CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Could he make her come? Holy hell, was this some kind of torturous payback for all the things he’d done wrong in his life?
Victoria Royal was just about the sexiest woman he’d ever known. She was strong, determined, loyal, had a deadly accurate eye and nerves of steel—and she’d never had sex before.
Twenty-five, with a body like that and a mouth made for kissing, and she’d never had sex.
It was more than a little bit tempting to be her first. And yet it was a huge responsibility too. He knew he could make her come. Hell, he could make her first time good—but he couldn’t fight the idea that she should be with someone who cared.
He knew he didn’t care.
Well, fuck, maybe he cared a little bit—but that’s because she was sweet beneath the sass, innocent in this one thing, and he couldn’t help but care about that.
And maybe he even cared about her as a person because he certainly couldn’t seem to stop thinking about her well-being lately. But that wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t the kind of all-encompassing caring he should have for a woman who wanted to give herself to him for her first time.
He was a dog. He loved sex, like most men, and he loved the release it gave him for a little while. He could lose himself in her—but it wasn’t the same as when he’d thought she was experienced. Everything they did would be her first time, while for him it would be numberless.
He didn’t have mindless sex, but he didn’t stick with any one woman for long either. He did quick relationships, if you could call them that, where he was faithful to one woman for a few weeks or so. Then he just got tired of dealing with the questions and the demands for more emotional commitment, and he moved on.
He didn’t do long-term. He knew that long-term didn’t last. If your own parents couldn’t commit to you for a lifetime, why on earth would anyone else?
“You didn’t answer the question, Nick. Can you make me come?”
Her voice was soft and sultry, but there was an underlying current of uncertainty as well. It was the uncertainty that undid him. If he told her no, if he turned and walked away now, he’d leave her feeling as if she weren’t good enough for him. As if she weren’t sexy or desirable.
How could he do that? This beautiful, innocent woman was asking him to be her first, and though it scared the shit out of him in some ways, it also thrilled him in a deep, primal way that shocked him.
“Yeah, I can.”
“I’m scared as hell, I should admit that to you… but I want to do it. I want you to be first.”
He reached for her, pulled her against his chest, and tilted her head back with both his hands on her face. He was a fucking goner. He was like an addict being offered a fix, and he couldn’t say no.
He told himself it was just sex, but he knew there was something else driving him too. Something he didn’t know how to quantify.
“If you change your mind at any point, tell me to stop. Don’t endure because you think you have to. Don’t let it go too far if it feels wrong.”
“Okay.” Her voice was soft and breathy, so different from when she was giving him hell. It was such a turn-on.
“And if you don’t like the way I’m touching you, for God’s sake tell me. I’m not a mind-reader, and everyone is different.”
“All right.”
He could feel her trembling, and a wave of answering tenderness washed over him. He didn’t think Victoria was scared of anything, yet she was clearly nervous about this.
“Sweetheart, we don’t have to do this. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone.”
“You’re going to give me a complex if you keep trying to back out.”
“You’re shaking.”
“Anticipation.”
He laughed. “More like adrenaline.”
“That too.” She ran her hands up the front of his chest and put them around his neck. “Just kiss me. Let’s see what happens from there.”
He tossed up a silent prayer, asking for the patience he’d need to do this right—and then he lowered his head and claimed her mouth with his own.
* * *
There was something about kissing him once she’d decided to go all in that was different. Oh, it was every bit as exciting and arousing as it had been before. But knowing she’d given herself permission to let anything and everything happen, she felt a certain wild joy that she’d never experienced before.
Flame roared through her veins, ignited in her belly, made her tremble even more than she already had been. Her pussy throbbed with need, the walls growing slick with moisture.
She was the sort of person that when she made up her mind to do a thing, she wanted to do it immediately. She tugged his shirt from his pants and slid her hands beneath the fabric, her palms against his warm skin. She could feel his scar, that indentation that ran in an arc beneath his breastbone, and it made her heart squeeze to think of him on a Chicago street as a teen, getting knifed and then going home to censure from his parents rather than love and gratitude he was alive.
She didn’t know his parents, but she took a rather dim view of them, considering how they’d treated him and his sister. Since she’d lost her parents so young, she’d never thought it possible they might not love her enough to accept her no matter what she did. It was a shocking truth to find out that some parents were capable of such a thing. Though logically she knew it happened, she’d never known a soul who had experienced it.
Nick’s mouth was another world, a revelation to her senses. She’d been kissed, but not quite like this. Not with this kind of all-encompassing attention to detail. His tongue stroked against hers one moment, delicately explored her mouth the next, and then strongly demanded a response from her.
She was helpless to do anything but kiss him back exactly as he taught her. He dropped his hands lower on her body, took her by the hips, and pulled her into him. The hardness against her belly made her stomach flip. He was big and ready, and she was afraid she’d be a disappointment to him.
What if she sucked at this? What if she did everything wrong and he thought she was a lousy lay? He wouldn’t tell her. She knew that as sure as she knew her name. He was too gentlemanly to tell her she sucked.
