Test Shot (31 page)

But tonight, she was his and his alone.

GOD, HE MADE her want.

In the candlelight, she surveyed his body, tight and rippled with all those fascinating dips and shadows. She traced his ribs and his stomach muscles with reverent fingertips while they kissed. He followed her when she eased back, as if he couldn’t bear to part their lips even long enough for her to take off his shoes and socks and undo his jeans. She lingered on the task, smoothing her hands over each patch of his revealed skin. Instead of reaching inside his boxers for the hard reward waiting for her, she drew his underwear down his legs and added it to the pile.

“You’re not killing me.”

His gasp made her cock a quizzical brow. “Huh?”

“You may”—he hissed a breath as she scraped her nails up his inner thighs—“maim me a bit, but you won’t get off so easily.”

She grinned. “Oh, I so hope not.”

When he was naked, she climbed up his long, languid body and went to work on his neck, nuzzling and sucking while he filled his palms with her breasts. His thumbs rubbed her nipples, harder and harder until she had to stop to gasp.

“Someday I’m gonna fuck these,” he said, almost to himself, as he lowered his head to one dark pink tip and pulled.

She cried out at the twinge that registered deep in her pussy. Cried out again when he repeated it on her other one and drove a questing finger into her, forgoing her clit entirely to sink in deep. She clenched him inside and buried her hand in his hair, directing his movements as he pleasured her breasts. Not that he needed her help. He had the whole teeth, tongue, suction routine down pat.

Her clit was throbbing before he caressed the swollen nub. He gave it short, focused strokes, the kind designed to make her come fast. When he bit down on her nipple, she abandoned his neck completely in favor of chasing her release. Selfish, maybe, but she’d make it up to him later.

As was his way, he prodded her to the brink of orgasm, sucking and finger-fucking her until she couldn’t even breathe without moaning. Then he drew away and encircled one of her achy breasts. She jolted at the wet trail he left on her puckered areola. Shuddered at the pinch of his fingers and the light stream of air he blew over her skin.

“Do you ever think of me when you touch yourself?” His hypnotic voice barely reached her over the buzz in her ears. “Ever pretend it’s my tongue on you?”

She didn’t answer as he trailed kisses down her chest. He’d bent her backward over his lap, and she was quivering putty in his hands. Hands he used like erotic rolling pins, driving them up her body while she gripped his knees behind her and arched into his touch. She registered the pressure on her clit, the heat of his sac as he rubbed against her, but she only whimpered and widened her thighs.

Until he shoved her back, angled up her ass, and forged his way inside.

With one partial stroke, she was toast. She’d been on the verge of a climax before, and just the friction in the right place would’ve sent her over. Or it would’ve, had she not painfully snapped back to reality. “Condom,” she gasped.

He jockeyed his hips and buried himself deeper. It wasn’t easy for him to move this way, but she didn’t care. God, he felt good, wedged in so tight. “You’re on the pill and just got out of a long-term relationship. I’m so clean I squeak.” He dragged his thumb over her clit, eliciting her raw, desperate moan. “Christ, I want to be bare inside you. But if you don’t want this—”

He hauled in a breath and started to ease back. Her body mourned his loss even as her brain searched for sanity.

“Wait. There was a gap, when I stopped taking the pill. A few weeks. It should be fine now.” She didn’t say the rest.
Should be
wasn’t a guarantee.

He coasted his thumb over her clit once more, his eyes hot on hers in the candlelit semidarkness. Then he leaned up and cupped her face in his palm, drawing her lower lip between his teeth. With the slightest flex, he was inside her again, just enough to make her sex clutch around the tip of him.

She rose up on her knees and sank on his stiff length, taking more. Taking all. He groaned, long and low, before anchoring a hand on her shoulder and guiding her up and down on his cock.

This wasn’t the romantic sexual reunion she’d pictured, despite the candles. They weren’t in a silk-sheeted bed, and he wasn’t whispering sweet nothings. But along with the strike and sting of damp flesh, she could taste his urgency in his kisses and in the rough grasp of his hand on her jaw. His eyes never left hers, and their bodies rocked in a rhythm that took no thought and no coordination when she tumbled against his chest. He held her up with his unyielding thrusts.

