Beautiful Secret

We’d blazed past so many Niall Stella Moments that I’d stopped keeping track.

The Number of Times Niall Stella . . . Touched My Calf, Tucked My Hair Behind My Ear, Looked Me in the Eye and Asked If I Came.

Told Me He Wanted Me to Swallow His Come.

Recorded Himself Masturbating to Share with Me.

Was About to Kiss Me.

This was a thing. We were a thing.

“Answer me.”

I lost the ability to play for the moment, ducking my head. “I ache.”

“Tell me.” His voice was somehow both commanding and gentle as he bent, kissing my neck. “When you ache, what does that mean?”

He knew. He had to know. He wanted me to say the words. “It means I’m wet.”

He inhaled sharply through his nose, running it up my neck and along my jaw. “Bloody hell, Ruby, will you look up and kiss me?”

I tilted my head, completely out of breath and heart crashing around the cage of my lungs. The smell of his cologne permeated the darkness and I felt almost drunk on him, on his nearness and the realization that I was actually going to touch him. Kiss him. And he would kiss me back.

He bent to meet me, lips parted with a shaking exhale. He’d been expecting a small kiss, a quiet slide of his lips over mine. I could tell because I knew him better than maybe I should at that point, but also because of the careful way he bent to me and the gentle brace of his hands on my waist.

But I couldn’t do small and quiet. I’d wanted this for too long. The relief—the awareness of him, his scent and the warm Stella skin—clawed up my spine, jolting through my arms, and I pulled him down into me. I gave him anything but small and quiet. My lips slid over his, pulling his bottom lip in between and he huffed a little breath against me, groaning.

I wanted to swallow it up, wanted to consume his sounds and keep them inside me so I could save them for later and listen to them on a loop, again and again.

His mouth was unreal: firm lips and that perfect man combination of soft and hard, giving and commanding. My world was spinning. I dug my hands into his hair, pressed my breasts into that solid wall of his chest, and let loose the most ridiculous sound of relief and need I’d ever made.

He groaned louder now, surprise and thrill making his hands grip me reflexively before sliding around my back and clutching me close.

Close enough I was bent backward as he curled over me, his lips parting only enough to let loose another deep sound as his tongue slid into my mouth, tasting me.

Close enough that I was positive he felt my heart hammering through my chest.

Close enough for me to feel him growing hard, longer, pressing into my stomach.

I was so wildly, deliriously hungry for him, for this, that I let out tiny gasps, a tight moan at the feel of his tongue sliding over mine. I barely had time to process what I was saying before “Niall. Please,” escaped.

“Please what?” He slid his lips to my ear, kissing, exhaling in a shaking gust of air. “Anything.”

“Just . . . kiss me.”

I felt his small laugh. “I believe I was kissing you.”

“Then touch me. Something. I feel . . .”

“Show me,” he whispered against my mouth. “Show me where you ache.”

I couldn’t stop the small whimper that escaped my throat, and I pulled back, just enough to meet his eyes.

Turning my hand so that our palms touched, I twisted my fingers with his, bringing them up to place a single kiss on the back of his hand. His gaze flickered from my eyes to my mouth, and back again, before he nodded, slowly. Hands still entwined, I brought them between us and down until together they slipped beneath the hem of my skirt.

“Yes,” he groaned, feeling bare skin as we moved up together, finally brushing the damp fabric of my panties. I took a step back, and then another, bringing him with me until my back was pressed against the door.

He followed my lead, fingertips slipping beneath the lace to skim along my skin, slick from wanting him.

“Already,” he gasped moving back and forth so easily.

I nodded but couldn’t form even a single word in response. I wanted him so much it hurt, and now he was touching me, finally, his long index finger smoothing along my bare flesh to slip over and between, finally to where I wanted him most of all.

Right there,

Oh, God, there,

Oh, it’s so good.

I gave him every thought before I was even conscious of it.

He traced the same path again, along my entrance and back up to my clit with a surprisingly competent touch for someone who wasn’t even sure whether the woman he’d spent over a decade with had enjoyed the nights they shared together. His lips moved from the corner of my mouth to my jaw and then up, finally tracking the shell of my ear.