CHAPTER NINETEEN
Was that—how—how was I to take that? I stood there and blinked and tried to process the million different ways that could go, because me being me, I was about to go south with it.
“I—didn’t exactly plan for you, either, you know?” I said, folding my arms over my chest.
Those eyes that were destined to kill me landed with precise accuracy, stealing my breath.
“Meaning?” he asked.
“Mean—meaning that I have this special gift of falling for people who need to dictate my life, control everything I do, tell me what to say, what to do, what to—”
“I have no interest in any of those things,” Leo said, walking slowly toward me. My words faltered and my heart sped up at every inch he came closer. “Zero. I know how important independence is.” He stopped a foot from me. Touching distance if I wanted it to be. “What it means to have no one pulling your strings.”
“Then what was that?” I said, pointing behind me. “Leo, I know you’re a man, but that doesn’t mean go charging forward, sword in hand, every time someone in your life has a problem.”
“It does for me,” he said under his breath. It was quiet but the meaning was deafeningly loud. My fingers itched to reach out, and I balled them into fists. I couldn’t afford it. If I gave in—if I touched him, felt his heat, pulled him to me—my will would snap. “That doesn’t take away your power, Micah. It doesn’t lessen you. It just means I’ve got your damn back.”
I could hear my breathing in my ears as his words sunk in.
“Why?” I whispered.
It was all I could muster. Why would he want my back? Why would he fight my fights? Why would he want all the drama that came with me, disguised as luggage but really filled with rocks?
He was shaking his head. “I don’t know.”
“Okay.”
“Seriously,” he said, lifting his hands as though to touch my face, but dropping them. Blowing out a breath. “You—are going to be the death of me.”
My skin tingled at his closeness, at the intensity radiating off him in waves.
“That’s not ominous at all,” I managed.
“Everything about you is reason for me to leave,” he said, his words so soft I wasn’t sure he meant for them to be aloud.
I tore my eyes away from him to dart a quick glance around the mess of the room.
“Is that what you were doing?”
“For maybe a full minute,” he said. “Before I couldn’t go through with it and threw it all at the wall.”
I blinked. “What stopped you?”
“Stupidity.”
I chuckled, nervous laughter softening the edge. “Don’t sugarcoat it.”
“I’m not,” he said, closing his eyes for a beat. “I don’t do this. But you—” When his eyes opened, the half-second of vulnerability I saw there went straight to my heart. “You make me weak. You keep me off balance. And of all the damn people to—” He inhaled deeply and let it go.
“Care about?” I said. I actually said it.
Fuck a duck.
“Fall for?” he countered.
My words. Sweet God, I’d said that. My heart slammed so hard, I gasped.
An exhausted sigh escaped his throat, and he narrowed his eyes.
“Fucking death of me,” he said, his voice thick.
“Ditto.”
My hands won. Or one of them did. It landed on his arm, which spurred his to move up mine, which sent my other hand up his chest. He inhaled sharply and I couldn’t stop there. All I could see was his mouth and I wanted it more than any logic could fight.
“Roman-off,” he whispered as my hand wound up into his hair, his breath brushing my lips.
“Stop talking.”
His lips claimed mine and my bones turned liquid under his hands. I melted into him, kissing Leo with every single fiber of my being. Soft, slow, wet, fast, needing, pulling all of him to me as tightly as I could, craving his body pressed against mine.
My hat went across the room as he pulled my ponytail free and ran a hand up into my hair, holding my head as he dove deeper into my mouth.
I was delirious with sensations, a moan escaping my throat as his other hand palmed my ass and traveled my thigh, tugging me hard against him as his tongue explored my mouth.
I needed skin. His untucked T-shirt was easy game as I slid my hands down his neck, down his chest, and underneath to the tightness of those abs.
He sucked in through his nose and growled as he tore his mouth from mine and dragged his kisses down my neck, whispering curses against my skin as I pulled his shirt up and forced him back as my mouth landed hot against his chest.
