Tools of Engagement

That’s when Bethany expected him to turn it on, to impress his masculinity upon her, but he continued to slant his mouth over hers in savoring slides, rubbing the base of her spine with his thumb and brushing her hair sweetly. His worship of her was too much, too unexpectedly perfect that she started to panic, but he pulled away before she could stop the kiss. “I know you didn’t want to hear the end of what I was telling you,” he rasped, brushing their mouths together. “But I just told you anyway.”

I’m in trouble.

He didn’t allow her to acknowledge more than that single coherent thought before he swept her back into the tornado. Their lust had gone from a slow leak to a broken dam and Bethany had no choice but to ride the tide. His tongue played with hers almost tauntingly and when she tried to get a satisfying taste, he tugged away and snapped at her lower lip instead. “Got something else to tell you now.”

“No,” she breathed. “Shut up.”

Wes laughed low and husky while walking her backward into the shadows and steadying himself with a hand on the side of the house. “What did I say would happen when I got my tongue in your mouth?”

His hips pinned hers and she gasped. “That I would feel your, uhhm . . .”

“My lack of fucks about our age difference.” He captured her chin and tilted it up, his hips cinching forward so she could feel the thick jut of his erection. “Someone is finally paying attention.”

Her panties grew damp. Or damper, rather. “Don’t talk to me like that—”

Wes’s mouth stamped down over hers and made love to it. She couldn’t describe it any other way. He owned her tongue with possessive strokes, his hold firm on her chin to keep her mouth pried open. It was nothing like their first kiss and all the better for the contrast. Knowing he could do both, be gentle and demanding, was such a turn-on, her head was going to pop like a balloon.

After me! called her ovaries.

Wes broke off with a growl and pressed his open mouth to her forehead. “You feel my lack of fucks yet?”

Wait, what? How was she supposed to concentrate on anything when he kissed her like that?

“Guess I better speak a little louder,” he said gruffly, one of his hands leaving the wall, fingers sliding under the strap of her romper. “That what you want, Bethany?”

“What are you asking me?”

He bent his knees and rose, grinding their sexes together. The friction was so raw and welcome and unexpected, she whimpered at the resulting flex of her feminine muscles. “I’m asking to suck your tits,” he said, his hot eyes dropping to her neckline. “Climb on up here so I can play with them. Bet they’re so fucking pretty.”

“They are,” she asserted, trying to regain some of the control that was quickly slipping through her fingers. “Wes, I . . . This is . . .”

His fingers slipped back and forth beneath her strap, his hips rocking between her legs. “This is what?”

The first time I’ve ever been desperate.

The first time I’ve been so needy I’m not sure I could stop.

Wes looked down at their lower bodies and Bethany realized she’d wrapped her right leg around him and was meeting his slow bumps and grinds. “Looks like you’re the one telling me something now, baby.”

“Shut up,” she breathed.

The corner of his lips lifted. “Words. I need to hear them. You want me licking all over those nipples like I licked inside that smart mouth?”

Her nod was vigorous and totally involuntary.

Right.

“Thank God,” he growled, boosting her up and smacking her back against the house. His big shaft hit her in a new spot between her thighs, but Wes gave her no time to recover from the amazing friction. No, he was already yanking down one strap of her romper, using his teeth to draw down the other. “Show ’em off now. Show me how much you don’t care that I’m younger.” Bethany arched off the house with a moan, her angle causing the top of her denim romper to fall to her waist, revealing two things to him. Her lack of a bra and how hard he’d made her nipples. “Fucking hell, Bethany.”

“T-told you they were pretty,” she murmured, even as she checked his eyes for signs that he was disappointed.

His scoff filled the dark backyard. “Pretty doesn’t do them justice. Not sure there’s a word that would.” He leaned down and brushed his lip against her nipples, one by one, groaning when the tight buds puckered all the more. “I’ve finally got you where I want you, baby. Can’t believe it.” He dragged the length of his tongue side to side on top of her right nipple. “Fuck that, it’s where I need you, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she said, her eyes closing, legs tightening around his hips. “Please.”

