Chapter Nine
This week is exactly what you needed.
Not just the week. The man, Arden silently corrected as she scissor-kicked through the natural pool and followed him toward the far end where the banks narrowed so the surrounding vegetation formed a fringy shield. He wasn’t just reintroducing her to orgasms, he was reintroducing her to fun. Some of the success might have to do with the fact that the parameters they’d set provided a perfect safe zone from real life. Arden St. Sebastian didn’t exist here, and after the last few months, that was gloriously liberating. The ironic result? She could relax with him, let her guard down and be herself in ways she hadn’t even realized she’d abandoned lately. The whole thing was so beautifully risk-free.
He sent her a backward glance and the kind of grin that contradicted any characterization of him as risk-free. Then he dived under the surface and disappeared beyond the veil of leaves. In the moment of solitude, with just the steady lap of water and the steady stream of her conscience to answer to, she acknowledged the risks that had started circling the edges of her mind like dorsal fins since somewhere around the time she’d experienced the best sunrise of her life. Yes, it would be easy to get addicted to the escape. To orgasms, and fun. And talented astronauts.
But that wasn’t going to happen, precisely because they had set parameters. This fairy tale ended in two days.
Does it have to?
Yeah, it did. She couldn’t be the czarina forever, and even if she could, Rider wasn’t looking for forever. For his own reasons, he was perfectly happy returning to his space station at the end of the week.
The thing to do, she decided as she drew in a breath and sank beneath the water, was enjoy the moment.
A few strokes propelled her under the sheltering leaves, and then two strong arms encircled her. They pulled her forward as they lifted, and she found herself standing shoulder-deep on a submerged ledge of rock, pressed against Rider’s hard, warm body. Sunlight filtered through the curtain of greenery shielding their small cavern, but she didn’t get much chance to look around, because Rider lowered his head and then an impatient mouth devoured hers.
He kissed her like he’d been waiting to do it for years…eons…and someone might yank her away at any moment. There was no way she could have prepared herself for the teeth-clicking, oxygen-stealing, mouth-fucking assault that left her ravished and hungry for more. She scaled him like a mountain and hooked her legs around his waist. His fast, delving tongue invaded at will, inciting and abandoning every vulnerable hollow with wicked efficiency. Wet, slightly salty lips slammed into hers with satisfying intensity, over and over, sliding away just as abruptly, only to crash down again. She cupped his jaw, determined to claim that avid mouth, even as she chased after every sensation like a woman scrambling after beads from a broken necklace.
His fingers were just as fast as his mouth. They tangled in her bikini top, yanking it off. She had no idea what happened to it after that, and she really didn’t care because at last she could press her breast into his big hand and feel the rough caress of his palm.
She arched in his arms. When she tore her mouth from his to moan for more, or less…or more, he scraped his teeth across her earlobe and muttered, “You must have known when you tied on that tiny red bikini you’d be torturing me all day.”
She had. Yes, she had. Her neck muscles took a time-out, and her head fell back as he plucked her nipple. “You said wear a swimsuit.”
“That’s not a swimsuit. It’s a cock-torment, and you know it. The top ought to be illegal. It shows everything. I had to drive us here with a ruthless hard-on because each dip and turn in the road made your tits bounce, and let me tell you, there are a lot of fucking dips and turns on the road to Hana. Those little triangles were red flags, and I was the goddamn bull.”
The confession thrilled her as much as the way he covered her breast with his hand. She raised her head, but couldn’t muster up the strength to open her eyes. “Should I apologize?”
“Eventually. But sixty miles is a long time to suffer, Czarina. You’ve earned some very special punishment.” So saying, he moved his hand to the side of her breast. “Watch.”
Her eyes were already open and glued on the sight of his tan hand against her much paler breast. Then he gave it one quick, restrained slap. They both watched her flesh jiggle from the impact. She felt the rebound all the way to her core and gasped at the sensation. Before she fully absorbed it, fully separated the pleasure from the shock, he transferred his attention to the other breast and delivered the same punishment.