She was full of him, both in and out. Tasted him on her tongue, breathed in his scent with sharp inhale. She linked her fingers behind his neck and bowed into his thrusts, absorbing the blows of his body into hers with a kind of frantic joy she’d never known before. And when she came, it wasn’t so much a wild eruption as a moment of going underwater, a complete swamping of her senses.

He lunged into her and held, his muscles drawing tight before relaxing as he surged into her one last time. His release blasted her channel, the warm pulses triggering more aftershocks. She wrapped her arms around him and cradled his head to her breasts.

“Wow.”

She smiled and shut her eyes. His lack of articulation after sex was so adorable. “I’ve never had sex without a condom. It’s unreal,” she said, only realizing once the words were out how bad her timing was. Condoms brought thoughts of Aidan, and the guy didn’t need a reminder of her ex, even peripherally, when his cock was still inside her. “Sorry,” she muttered.

“Don’t be sorry. And don’t pretend it’s just about the lack of condom.”

“I wasn’t. Just commenting.”

“Uh-huh.” He feathered kisses over each closed eyelid. Her nose. The tender spot just below her ear. Romancing her without words. Or softening her up for his questions.

“Sawyer?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you going to ask?”

A sigh moved through him. “That obvious?”

“Just a little.”

“Okay. What happened with Aidan?”

Wound around him, she hated to let go of the bliss of afterglow. But she owed him the truth, or as much of it as she could share without breaking Aidan’s confidence.

“We just wanted different things. We grew apart, though neither of us could see it. He’s still my friend, and he’s always going to be part of my life.” He drew free of her body, and she shifted back until she could meet his troubled gaze. His brooding eyes had first attracted her—and his abs, definitely his abs—but she didn’t like contributing to his discontent. “Anyone who’s with me has to accept him too.”

His cringe made her smile. “Do I get to keep my pants on when he’s over for dinner?”

She giggled and slugged him lightly on the shoulder. “We’re just friends. No more having sex. No more threesomes with him watching.”

“Sure he’s clear about that?”

“Yeah. It’s crystal.” Thoughtfully, she rubbed where she’d hit him. “Besides, I have a feeling he’s going to be occupied soon enough with a new relationship of his own.”

“He’s gay, isn’t he, Layla?”

She tried to stem the jolt, but she wasn’t quick enough.

He nodded when she didn’t reply. “I suspected he might be.” He caressed her arm and looked as if he wanted to say more. “You said Con’s hetero-flexible,” he added at her questioning glance.

She had to laugh, until she caught his meaning. “Really? You think?”

“Definitely something there. Would it weird you out?”

“Aidan and Con?” She bit her lip and weighed the prospect in her mind. “No. I just want Aidan to be happy. Con’s a little bit of a manwhore, but Aidan probably will want to play the field after being tied down for so long.”

“It didn’t bother you that he lied to you all that time?”

“Of course it did. Even beyond what we were to each other, I believed he trusted me enough to be honest. But I know, in my heart, that he didn’t do anything for the purpose of causing me pain.”

With effort, she forcibly relaxed her posture. She tensed every time she thought about the night she’d broken up with Aidan, though not as much as she once did.

“Not saying he didn’t; just saying I know that wasn’t his intention,” she said, grateful Sawyer hadn’t rushed to fill the silence. “He’s had a lot to deal with, more than I ever knew.”

“Do you want to play the field?”

She didn’t snort at the question, but she wanted to. “I’ve never been the play-the-field type.”
And I’m definitely not now.

He smiled wryly. “Yeah, me neither. Sucks for us.”

“Depends on your point of view, I guess.”

“I always figured people played to find something great. I got lucky.”

“I’d say we both did,” she said, trying to ignore the trembling in her belly. She was used to that sensation—and more—around him.

He stroked the fourth finger on her left hand, leaving a pretty big clue as to his thoughts. “I know it’s going to take a while for you to move on. You were with Aidan a long time. You planned a life with him. And he hurt you badly. Over and over again.”

“It wasn’t all his fault. There were things at play there long before he met me—” Hearing herself, she sighed. She’d encouraged Aidan to be honest, and she had to do the same. “Yes.”

“I’m not trying to rush you. I just don’t know how to go back to the beginning.”