She’d always rushed men through using their mouths on her breasts—and that was when they deigned to try. Most of them . . . okay, all of them lacked Wes’s finesse. Although could she call it finesse when his enjoyment was so authentic? As he took her left bud into his mouth and drew on it hungrily, she could feel him pulse against the seam of her romper, could feel the vibration of his groans straight through to her core. His hands were everywhere. In her hair, squeezing her waist, molding her opposite breast in his palm while he took liberties with the first.

I want him inside me.

Badly. Not once in her entire life had she been this wet, this eager, this hungry to feel that first pump of a man’s thickness between her legs, the roughness that came after. She wanted it all.

What if he lost interest after that?

When did she start caring if Wes was interested?

Did she care now?

What was he thinking right now?

Was she exceeding expectations or merely meeting them—

“Bethany.” She opened her eyes to find Wes looking at her from beneath heavy eyelids, his breath coming in short spurts. “What happened? I lost you.”

“I don’t know.” Honesty came to her lips without even a smidgen of coaxing or consideration. “I started thinking I want sex and then I spiraled.”

“Into what?”

“Wondering if you’d . . .”

He narrowed one eye. “If I’d . . .”

“Hit it and quit it.”

Wes was silent a moment, pensive even, which was kind of funny considering he was still skillfully kneading her right breast. Which, in turn, was still making her flesh contract and slicken. “Those kind of doubts about me are why sex ain’t happening yet.” Bethany opened her mouth to speak, but he beat her to it. “Your trust matters. It matters whether I’m leaving or staying. It just matters. You matter.” His forehead pressed against hers. “Now let me get you off like I’ve been dreaming about for weeks.”

She was a can of Pepsi and someone had shaken her and flipped open the tab. Her fears and follow-up questions went in ninety messy directions and canceled each other out. All she could do was hold on and feel. His mouth captured her right nipple and he circled his tongue around it, grazing it with his teeth and making her thighs jerk. A cry shot from her mouth. His hands pushed down the sagging back of her romper and landed on bare bottom cheeks, separated by whatever thong she’d put on after her shower. She couldn’t even remember the color.

“One thing at a time,” he rasped, seemingly to himself, rubbing his scruff over one of her puckered nipples. “Right now, I want to hear our ages don’t mean shit. Say out loud that they don’t mean a damn thing to either of us.”

“They don’t,” she managed, the pulse between her legs thickening and growing more urgent. “They don’t mean anything.”

He sucked a nipple into his mouth and let it go with a pop. “My mouth will always be the perfect age to make you come.” His hips thrust up into the notch of her thighs and bounced her three times. “That’s what counts, baby.”

Heat didn’t just permeate her loins, it bit in and twisted—and she was coming. Right there against the house, with her top down and this man she thought she hated providing her with friction for days. She sobbed through it with trembling legs and Wes staring her right in the eye. That was the part that robbed her of breath, of boundaries. She stared back and let him see how thoroughly he milked her orgasm. Continued to prolong it with sharp rolls of his lower body as if he’d read a freaking dossier on her preferences. She bit her lip and whined for him, telling him without coherent sentences that her pussy was spasming in his name. The connection she shared with him in those extended seconds was almost as satisfying as her climax. It went beyond intimacy—and it was making her painfully aware that she’d never really shared intimacy with anyone.

Never before had she given herself over to a man completely. She’d been faking, only letting them see what she chose to show them. With Wes, she had no choice but to let him in deeper. To stop thinking and feel. Without her overly analytical mind holding her back, her body let him take without reservation.

“There you are, darlin’,” he ground out against her mouth, his hands still exploring her bottom, using his grip to ride her up and down. “There the hell you are, leaving the proof of what I did to you all over me. Right where I want it. Good girl.”