Her lips parted to release another gasp, and then another. She lost count after that, caught in a thrall as he delivered more little slaps—to the undersides, the gentle swells of her cleavage, and again to the outside curves. When he paused, she collapsed against him, breathing heavily, pressing her aching nipples against the cool, soothing granite of his chest. “Sorry,” she murmured into his shoulder.
He trailed a hand along her spine. “Did you think the jump would be the most reckless thing you did today?”
“I didn’t know.”
“And now?” The roving hand sneaked into the back of her bikini bottoms—way down—and squeezed her ass.
She blindly sought his mouth. “Bring on the reckless. I want to be crazy. When I look back on today, I want to blush at the things I had the nerve to do with you.”
A low groan reached her ears. The world spun behind her eyelids, and then her butt landed on a hard, smooth surface. The move jarred her eyes open, and she realized he’d set her on a water-worn rock bordering the pool. Her bare skin tingled where the air touched it.
He stood between her parted knees, still waist-deep in the water. While she watched, he slid his palms up the insides of her thighs, spreading them. “Things like this?”
Before she could answer, he lifted her legs, hitched them over his shoulders so she fell back onto her elbows, and put his mouth in a place fairly referred to as her bikini area.
Her cry of surprise echoed in her ears, as did the gasp of pleasure when he kissed her through the swimsuit with the same unquenchable hunger he’d kissed her mouth with moments ago.
Her spine arched. She flung one arm over her head, instinctively searching for something to hold on to and coming up empty. The other dived between her legs to tangle in his hair. Despite the pleasure building under his busy mouth, a protest rose in the back of her mind. “You promised…” she managed, tugging at his scalp. “You promised me—”
“I also promised you an orgasm. My cock doesn’t go anywhere near your mouth until I know you’re going to come for me.”
While she digested the requirement, he shifted both of her legs over his left shoulder, curled his arm around her crossed knees to secure them, and then straightened. The move lifted her hips. With his free hand he raked her bikini down, turning it to a tangle of fabric banding her thighs. The position left certain needy areas of her anatomy locked between her legs, while comparatively untouched, but equally sensitive portions hung in the air, bare and unprotected.
“Can you come for my mouth, Czarina? Come for me like this, with your knees crossed tight, and your clit throbbing in the tight trap between your thighs while I bite this wet ass, kiss, and lick, and tongue-fuck everything I can reach.”
“I-I don’t know,” she answered, honestly. She was hit or miss with oral sex, too. But she really, really wanted him to try. So much she squirmed at the thought. The small, unconscious act brought those cocky brows up.
“Let’s find out.” Then he proceeded to deliver on the biting, the kissing, the licking and—oh sweet mercy—the tongue-fucking. Everywhere he could reach, and the man had impressive reach.
Devastating reach.
Her eyes flew open, and her shocked cry echoed off the rocks. Reflexively, she tightened her abs and tried to twist away, but he didn’t allow it. He spanked her ass hard enough to let her know his tongue wasn’t on some aimless wander. He knew exactly what he was doing. Keeping a firm grip on her hip, he stayed the course. All she could do was clutch at the damp rock under her, try not to buck too hard or moan too loudly as he introduced her to his version of a thorough tongue-lashing.
His raspy jaw scoured her skin. His breath danced over it. Warm lips coaxed her rioting nerve endings to a false state of calm, only to have his fierce tongue whip them up again. Just when she thought she might have to beg for mercy, he lifted that evil mouth away from her just enough to say, “Don’t waste those hands touching a rock, Czarina. Touch yourself.”
Despite the water still beading off her and the shade of their hideaway, her body burned. His instructions, and the fact that he seemed intent on waiting until she followed them, sent flames of need licking along every inch of her skin. She followed them, sweeping her hands over her hips and up her torso. Her palms felt cool from the rock, and her already-tight nipples contracted even more in anticipation of her own touch. Never had she fondled her breasts in front of a guy before out of any instinct except basic theatrics. But doing it now made her groan out loud.
Whiskers abraded more territory, signaling that Rider’s mouth was on the move again. Her body responded with shivers she couldn’t control. The need burned inward, merging and concentrating in two hot spots—a place low in her abdomen, where volatile sensations stacked together like sticks of dynamite, and the fragile fuse currently imprisoned by her clenched thighs.