She pushed him back suddenly, breaking the kiss, and he immediately lifted his head and relaxed his hold on her.
“Change your mind? It’s okay if you did. Just let me know.”
She swallowed. God, she was already so bad that he’d just walk away if she gave the word. In the next heartbeat, she told herself that was ridiculous, that he was being kind and making sure she hadn’t decided against doing this.
“No. I… I just wanted to say that you have to let me know if I’m doing something wrong. If I’m horrible in bed, you owe me the truth. Don’t sugarcoat it.”
He snorted. “That isn’t going to be a problem, honey. Trust me.”
Funny, but he still had the ability to irritate her. She was trying to be honest, and he was dismissing her fears as if they were silly. “How do you know? I might be terrible. And you’re going to lie about it if so. Just don’t; that’s all I ask.”
He gathered the bottom of her T-shirt and started to push it up and over her head. She let him remove it, her skin prickling with goose bumps that had nothing to do with the coolness of the AC.
He dropped it on the floor and went for the button of her pants. “Victoria, I’m not going to let you be terrible. Trust me. And stop thinking so hard. Just feel.”
He slid her zipper down and pushed the pants over her hips until they fell on the floor and she stood there in her bra and panties.
Then he dropped to his knees, pressed his open mouth to her belly, and her goose bumps intensified. Her fingers slid into his hair automatically, clutching him to her as his tongue danced and teased its way over her skin. He cupped her breasts in his hands and then took the edges of the cups and pulled them away until her nipples were bared and her breasts sat high and firm.
Victoria didn’t think it was possible for her to get any wetter than she already was, but when Nick licked a stiff nipple, she gasped at the sensation rolling through her. She grew so slick and swollen that she thought she might die if he didn’t touch her there soon.
Her fingers tightened in his hair as he sucked her nipple into his mouth, rolling it between his teeth and flicking it with his tongue. Every sweet pull on her breast sent sensation streaking down into her pussy, making her ache and throb with need.
As if sensing that she needed more, he slid his fingers beneath her panties, down into the seam of her body and the hot slickness of her desire. He rolled a finger over her clit, and she let her head fall back, a moan escaping her. She spread her legs to give him better access, and he made a noise against her skin that might have been a laugh or a groan.
But he dragged his fingers through her wetness, then inserted one inside her. The walls of her pussy gripped him tightly, craving the invasion. His thumb circled her clit while he slowly moved a finger in and out of her slick core. It wasn’t a completely new sensation, but it was different because it was someone else doing it.
“Nick,” she gasped as her body wound itself tighter and tighter. She could come this way, standing here with his fingers on her body and his mouth sucking her nipples. She clutched at his shoulders, giving herself over to the decadence of his touch.
And then he stopped and she cried out. But he simply pulled her panties down her hips and she stepped out of them. Then he pushed her back onto the bed and pulled her to the edge, her legs spread wide.
“I have to taste you,” he said, his voice a low growl that sent a shiver of need rolling through her.
He put her knees over his shoulders and licked into the heart of her as she gasped.
“You’re so wet for me,” he said. “Fuck, what a turn-on.”
“Don’t stop this time. Please don’t stop.”
“I’m not stopping until you scream my name, baby.”
She didn’t think that was possible, really, but then he started licking her again, his tongue swirling around her clit, his fingers sliding in and out of her body, and every nerve ending she had lit up like a flame. He played her body with an expertness that stunned her. Oh, she’d expected him to know what he was doing—but to know her body so well, as if they’d had sex a hundred times already, wasn’t something she’d anticipated.
He knew just when to increase the pressure and just when to ease off to stop the wave building inside her from breaking. She could see her release hovering so close, could taste it, and yet he kept her from throwing herself into it.
She wasn’t sure whether she was grateful or frustrated that he kept the tension building. But oh, his tongue. It did magical things to her, swirling and licking and tasting until she was panting from the overwhelming sensations churning inside her.
She’d imagined this, of course. Imagined what it would feel like to have a man give her pleasure this way. But imagining and experiencing were two entirely different things. It made her wonder how she’d resisted sex for so long if it was always this way.
She threw her hands over her head, grasping handfuls of the sheets, and arched her hips, seeking release from the torturous cycle of pleasure kept on the edge for too long.
And Nick let her go this time. Victoria heard her voice, heard his name breaking in her throat, but she had no time to marvel at the fact he’d done what he’d said he would do.
No, she was overwhelmed with a bright, hot euphoria that exploded inside her and raced through her veins like a brush fire. Everything centered on that one spot of pleasure—and then it didn’t. It flowed over her and through her while she broke apart, clutching the sheets and gasping for breath as her body disintegrated.
When she came back to herself, Nick was still there, stroking her sides with his hands—roughened hands, but soft and tender too—and a wave of embarrassment flooded her suddenly.
He’d just witnessed her losing control, and she wasn’t sure how that made her feel. Plus she was naked, disheveled, and he was still dressed.
“You okay?” he asked, and fresh heat flared inside her.
“Yes.” She sounded hoarse. Probably from all that moaning and screaming she’d done.
