Submission Moves: An MMA Romance (14 page)

Her arms and legs tightened around him as his hold on her slackened. “You taste exactly the same way you did four years ago,” she whispered with a teasing lilt in her voice. “Like beer and bad ideas.”

“I haven’t had any beer, sweetheart. That’s all you. And this was your idea, remember?” he said with a soft chuckle. He felt a rush of relief, knowing she was still into it and that he hadn’t scared her off.

“Oh? So you don’t want this?”

“I didn’t say that,” he said, moving his grip to her ass and grinding her against his massive erection for emphasis. She leaned in to give him a long, slow lick on the side of his neck, obliterating what little restraint he’d regained. “Hot damn, I think you want me all wild and out of control,” he muttered through gritted teeth.

Her only answer was another hot lick on his earlobe.

His whole body trembled and he let out a harsh growl. “You made me wait so long for this,” he said, almost in accusation. If it had been a ploy on her part, it worked. Nick was so ready, and his cock was so hard it ached. He couldn’t wait a second more.

A bed. He at least had to get her to a bed. The apartment was pitch black but he found his way easily, maneuvering around unseen furniture as he carried her to his bedroom.

He dropped her with a soft thump on the mattress and reached over to the nightstand to flip on a lamp. On his own, he wouldn’t have been able to conjure up the restraint not to rip off her clothes and plow right into her, not with her
finally
on his bed looking lush and beautiful. But Rose’s breathing had gone shaky, and even in the dim glow of the lamp, he could see the apprehension written all over her face. She was nervous. That was not how he imagined tonight would be.  

He eased down beside her on the bed, determined to coax her nerves away and make her as desperate for this as he was. His impatient groping gave way to slower, more practiced caresses, and the kisses he gave her were soft and shallow, no more than a brush of his lips against hers. After several minutes, she was kissing him back and writhing against him. When she stroked her palms up his shoulders and cupped the back of his neck, Nick knew she was primed to take things further.

“I’m going to strip you naked now,” he said, reaching for the concealed zipper on the side of her dress. How he knew where it would be, Rose could only guess.
He probably had a lot of practice at getting women out of their clothes,
she thought. But the expression on Nick’s face as he slowly peeled her dress down her legs was to the contrary. It was as if he was looking at his first naked woman.
 

Rose was suddenly thankful she didn’t insist on keeping the lights off. She wanted to, at first. It was nerve-wracking enough getting naked for a lover. It didn’t help that Nick was just too damn gorgeous and she was fully aware of the physical disparity between them. But the look on Nick’s face—his frank appreciation and reverence—had been worth all the anxiety. She’d only ever seen that look in a man’s eyes once. Four years ago.  

“Wow,” he said, his hot gaze raking up and down her body. “I didn’t know feminists wore corsets and garter belts.”

“Feminists wear whatever the heck they want,” she said, surprised at her brazenness. She usually felt gauche and self-conscious in bed. Not sexy. And never playful. But damn if the man didn’t make her feel like some sort of sex kitten who routinely had hot sex.

Nick let out a happy approving sound as his blunt fingers, surprisingly deft, unhooked the busk that ran down the center of the corset. Once he undid the last one, he yanked it off and tossed it away. “I love your tits, do you know that?” he said, eyes locked on where his hands now touched her. He cupped her bared breasts, hefting them and catching her taut nipples between his fingers.

Rose’s eyes fluttered shut, revelling at his warm touch. “Well, you’re not exactly subtle when you stare at them,” she said with a smile in her voice.

“Does it bother you that I look at you like that?” He sounded genuinely disturbed.

“No, not when you do it.” She didn’t mind at all. It didn’t even bother her that he said ‘tits,’ and she usually found the word crass.

“Good,” he said, bending down to take her nipple in his mouth. “I’ll always wanna look at you. And touch you. And kiss you.” He punctuated each phrase with a hungry kiss. Rose was lost to the feeling of his hot, wet mouth on her skin. She’d never been more aware of her flesh, never been more attuned to her senses.

“You got no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this,” he murmured as he slipped his hand between them and stroked her above her panties. The gossamer fabric did nothing to conceal how wet she was for him and how ready. Suddenly, he took his hand away and pulled back from kissing her other breast. Before Rose could protest, he’d moved in between her legs and edged down the bed. He stroked her legs from hip to ankle. “I think I’ll let you keep these on,” he said, plucking at the strap that held her thigh-high fishnet stocking in place. When he got down on his elbows, Rose knew what was coming. Her blood turned cold.

“You…you don’t have to, Nick,” she said in a tight voice.

Nick gave her a bewildered look. “You don’t want me to eat you out?”

Rose made a face and just barely suppressed a shudder. She
hated
that euphemism. Nearly as much as she hated the act itself. She wasn’t a fan of giving or receiving oral sex. At best, it felt unnerving, lying spread-eagled and having someone down there, looking at her,
tasting
her. It always made her feel vulnerable and compelled to return the favor. The least she could do was enjoy herself to give her lover a sense of accomplishment, right? She never could. “It doesn’t really do anything for me,” she admitted.

Nick’s brow furrowed and he licked his lips, as if in contemplation. “Let me have at it anyway. Been waiting four years for this.”

Why couldn’t they just have sex normally? She remembered vividly how good he was at that. Why did he have to make her endure this and disappoint them both? “Fine,” she said through gritted teeth. It shouldn’t take that long anyway. What was the harm? Rose laid her head back on the bed in capitulation, closed her eyes, and waited for what came next.

For a long while, she felt nothing but the hot flare of Nick’s breath through the tiny scrap of lace that covered her. When he pressed his lips against her, that soft contact made her hips buck and shocked her breath away. It wasn’t from pleasure. All her eagerness had fled, replaced with pure misgiving. All she wanted now was for him to hurry up and get it over with.