His mouth slowed and lingered. Tasted. “I love this part of your pussy. It’s so soft.” Those low words caressed the freshly licked area, leaving it wet and tingling. “So kissable.” He followed that with a kiss. Slow. Hard. Dragging her flesh through his teeth as he eased away. The urge to open her legs quickly escalated from a relentless pressure to an all-consuming compulsion. She couldn’t think past it. Especially when he growled, “So fuckable,” and speared his tongue into the crevice formed by her crossed legs.
“Please,” she whimpered, and struggled against the band of his arm. The thought of his mouth there, at her center, left her light-headed.
Two blunt fingertips tapped along the threshold of the passage he’d left quivering and painfully empty after the taunt of his tongue. “Do you have an answer for me yet?”
He punctuated the question with another delve of his tongue—dangerously close but so brutally fast she gasped. Thoughts whizzed through her mind like leaves in a tornado, but she couldn’t catch hold of any of them. God, she was going to have to answer him, and she wasn’t sure she could form words besides, Please, Rider, part my legs. Kiss me wide open, and then close your dirty mouth over me. Lick me. Own me. Suck the ache right out of me and make this need go away.
Maybe she said it out loud, because he looked up at her. His clear brown eyes burned with the same hot need ravaging her. She found some satisfaction in that. She wasn’t the only one being victimized by pleasure. He was dealing with it, too, and she could relieve him by taking his big, gorgeous cock in her mouth and giving it with the same treatment she desperately wanted for herself. She could do that. Possibly without irretrievably losing her hold on the orgasm waiting at the apex of her crossed legs. But even if she did lose it, she wouldn’t regret anything. He’d been so generous with her already this week, fixating on her pleasure, paying close attention to what she liked in a way no other man had, and patiently making sure she found a release no matter how long or intricate the process. Taking care of her.
She could take care of him, for once.
“Focus, Czarina.” His voice penetrated her thoughts at the same moment his fingers penetrated the twitching muscles guarding her entrance. The physical world snapped back into the forefront. She landed in her own body with a short, inelegant groan.
He stirred his fingers slowly. “Are you going to come?”
“You have to let me”—God, she couldn’t be still when he did that—“open my legs. Please.”
“Concentrate on this. On how you feel like this, sealed tight, all soft and swollen around a knot of nerves so sensitive to touch and pressure, the slightest variation in either could send you over.”
She abandoned her breasts and clamped her hands to her trembling thighs. And then, because she had no shame, she reached around and traced her way to where his fingers fucked her with maddeningly shallow, abusively leisurely strokes. “Please.” She licked her lips and tried to calm herself, because somehow she’d ended up on the edge of a sexual panic. “I want more. I want you. You promised.”
“Are you going to come if I part your legs?” He sank his fingers in deeper, sweeping along her inner walls.
“Yes!” Her hips flexed and lifted of their own accord. “God, yes. I think so.”
“Good.” He withdrew, leaving her bereft, but rested his hand there in a gesture she should have considered offensively possessive—this is mine—but instead she found the protection of his hand over her most tender, most vulnerable parts strangely reassuring. “Here’s the deal, Czarina. I’m going to let you go, climb up there, and get into position. But you are not going to open your legs. Not a millimeter. Your job is to lie there with your legs in the air, knees and ankles crossed, and keep that orgasm locked up tight. Wait like a good girl while I slide my cock between those pouting lips. Can you do that?”
She honestly didn’t know if she was strong enough to hold a leg-lift that long. Especially not in her current condition. She tightened her abs and lifted her legs off his shoulder. “Hurry. It hurts.”
“I know. Believe me, I’m hurting, too, but no matter how much it hurts, you’re going to do it. Hold that position while I feed myself into your mouth as deep as you can take—deeper than you’ve taken anyone before. Hold it while I make sure you can handle what I’ve given you. Once I’m sure you’re good to go, I’ll tell you to lower your legs. But even then, you’re not going to open them.”
“I’m not?” Her muscles were already starting to burn. Somehow, the strain only added to the pressure building inside her. Was he going to make her earn her orgasm this time, by seeing to him first? Fair enough, but she hoped she would make it that long.
“No. That privilege is mine. Understand, Czarina? It’s mine.”