“Fuck,” he whispered, his breathing ragged. He yanked his shirt over his head as I dragged my nails over his skin, kissing, tasting, nipping at his chest. “Micah—”
I was spun. In less than a second I was facing the door, and Leo’s mouth was hot and wet on my neck, while his hands made quick discard of my tank top and bra.
“Oh, God,” I breathed, as I closed my eyes against the dueling sensations of his tongue sucking, tasting my skin, his hands making love to my breasts, and then one of them sliding along my belly, down, down under my shorts, finding my wetness as his hard-on pressed against my bottom. “Oh, God, Leo, yes.”
“Fuck, baby, I love how wet you get for me,” he growled against my ear.
I was spiraling already, and I had to stop that. It was like being at the world’s sexiest theme park, and there were too many rides left. I couldn’t stop here again. It was his turn. I reached down and unzipped my shorts, letting him peel them off me, and then I turned back around and ran my fingers along the waistline of his jeans.
“Wet, throbbing, almost naked,” I breathed, gripping the top front of his jeans and letting my fingers slide just below. “Put me in your bed and fulfill your promise, McKane.”
The look in his eyes was a mix of amusement and primal need. He started walking backward, me holding on to his jeans and following, while he never took his eyes off mine. It was heady. It was terrifying. It was hot as fucking hell.
We paused short of his bed, and I popped the button, reaching for the zipper when his hand stopped me and then both hands cupped my face.
“Look at me,” he said. “Micah—”
My head spun at the gear change. What just happened?
“What’s wrong?”
A dozen expressions went across his face. “Be sure,” he said finally.
Be sure?
If there was anything more certain in all of my lifetime, it was that I wanted to have sex with this man. And of all the thoughts that just ran through his eyes, that didn’t feel like the question.
“I am,” I said, running my hands up his arms, looking into eyes so dark and sincere that I felt it in the goose bumps on my back. There was something else in that look. Something troubled. “Are you?”
He sighed heavily. “So much,” he said, leaning down to kiss me so softly and so thoroughly that my heart tightened in my chest. A burn started behind my eyes as he kissed me like that. It was—real. It was—“God, I want you so much,” he said against my mouth. “But there are things—that you don’t know—”
Something in me already knew that. Something was inherently present about that, and it was probably important and life altering and faith shattering, but I just couldn’t. I couldn’t let go of this moment and this man and go to the shattering place right now. It felt like it was now or never. And that right there should have sent me running.
For once, that wasn’t even a consideration.
“Would it change my mind about being naked with you right now?” I asked, kissing him, eyes wide open. I needed to see his reaction. I needed the answer to be no.
He looked at me straight on, his hands traveling slowly down my arms.
“It might,” he said.
The words barely had sound attached to them, but they were mighty.
The burn that had touched my eyes flickered again, and I took a deep breath, blinking back tears. This could hurt me.
Now or never.
“Then don’t tell me,” I said softly. “All I need to know right now is if you want this,” I said, pressing against him. Kissing his chin.
His fingers went up and fisted in my hair. “You have no idea,” he said.
“Then show me,” I said, unzipping his pants. He was commando. Sweet Jesus.
Everything that straining zipper had promised sprung free into my hands, and Leo swore as I stroked him against my stomach.
“Shit, Micah, get on the bed,” he said through his teeth. “Please.”
“Now who’s begging?” I asked, lowering to my knees and trailing my tongue in a path, skipping the star and beginning again underneath. I kissed up the base, all the way to the end, as Leo grabbed my head with a moan and nearly lost his knees. “Like that?” I whispered against the head, before I took him into my mouth.
“Oh, fuck,” he growled, grabbing on to a nearby dresser like a life support. “Mic—Jesus, that’s—” His words left him as I made love to his dick with my mouth, sucking, stroking, licking, pulling him in for a taste and then taking all of him to the back of my throat in a rush. “Please, baby,” he finally said, pulling me back to my feet. He was breathing heavily, and his eyes had gone wild. He kissed me, hard, picking me up and turning around to lay me on the bed.
