Eight Ways to Ecstasy (8 page)

He sank to his knees. He'd been on them for her before, prepared to put his mouth on her or to beg her for another chance. Tonight, he slid the flats of his palms down the outsides of her thighs, curled his hands around her knees before dragging them lower. With his brow pressed to the back of her leg, he grasped her ankle. She got his hint when he fit his grip around her shoe. She lifted one foot and then the other for him.

When he rose again, it was to kiss every vertebra on his way up her spine. He stepped his bare feet to either side of hers and took her in his arms, pressing all of him to all of her. A wall in his mind collapsed, letting him really
feel
her, the curves and the edges, the smooth softness of her skin. The hard line of his cock met the small of her back, and just like that it was arousal. It was sex.

And it was so, so much more.

He turned her in his arms. Her makeup around her eyes was smudged, the edges damp, and she was so beautiful, it nearly brought him right back to his knees.

“Better?” he asked, the sound too raw.

She nodded, averting her gaze, staring at his chest instead of at his eyes, and that was wrong. He put a hand to her chin to lift it, only for her to reach up, to wrap her fingers around his own. She brought them to her lips, and it was fire, was a punch to the gut as she touched him.

He'd been so deliberate, every motion to peel away their clothes an act of sheer restraint, but all of that was gone now. With heat and a sudden need so bright it seared him to his bones, he let the hesitancy, the distance, fall away.

When he tilted her head up this time, it was to take her mouth, to possess it. She met him with a desperation he wasn't sure he understood, except that it resonated with his own.

“I'll do better,” he mumbled, working to breathe past the slick glide of her tongue, the plush of her lips against his. “I promise.” He cupped her neck, fit his thumb to the hollow of her jaw and held on. “But you have to let me.”

He kissed her again until the stiffness in her limbs began to ease, then took a step toward her bed, guiding her along. When they reached the mattress, he shoved the other, discarded dresses to the floor. They fell in a clatter, and he didn't care. She didn't seem to, either.

At his prompting, she lay down in the center of the bed, a vision of creamy flesh and soft curves, dark hair in a cloud about her shoulders, and he could gaze at her all night, except that he was dying to touch, his hands shaking and cock screaming for it. Predatory, he settled above her with his knees caging her thighs, spine straight, arms braced. He gazed down at her. At her hands to either side of her head.

He paused. She'd put them there the last time, too, and he'd encouraged it, wanting her helpless to the pleasure his body could bring hers. But now it was different. Passive, like she had been all night, except to tell him she was mad at him.

Now, it felt wrong.

He shook his head, the words to explain too far away, too slippery. So instead of trying, he flipped them, getting himself flat on his back. Making it so he stared up at her.

Confusion marred her features, and his heart clenched. This was that skittishness he'd seen too many times before. He grabbed her by the arms before she could retreat or protest. He wanted to
shake
her.

“You have to let me do better.” His throat chafed. “You have to
make
me do better.”

He'd been the one to come to her, all right. Had crossed an ocean because she had shown him the holes in his own life. Because he knew he had to fill them but didn't know how to without her.

She'd agreed to give him another chance. But that was all she had done.

In another world, another life, she'd challenged him at every turn, calling him out on his bullshit and making fun of his terrible lines. He wanted
that
Kate. He wanted more limits than a refusal to let him spend the night. Than her voice, telling him she couldn't save him, that he had done everything wrong again. After. When it was already too late.

He might need to start over here, but he couldn't do it all on his own.

“You have to tell me what you want.” He silenced her protests with a finger against her lips. “Don't just go along with me when I screw up.” She never had before. He was finished with her acting like she had to now. He might've asked her for this chance to prove himself, but it couldn't all be for him to win or lose. “Do this
with
me. Together.” His voice and his heart both cracked. “Or.” Fuck. He shouldn't say this. Shouldn't even think it.

But there it was pouring out of him regardless.

“Or what's the point in us doing this at all?”

Kate reeled.

Rylan lay beneath her, his gaze pleading, his words hanging in the air and pressing hard against her heart. Making the breath in her lungs go thick.

What's the point in us doing this at all?

An ugly laugh threatened her throat. How close had she been to asking him that herself? They'd walked in the door, and she'd had it on the tip of her tongue. She'd been so ready to lay into him for wasting both their time.

And now what? He was mad at her for
letting
him screw this up?

Ice flashed through her bones. For one lilting, awful moment, she was back in her father's home again, where everything was her fault, she'd done everything wrong, why couldn't she just do something
right
for once?

But then the ice gave way to fire. She bristled, an instinct to fight rising up in her like it never would've before this summer. Because she deserved better than to be a pawn like that. She twisted her fingers hard against the sheets, flames making their way up her face. She should climb right off him and go find some clothes. Should show him the door and tell him never to come back again, only…

Only there was something in his eyes, a fragility to the way he held her close. Her chest constricted, and she went still.

As if seeing his opportunity, he grasped it. Licked his lips and dug his fingers into the flesh of her arm. “Tonight was my fault. So many things in this have all been my fault.” His throat bobbed. “But you went along with it.”

She almost got whiplash, she snapped her head back so hard. “Excuse me?”