…
“I understand.”
Her words were barely a whisper, but he knew the weakness in her voice wasn’t a sign of uncertainty. She was consumed in the moment, and verbal responses took too much effort. All of those eternal stressors that invaded her mind to interfere with her pleasure were far away. She was so ready.
He was ready, too. Insanely ready. He dragged his trunks off and tossed them aside, but even the cool water couldn’t calm his raging cock. Pressure formed a painful weight in his balls. Every beat of his heart sent more blood into his shaft. Despite it all, he took a moment to soak her in. She’d never know what a sight she made, with her slender body laid out on the rock—legs in the air, ass a little red from the scrape of his stubble, hands draped across her breasts. Her damp skin glistened in the watery light, and her long hair flowed away from her face to form rivers of dark silk over the weathered basalt. And that face? An uncontrived and irresistible seduction, with her heavy-lidded eyes, her lust-flushed cheeks, and lips parted to release quick, shallow breaths. This was the face of raw, feminine need. A woman desperate for a man.
For him.
Jesus, she was beautiful, and Jesus, he’d fucked up, because once again he wasn’t going to get to watch her come. Tomorrow, he vowed as he climbed onto the rock. He’d fix that tomorrow.
Her eyes raced over him as he moved over her. Impossibly, he got harder, and harder still as he watched her gaze focus on his cock and her tongue slide over her upper lip. Her hands closed around his ankles.
“Come down. Give it to me. Now.”
He was on his knees before she finished speaking. Carefully, he gathered up her hair, twisted it around his fist, and kept her head still while he moved closer. Once he straddled her face, he draped the smooth rope over her chest where he wouldn’t be in danger of kneeling on it. She needed to be free to move. “Open your mouth, Czarina.”
She responded immediately and gave him yet another sight to appreciate. Head tipped to an accommodating angle, lips parted in invitation, and round, rapt eyes trained on his jutting cock. He wrapped his fist around the base. Although it was a risky move at this stage, he tightened his grip and choked his shaft a little, because he wanted to be perfect for her. Then he primed the pump even more with a firm pull, wringing a drop of liquid from his dick in the process. It beaded on the crown, and a shiver rippled down his spine at the thought of her flicking her tongue over the tip to lick it away.
Being this hard made him feel burly and unwieldy to his own hand, but all that really mattered was how he felt to her. Her body responded to the sensation of being filled. Part of that, he suspected, was mental. She got off on the challenge of it, and the primitive emotional comfort of feeling replete. But she also got off on the physical aspects of penetration. Bottom line? She liked having something inside her. His tongue, his fingers, his dick—they all worked for her as far as he could tell—and before they parted ways he’d make sure something portable worked for her, too, so she could…what? See to her needs, and not give some other lucky bastard the opportunity to please her?
That depressing notion ambushed him from a hiding place in the back of his mind. A no-win zone he’d warned himself to stay clear of, but now that he was in there, the unwanted thoughts piled on.
Because there will be some other lucky bastard. You know that. She’s moving on. Hell, she has a date this Saturday with Dr. Nicholas Bancroft.
You need to call Evelyn and cancel. You should have done it yesterday. Why are you waiting?
A little moan brought him back to the fact that he had her under him, holding her legs in the air like her life depended on it, relying on him to keep his head in the game and make sure they both scored. He shook off the unwanted thoughts. He was supposed to be showing her how to push stress aside and enjoy the moment, not wallowing in ill-timed and pointless self-examination.
Enjoy the moment. Enjoy the fucking moment and make sure she enjoys it, too.
He could do this. He specialized in enjoyable moments. Still holding the base of his shaft, he leaned over her and planted a hand by her hip. The move sent his balls swinging. He gritted his teeth and concentrated on the czarina’s stomach. It fluttered from the effort of keeping her legs suspended and then hollowed as she inhaled. Her hands settled on his thighs. His muscles bunched in reaction, giving her a solid place to hold on. He took a deep breath as well and then looked down their bodies and angled his cock toward her mouth. She raised her head a fraction and opened wider.