Her lips twitched. “Well, we didn’t have a traditional start.”

“No.” His measured gaze put the most wonderful pressure on her heart. “That doesn’t mean we can’t have a traditional middle. Not an end, because there won’t be one.”

The tremble in her belly turned into a full-blown quake. Yet he looked so calm. So steady. “Sure you don’t write poetry in your spare time?”

“With the way I fumble stuff? Nah.” He intertwined their fingers and curled them against her stomach. “We could pretend for the sake of convention, I suppose. Take the slow and careful route. Date for a couple of years, make sure we consider every possibility. Or we could take the risk that our guts are smarter than our heads.”

“We’re already taking risks.”

Again, that measured stare. “It’s not a risk if the most risky outcome’s exactly what you want.”

Oh God. She pressed her free hand to her forehead. “I can’t even think when you look at me like that.”

“It’s practically dark. How can you see what looks I’m giving you?”

“I can. I feel them inside me.”

“I’d say sorry, but you do the same to me. And I’m willing to spend the rest of my life proving it to you. Or until you tell me to scram, whichever comes first.” His lightning-quick grin didn’t exactly help her addled state.

“Like you’d get that lucky when I’m not even close to done with you.” Though she tried to sound lighthearted, she could tell from the way his grin softened she didn’t succeed.

“So Con seems like a good guy. Unlike his asinine best friend, the pussy destroyer.”

She giggled at his description of Drew, grateful for the topic shift. They wouldn’t get through the evening without discussing where they were headed—and truthfully she didn’t want to—but she needed just a little more time to wrap her mind around how spectacularly she was going to leap. “You’ve been hanging out with him again?”

“A little.” He shrugged. “He gave me a push toward you, actually.”

“He did? Really?”

“Yeah. I think we may be friends now. Strange, huh?”

“Not so strange. I’m glad you’re settling in,” she said, smudging her thumb over his cheek and the faint scratch that remained from his trip to the strip club with Drew. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Her world had unraveled that night, and she hadn’t completely figured out how to put it back together yet. But she was getting there.

“There’s only one place I want to settle.” He gave her a lascivious eyebrow wiggle that made her laugh again. “Let’s go to bed.”

* * * *

He woke to the sensation of her tongue against his throat. Lapping gently. Nipping in between licks. His cock surged, already seeking her warmth. She laughed and rubbed against him, as sensuous as a witch’s familiar.

“I’m thirsty, but I feel too good to move.” She leaned up and dipped her wicked tongue between his lips.

“So you’re drinking me instead of going to the kitchen?” he managed between kisses.

“Oh, I love drinking you.” She wrapped her hand around his cock and pulled upward in one long stroke. “Trust me on that.”

“We’re going to be very bad for each other, in all the best ways.” He palmed her ass and marveled that he could sound so rational when he wanted to fist pump and shout his joy to the sky. When she started to cough, he rolled her off him and rose. “I’ll get your drink.”

“Such a sweetie. Hurry back. I’ll keep the bed warm.”

He didn’t look at her, because he wasn’t a masochist. Or maybe he was, since he couldn’t resist stealing a glimpse from the kitchen doorway. She looked sleepy and content, her luscious curves draped over the tangled sheets and her loose curls spilled across the pillow.

Emotion clenched in his chest, and the words almost sprang to his lips. Somehow he held them back. He wanted the moment to be perfect, when he could look into her eyes and know she could feel his love.

Yep, no doubt about it. He was the biggest lovesick jerk who ever lived.

“Thirsty. Need liquid.” She dragged her fingers down her slit and lifted them to her lips. “Besides this,” she added with a chuckle.

“Tease. I’m going.” Grinning, he headed into the kitchen.

He found the glasses, then filled one with the lemon-lime soda in the fridge. Ice. He popped open the freezer and located the tray, along with something else he couldn’t ignore.

“Nice,” he said under his breath as he drew out the long, bubbled-glass dildo. His grin reappeared. Damn, he was going to love life with this woman. Never knowing what he’d find in the fridge—food or sex toys.

He carried his find and her drink back to the bed. She’d rolled over on her stomach and shot him a smile over her shoulder. Considering his gaze was fastened on her pert little ass, he almost missed it. “What’d you get me?” She started to turn over.