He squared his jaw. “You don't like the ballet, you tell me you don't like the ballet, Kate. You don't sit through it for three hours silently stewing.”

“And what were you doing for those three hours?”

The weakest smile played across his lips. “Trying to figure out how I'd gotten it all so wrong.”

She just— What was she supposed to do with any of this?

She flexed her arms inside his grip and winced. “You're hurting me.”

His hands softened, sending blood rushing back through her limbs. With a gentle touch, he stroked where he had squeezed too tight. Then the corners of his mouth pulled to the side, his eyes going warm and sad. “See? Was that so hard?”

“It—” It wasn't the same thing. Was it?

“I saw you lying under me a second ago. You were flat on your back, with your hands above your head.” Heat prickled her neck, and he shook his head. “It was sexy as hell, knowing you were going to let me do whatever I wanted. But this isn't just about what I want. Not in your bed, and not when we go out. It's not all just for you to sit back and let me plan, then reject or not.”

That wasn't what she'd been doing. It hadn't.

Except—

Except maybe it had been.

He'd come crawling back to her and begged her for another chance. And she'd been nursing this deep, impossible hurt. Holding on to it. She'd resented his return, resented him assuming he had the right to interrupt her life and fit himself into it. She'd agreed to give him a chance to prove himself, but the burden had been on him. But maybe some of it was on her, too.

“This is never going to work,” he said, voice quiet and soft. “Not if you aren't in it with me.” His gaze met hers. “Try with me, Kate. Please.”

Her anger was a stone inside her gut. She didn't know how to let it go, or how to be charitable to the man who had put it there.

The stone rocked. And maybe, just by a fraction, it shrunk.

Because Rylan wasn't wrong. There was a difference between giving him a chance and giving
them
one. Only—

“I don't know if I can.”

“All I'm asking is that you try.”

For what seemed like an impossibly long time, she stared down at him.

The truth was, he hadn't just asked her to trust him the once. Over and over again, inviting her to tour a museum with him and opening his mouth for the first time against her skin, he'd presented her with these opportunities, and she'd taken them. By and large they'd been amazing, but to a one, they'd been his idea.

Maybe it was time she had some ideas of her own.

Maybe it was time for her to try.

Pushing down the hurt, hard place he'd made inside of her when he'd let her down, she dropped her gaze to his mouth. They were still all but naked here, and while her arousal had waned, the vision of him lying there, opening himself up to her, had the low simmer of need in her abdomen expanding.

She put her hands on his shoulders. And then she leaned in.

He parted for her without a moment's hesitation, meeting her kiss with firm, eager lips, slipping his tongue against hers in a soft caress. She kneaded her fingers into hard muscle and stroked her thumbs across his collarbones.

“Together?” The question came out shaky against his mouth.

“Absolutely.”

And it was strange, being on top of him like this. She'd tried it before with Aaron, once or twice, but she'd always been too self-conscious, too aware of the way her belly looked. Was she moving too fast? Too slow? After a while, he'd usually ended up flipping them around so he could move the way he liked.

But Rylan cradled her close, his hands moving to span her back, sweeping wide arcs over the skin there, over the lace of her bra and down toward her rear.

“Do you want?” She trailed a finger down his chest to tease beneath the waistband of his boxers.

“Soon enough.” He caught her hand in his and set it flush to the smoothness of his abdominals. “When you want. You just touching me is—” He sucked in a breath as she teased a hint of nails beside his navel. “It feels amazing.”

He pulled her back down into his kiss then. There was a sweetness to the way he held her, open and accepting. It gave her the freedom to enjoy this, to get a little lost in the glide of his tongue and the heat of his mouth.

The whole night long, she'd been shivering. Now all she could feel was warm.

“Perfect,” he said, brushing fingertips over her spine. He folded his hand around her hip, and it softened her bones.

She shifted, edging her knees farther apart.

The first glancing touch of her body against the hard line of him had a flash of want zinging to her sex, to the points of her breasts, and he moaned aloud against her mouth.

“That feels so good.” He nudged his hips up into hers but didn't try to move her. Didn't ask her to grind harder.

But she wanted to.

Could it really be that simple? She pressed her hips down with more force, lining the base of him up against her clit, and her skin flushed hot, went too tight all over.

“That's it. Doesn't that feel nice?” He slipped his fingers over the curve of her breast. Dipped inside the cup to stroke at her nipple, and she exhaled hard against his lungs.

“
Nice
?” she asked, shuddering, disbelieving. It was so much more than nice.

He
shh
ed her and delved in deeper. Without slowing the rocking of her hips, she reached to flick her bra clasp open. Her breasts spilled out, the straps sliding down her shoulders, and his hands were there, helping her shrug the thing off. When she resettled over him, her nipples grazed his chest with every motion of her body, hot licks of pleasure revving it all up higher, better.

“Baby.” He groaned, tearing himself from her lips and baring his throat. His cock jumped against her clit, and oh, damn. Had she pushed him too far, just like this? She eased up, but he pulled her back down. Shook his head and opened his eyes. “Don't stop. Please.”

But she did.