“You’re beautiful, Victoria. Amazing. If you still want more, I want to be the one to give it to you.”
She blinked. He was asking her if she wanted to continue? After what he’d just done to her? He must be aching with his own need for release, but he’d still asked her if she wanted to continue.
“I do,” she said, and she meant it. Yes, she was embarrassed by what had just happened—but she was amazed too, and she couldn’t imagine stopping now. “All in, Brandon. I told you that.”
He got to his feet slowly. She thought about getting up and helping him undress, but then he dragged his shirt up and over his head and her breath caught at the bulge and ripple of his muscles. He was in phenomenal shape, of course, and it was utterly breathtaking.
“Wait,” she said when he reached for the button of his cammies after setting his gun on her night table.
He stopped, his fingers hovering just over the fly, and her heart thumped. He would stop, right now, if she asked him to. She knew it, and it made feelings swell inside her that she didn’t quite understand.
“Take them off slowly.”
Nick grinned. He flicked open the first button and then reached for the next. “You like a little show, Vic?”
She raised herself up on her elbows. She was self-conscious about being naked in front of him, but the room was shadowed and she told herself it was okay. “I do want a little show. I want to remember this.”
He undid his pants and pushed them down his hips. He must have taken his boots off earlier because the pants disappeared, and then he was standing there in his briefs. Tight, white, bulging briefs that made her heart skip. Her gaze roamed over him, taking in every delicious inch.
With abs and thighs like that, he could be an underwear model instead of an elite sniper.
He hooked his thumbs in the wide band of the briefs. And then he stood there for a long minute, watching her.
“You really want to do this? We’re in the middle of a fucking war zone, we’ve got an unknown target, a terrorist who might be coming for you even now, and it’s very likely your adrenaline is kicked up so high it’s making you do things you wouldn’t otherwise do—”
She got to her feet and pressed her hand over his mouth before he could continue.
“I want you, Nick Brandon. I don’t know why, but I do. Badly. You’ve been under my skin since the first moment I saw you back in training, and while I have no fucking clue what I’m doing, I think I’d regret it for the rest of my life if I didn’t do this with you. I want you inside me, taking me over the edge. I want your tongue in my mouth, your hands on my body, and your cock inside me. I need it, and I feel like I’ll die if you don’t give it to me.”
He let out a breath when she slowly lifted her hand away. “Fuck, you sure do know the right things to say to a man.”
He took her hand and pressed a kiss into her palm. It was a tender move when they were both aching so badly for something far more raw and primal.
“You’re special, Victoria. Incredibly special.”
Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes at his sweet words. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had told her she was special and meant it.
But she wasn’t about to cry. She knew if she did, it was over. He would think she was too emotional, not thinking straight, and he would end this. And then she’d never know what it felt like to be with him. Sure, her body was sated after the way he’d just taken her over the edge with his mouth, but it wasn’t quite enough.
She wanted more. Much more. And so she slipped her fingers into his briefs and pushed them down because she needed something to do.
His cock sprang free, big and full and ready, and she dropped to her knees in front of him. Her nipples were tight, aching buds, and her belly flipped even as her core throbbed with need.
“You don’t have to—” he began. But he didn’t get to finish because she took him in both hands and sucked the tip of him into her mouth.
Another first.
She closed her eyes, enjoying the foreign feel of him on her tongue. He was firm but soft, and he tasted salty. Not unpleasant, but not quite expected either. Victoria opened her mouth a little wider, took him deeper, just to the edge of where she would gag if he went farther.
She swirled her tongue around him, learning the texture of all that velvety skin.
“God, Victoria.”
She opened her eyes and looked up at him. His eyes were shadowed, but she could see the intensity on his face.
“I used to dream of this,” he said, his voice rough. “Your mouth on my cock. Made the nights in training so fucking miserable, I have to tell you.”
She removed him from her mouth, ran her tongue up the underside of his penis. “Tell me what to do. Tell me how to make this good for you.”
His laugh was broken. “It’s already fucking fantastic.” He reached down and tipped her chin up gently. “You’ve never done this before either?”
She shook her head. She supposed it was something she could have done, but she’d honestly never been motivated to try it before.
He showed her where to grasp him. “Stroke while you suck. But not too much because I’ve got to tell you I’m pretty much on edge. Too much and this is over too soon.”
Victoria’s pulse hammered in her veins, her throat. But she loved the intensity in his gaze and the way he swallowed hard when she took him into her mouth again. She pumped him the way he’d showed her, swirling her tongue around the head of his cock as she did so. She moved her mouth up and down on him, taking him as far as she could before she had to back off again.
It was exciting in a way she hadn’t considered it could be. It was all about him and his pleasure, but feeling the twitches and jerks of his body, hearing the sharp breaths and harsh groans he couldn’t contain, she felt a power she hadn’t known existed. She was pleasuring him, and it made her feel powerful and beautiful.
And excited. If she weren’t using both hands on him, she’d use one on herself.
Suddenly Nick swore. And then he reached down and pulled her to her feet. His eyes were bright as he searched her gaze.
And then he crushed her to him and kissed her.