out as her back arched, jutting her perky breasts up. She fisted the comforter as he began to push in and pull out of her. His eyes drank her in, watching her every move, her every reaction, and watching where their bodies were intimately joined.
His heart raced as they found a rhythm that had his balls tingling and tightening against his body. He didn’t want this to be over, he never wanted to stop making love to her, but he knew that he wasn’t going to last much longer.
Knowing that he wanted to take her with him, he dug his fingers into the flesh of her hip with his left hand and shifted her up so he could drive even deeper into her while simultaneously circling her clit with his right thumb. He knew that it would be extra sensitive, so he kept his touch light and teasing.
“Yes! Right there.” Her voice was hoarse as she repeated. “Yes! Right there. Don’t stop.”
He didn’t stop. Not until he pushed them both up and over the threshold of passion and they were both soaring up and over the edge of sanity. Jess opened her mouth on a silent cry as he plunged into her in a final push, filling her completely as his climax claimed him.
When his body jerked with his last pulse of release, his arms went to jelly, and he started to collapse beside Jess. But she wrapped her legs and arms around him and hugged him so that he was on top of her and his body was still buried in her sex.
This time, he didn’t. If it were up to him, he never would.