She could grind them and grind them, get them both off like that. An emptiness yawned inside her, though. She'd been so afraid of sex for so long. Had kept them to everything-but for ages their first time around, but he'd been so good to her, so patient. She knew when her body was ready for it now. And he had told her to tell him what she wanted…

Over the sound of his pained gasp, she lifted her hips off him entirely, tremoring at the sudden lack of pressure, the missing contact. But no. No.

She leaned over. Got her nightstand open.

The box of condoms was unopened. She tore at it, fumbling when the cardboard separated but didn't give, swore when she nicked her finger sliding it under the flap. But eventually she managed. She tore off a single square.

Then with her free hand, she cupped the long line of him through his boxers.

He bit off a curse and seized her by the wrists, stopping her stroking and closing her fingers tighter around the condom. “You still don't have to.”

“I know.” She swallowed down the wetness in her mouth. “But I want to.” For an instant, she faltered. “Don't you?”

“Kate.” His voice dropped, going gravelly and low. And there was no mistaking that tone. That fevered gleam in his eyes.

Triumph replaced doubt. She twisted free of his grip. “I'll take that as a yes, then.”

She kissed him again, soaking it in when he bit at her lip, swallowed the choked, perfect groans he made as she lowered his boxers from his hips. He kicked them the rest of the way off, stifling himself against her mouth. She got her hand around the thickness of his shaft, slid her thumb across the slickness at the tip.

His fingers running up the length of her slit still took her by surprise, though.

“You sure you're ready for me? Sure you're wet enough?”

He had his hand on her. Couldn't he tell she was soaked through? “What do you think?” she asked.

He edged in under the hem of her panties, and that wasn't going to do. She let go of him in favor of getting naked.

And then she was on top of him, completely bare, legs spread wide across his thighs. The world went sideways for a moment.

Who would've ever thought she'd end up here?

His fingertips brushing slick flesh brought her back to herself. She dropped her head against his chest as he probed all around her opening, dipping just inside. Spreading her wetness around. The tease of fullness without the follow-through drove her need even higher, and she rose back up.

She tore the condom open and rolled the latex over him. Batted his hand away. “Believe me. I'm ready.”

She had reason to doubt it, though, as she lowered herself onto him. God, he was huge, and she was keyed up as hell, but she hadn't let him make her come first. The stretch pulled a broken sound from her, and then there was his hand at her hip, slowing her descent.

His jaw clenched, the tendons in his neck standing out, like this was nothing but restraint for him. He eased her up a fraction, almost off him.

This time, when she sank down, it was easier, and they groaned as one. Bracing herself, she worked back and forth, taking more and more of him with each stroke, and—

And
there
it was. The fullness, the connection.

She'd been so damned afraid of letting herself connect with him. She still was. But if she wasn't willing to meet him partway, then what hope did they have?

This time, when her hips met his, she didn't avoid his gaze. Pressing her brow to his, she let him see her.

Then ever so slowly, she started to move. Pleasure sparked outward from every point of contact, a deep mass of heat within her. Every few strokes, her clit pressed hard against the ridge of his body where they joined, and she shifted. Got her lips to the point of his jaw, to his throat, fighting to focus.

“Here.” He curled a hot, broad palm around her hips, dragging her down so he was fully seated, so that perfect pressure made the heat bloom, throwing sparks. “Do what feels good to you.” He kept her there, just there, helping her rock back and forth. A new depth of pleasure opened up inside her, but she couldn't chase it. Couldn't quite let go that far.

“But—”

“It
all
feels good to me.” He groaned, grinding upward. Deep within, he throbbed, his fingers tightening at her hip. “I promise.”

She closed her eyes. God, it couldn't really be this easy, could it?

“Does it?” he asked. “Does it feel good?”

“It feels amazing.”

“Then take it.” He hauled her mouth to his, sweeping her up in a kiss that was all teeth and tongues, slickness and heat. “Take everything you need.”

She lost herself in the push and pull. For everything she took, he only seemed prepared to offer more, and before she knew it, the heat rose to the point she couldn't bear, his cock a perfect fullness inside her, his body this warm solidity beneath her. He palmed her breast, bit at her lip even harder. Slipped a hand in between them, and it was something sharper to grind against, a bright point of pleasure and—

“Make yourself come, baby.” His muscles strained, his kiss going sloppy. “Come all around me. Let me feel it when you—”

All at once, it crested over. Her body pulsed around his, blackness like liquid exploding outward. Like completion. Like connection.

She rode it all the way to the end. Opened her eyes in a haze to find him gazing up at her as if she were the best, most incredible thing he'd ever seen. Inside, he was still so hard.

“But you—”

There was this lost part of her that half expected to get flipped over and pounded into. She'd gotten hers, which was more than she could usually say. He'd given her so much pleasure—had showed her how to take it, and for that she'd be more than willing.

He pressed a finger to her lips. “Do you think you can come again?”

Oh, hell, she didn't know. “You have to be dying…”

“Only a little.” He smiled. A real smile.

She kissed it from his lips, and it tasted like desire and these echoes of love, ones she'd been denying for so long now. But there they were. With their mouths tangled, sharing air and pleasure and this chance to experience it together, she braced her arms and shifted her hips.