“Tell me what you want,” he said, lying me back and coming with me, holding himself up on arms that made me want to blow just touching them. He kissed me and then pulled back, kissed me again and pulled back.
“You,” I said, pulling him down on top of me and rejoicing in the feel of his weight as I wrapped my legs around him.
Big arms wrapped around my body as we intertwined and he pulled my thighs tighter around him. It was sexy but also intimate. Primal. Familiar. Lovers wrapped up in each other like we’d been making love for years. Hands roaming, finding, pleasing. Mouths hungry and searching. Moving against each other in a mock fuck that had me shaking with need. Everything in my core was tuned to him. Nothing in my life had ever felt like this.
Because—
Falling.
No thought had ever rocked me more.
“Tell me what you want,” I breathed, echoing his words. I held his face and looked into his eyes. “Tell me what you need.”
“To bury myself in you,” he said.
I felt every possible meaning of those words in my bones. All the things I didn’t know were about to be buried inside me, too, and my heart wrapped around that. I wound my fingers into his hair, and in one tweak of an angle Leo moved the tiny string of my thong aside and sank into me.
“Oh!” I gasped, as every muscle in my body contracted around him, tensing and releasing as he filled every glorious space.
A breathy growl rumbled in his chest as he pushed inside, cursing into my hair, his fingers digging into my left thigh as he tugged it higher.
“God, you feel—fuck—” he grunted out through his teeth. He pulled out of me a little and thrust back in, both of us moaning in ecstasy as he bottomed out.
“Leo,” I breathed, raking his back with my nails and then grabbing his ass. Oh, my God, his ass was fabulous, muscled, and delicious as he pumped into me, stretching me out, filling me up.
He lifted my legs higher, almost over his shoulders, pushing deeper and shutting his eyes as he swelled even bigger inside me. I closed mine, too, savoring the sensations. He felt amazing. I wasn’t going to come like this. I couldn’t remember the last time I had during actual sex. But he was huge and hitting everything, and I could enjoy the ride.
“Talk to me,” he said, slowing his rhythm. My eyes popped open. “Tell me what feels good.”
“It all feels good,” I said, molesting the muscles rippling in his shoulders. He stopped moving. I frowned. “Wait. What are you doing?”
“Talk to me,” he repeated. “Where’s that woman who screamed up on the roof, riding my fingers?”
My inner muscles clenched at the memory, and he raised an eyebrow.
“There she is,” he said, giving me a pump.
“Mmm,” I said. “Quit stopping.”
“Quit giving up,” he said.
I gave him a look. “Anyone ever tell you that teaching during sex kills the mood?”
He dropped his head to nuzzle my neck, and started moving slowly again.
“Touch your breasts,” he said against my ear, sending tingles down my neck. “Close your eyes if you need to, but touch them like you want me to.” He moved his lips along my cheek and then backed up to sink deeply into me again, his pleasure stopping his words for a beat. “Teach me.”
Warmth spread over my skin as I paused and watched him. Watched him just enjoying me. Being inside me, being with me, participating, talking, wanting me there fully engaged with him. It was like—going to Greece and finding out you know the language because you’ve always been Greek and didn’t know it. And that was a horrible analogy, but I was just in awe.
I closed my eyes and let my hands move over my body, caressing my breasts, listening to his voice say naughty things to me as he moved steadily in and out of me. I pinched my nipples between my fingers and he growled as I tightened around him.
“Mmm, that’s good,” he said under his breath.
I let my eyes flutter open and meet his heated gaze as I rolled my nipples between my fingers and imagined him sucking them. Hard.
“Shit, you just got really wet, baby,” he said, his jaws tight.
Holy hell, I needed to move. Things were getting maddening in there, and I needed to move on his dick. The way I needed. Now. It had been a long time.
“Leo,” I breathed.
“Yes.”
“Will you fuck me from behind?”