“Relax, sweetheart,” Nick said, hooking a finger under the crotch of her thong. He ran his knuckle along the seam of her sex over and over again. Rose let out a soft gasp each time he grazed her clit, and the stiffness in her body slowly eased.

“You look so beautiful spread open for me like this. I can’t wait to taste you and make you take my cock.”

Rose had always been ambivalent about dirty talk. It was too easy to get it wrong and kill the mood. She’d had one ex scream pretty disturbing things at her, and another who was way too earnest and lovey-dovey it was embarrassing. She couldn’t decide which one was the bigger turn-off. But with Nick doing it, it seemed natural. He whispered an intoxicating mix of the sweet and the dirty. Nasty and rude one moment, tender the next. If his plan had been to distract her, it worked. Rose was more turned on than she’d ever been in her life. She never knew mere words could have that effect on her.

“Look at me,” Nick ordered. “Watch what I’m doing to you. Watch while I fuck you with my mouth.”

Rose complied, propping herself up her elbows. She shrieked when Nick gave a sharp tug and tore her flimsy lace thong right off her. Then he sank his mouth down on her bared skin. The effect was electric. Her toes curled and her back arched. But it was Nick who let out a loud moan.

It was like something clicked in her head and she understood instinctively that he truly wanted this. He wanted her. He didn’t do it because he had to, or because he wanted something in return. To him it wasn’t demeaning or laborious. She felt her whole body go soft and tingly with each broad stroke of his tongue. Plus, the sight of his face buried between her legs was straight up pornographic.  

“You taste so good,” he said, hoarse with lust. He kissed and licked every fold and swell before spearing his tongue and delving deep inside her. Rose shuddered and let out a long, drawn-out moan. He turned his ministrations to her clit, drumming the flat of his tongue against it. She couldn’t resist pumping her hips against his mouth. When he slipped two fingers between her swollen folds, Rose cried out. Her hand flew down to pull on his hair, to pull him closer. All the while, Nick kept making ardent sounds of pleasure that drove her mad as surely as his mouth and fingers did.
 

A soft shiver passed through her, which gradually progressed to whole body tremors. The muscles on her belly started to convulse. She was close. Her thighs fluttered around him. She was coming. Hard. It kept building and building until, suddenly, all that wound-up tension snapped and slowly uncoiled, letting loose a torrent of mind-numbing pleasure that came in waves. It was the sweetest, longest release she’d ever had.

Her gasps kept coming long after he’d wrung the last spasm from her body. To her utter mortification, Rose realized she was crying. Not an ugly, noisy sobbing, but a quieter kind that rocked her body and kept her gulping for air. A stream of hot tears poured down her cheeks.

She felt Nick silently crawl up the bed next to her. She tried to turn away, but he wouldn’t let her, so she kept her eyes firmly shut as he hugged her to his chest, stroked her hair, and rained feather-light kisses on her face.

“That good, huh?” he said with a light chuckle when she finally settled down.

Rose was grateful for his levity and smiled through the tears. “I just…” she began, feeling like some explanation was necessary, because people don’t normally cry after an orgasm, did they? Oh, screw it. She managed to completely embarrass herself as it was. Might as well be honest. “I haven’t come in so long. Not with somebody else anyway. Not since you and I…well, not since then.” She let out a shaky breath. She didn’t know why, but it felt so good to share that with him, almost cathartic.

Nick leaned on his elbow to get a good look at her. His own face was full of surprise and wonder. “You mean you haven’t had sex with anyone since?”

“I have. I just never had an orgasm with any of them.”

“What kind of assholes have you been dating?” he asked, sounding offended, almost angry for her.

“No,” she shook her head, “I don’t think it’s them—”

“The hell it isn’t!”

Rose covered her face with her hands, growing more embarrassed by the second, and also a little annoyed. How arrogant and typically male of him to believe that the man owned a woman’s pleasure—or in her case, the lack thereof. “I’m sure they have no problem bringing other girls to climax. It’s me, Nick. It’s all me. I’m seeing a therapist—”

“For
that
?”

“No, not for
that
, but that has come up. Once or twice.”

“What are you seeing a therapist for?” he asked, sounding cagey. Rose couldn’t blame him. Who in the world would be thrilled to find out that they might have brought home someone off their rocker?

“Where do I begin?” she muttered under her breath. The look on Nick’s face told her that he was expecting an actual answer and she couldn’t just brush it off as she intended. “My job is very emotionally taxing. And I have a mother who…” Goodness, what could she say? How was she supposed to distill a quarter of a century’s worth of hang ups without ruining the rest of the night? “I have a mother,” she just said plainly, as if that would explain it all.

“Most of us do, sweetheart,” he said. “We don’t all need to see a shrink for it.”

She didn’t say anything. God, what could he be thinking now? He was probably devising the fastest way he could get her out of his place. This was not the Friday night hook-up he had bargained for.

“So what does your therapist have to say? C’mon, don’t hold back on me now,” Nick said when she hesitated.

“She says I have control issues.”

“No shit, Sherlock. I could’ve told you that.”

“She says,” Rose continued, swallowing nervously, “that I have fears of uncontrolled passions and that I have anxieties about giving up control to my lovers. I fear that they will try to dominate me, so I never allow myself to have an orgasm as a means to protect myself.”

“But that’s so messed up,” he said, dark eyes full of a wary sort of sympathy. Sympathy was the last thing Rose wanted, especially in bed. “How did any of your exes feel about this? I’m assuming they weren’t total assholes and they did notice that they weren’t getting you off.”