“Uh-uh. Just your lips. I want a minute with just your lips.” When she lowered her head and resumed her waiting position, he rewarded her patience by rolling the crown over her lips. Back and forth, lubricating them with her saliva and his precome, until his head glided easily. Her tongue sneaked out to join the party, which brutalized him as much as he’d imagined it would, but he didn’t scold her for what amounted to an instinctive response. Her somatosensory cortex was lighting up like crazy right now, processing the messages from the millions of sensory receptors in her lips and demanding more data. She pursed her lips, capturing his head and taking him in until she sealed her mouth around the flare.
He indulged in a couple shallow thrusts while lights exploded behind his eyes. “Christ, I could lose myself right here. Another day, another time, I’ll let you play those lips on me forever, but right now I have to go deeper. Are you ready?”
Her response was to lift her head while simultaneously dragging her hand down the back of his balls, nudging him on.
Jaw clenched, he guided himself in, sinking slowly into the warm, soft haven of her mouth. Muffled sounds—little gasps and moans—accompanied his intrusion. Manners dictated he wait for her to do whatever adjusting she needed to do to accommodate him, but her busy tongue explored at will, and she continued fondling his balls. Stroking, squeezing, driving him out of his mind. When he was in deep enough to feel the narrowing at the back of her throat, her tongue and hand stilled. “Good?”
Her hand fanned over his ass cheek, and she gave a small nod, which told him she could take more. He unwrapped his hand from his cock and let her cradle the weight of him in her mouth. “I told you, with me you’d take more, remember?” Full. He wanted her fuller than she’d ever been before. Fuller than she thought possible.
Both hands returned to his legs. Braced. Ready. Game for more. He could fall in love with this woman. He flexed his hips and pushed in a little deeper, until the tip of his cock nudged her soft palate. His vision blurred as her lips tightened and her throat worked. Fingers dug into his thighs. Seconds later a sigh of surrender came from somewhere in that crowded throat.
On all fours, his dick in her mouth, acutely aware of the short bursts of breath from her nose blowing over the back of his shaft. Life couldn’t get much better—for him. He lifted his head and focused on her legs, still crossed, still in the air. “You’re working so hard for it, aren’t you?” He leaned forward to kiss the closest knee, which pulled his cock out of her mouth a bit and gave her a measure of respite. He’d give her a measure more. “Okay, Czarina, lower your legs.”
She did so, slowly. Her breath came in rough pants, expulsions of air that emptied her lungs and ended in tiny whimpers. He pressed his forehead to her knees and tried to block out the incidental pleasure of her lips sliding along his shaft as he moved, and the delicate forays of her tongue. “Open them up, princess. Open wide. Show me where it hurts.”
A cry of relief, or agony, or a mixture of both, accompanied the careful uncrossing of her legs. Then she slowly splayed her thighs. Exposing herself to the heavy air provoked another broken cry. He kissed one trembling thigh. Then the other. Then he lowered himself onto his forearms and brought his mouth down until he hovered mere inches from her. “Are you ready?”
In answer, she slapped his ass. Not a restrained slap, either, like the kind he’d given her. More of a “Fuck me now, motherfucker, or I’m going to hurt you” slap. Imperious to the end. Fun and games were over. Arden St. Sebastian was ready to come. He couldn’t help but smile.
“Careful, Czarina. Don’t dish out anything you can’t take.” Then he lowered his head, closed his lips around her clit, and sucked it into his mouth as hard and deep as possible. No introductory flicks of his tongue. No gentle kisses. He was too desperate, and he could taste her orgasm rising higher with every pull of his lips, and…oh shit…she did the same. It dragged him dangerously close to the edge. He’d counted on her forgetting about him, or anything else for that matter, the moment he went to work on her needy clit. The fact that she hadn’t created a very real possibility of him coming first.
That couldn’t happen. He wanted to be certain she came, which meant she came first. He pushed her thigh to the ground and held it there while he gave her clit the same treatment he’d given everything else in the vicinity. Her body tensed. She reared up, and the thigh trapped under his hand fluttered. Just as that first long spasm shattered, he lost his own battle. The next thing he knew he was thrusting with abandon, coming without restraint while her eager mouth drained him, and one thought repeated like an echo in his head.
Not enough. It’s not enough. Two more days with her isn’t nearly enough.