What He Explores (What He Wants, Book Twenty-One) (10 page)

As he inserted the key I felt my legs tremble and my lower belly tighten expectantly.

“What are you doing?” I whispered.

“Coming inside,” he said easily, pushing the door open and entering my house in front of me.

“That’s incredibly rude,” I said, but my voice betrayed me. The truth was, every fiber of my body was firing, alive and excited from the closeness of Zack Wild, the intensity and charisma of him.

I watched him as he walked up the flight of steps to my apartment.

I turned and looked around as if I was afraid someone might be watching us. But who would be watching?

Nobody. Nobody knows he’s here right now, and that means no one will know what happens between you tonight.

I couldn’t believe that I was being this stupid and irresponsible. And yet here it was. I couldn’t quite stop myself, no matter how crazy this whole thing was.

I followed him into the apartment and shut the door.

Z
ACK

When I got to the top of the stairs, I saw her little apartment. It was kind of nice, even though it was too small and needed some updating.

If we’d lived there together, I’d have fixed it up for her. I’d have made sure to install new appliances, countertops, get better fixtures, re-do the tile.

I’d have done it all happily.

But then I shook my head, laughing a little at my flight of fancy.

You’re not going to ever get that far and you know it. This is one and done, just like the others. If she’s lucky, she might—might—get a spot on the roster. A phone call every so often when you need just that kind of ass, just that shape of mouth, just that curve of the hip.

She’s one of many and don’t you forget it, Wild.

Aye-aye, sir.

“Nice place you got here,” I finally remarked, as I heard her hesitant footsteps behind me.

I walked over to the bookshelf and glanced at some of the framed photos resting on a shelf at eye level.

“How do I know you’re not a psycho who’s going to rape and murder me?” she asked from behind me.

I picked up one photo of Caeli on the beach, a photo that showed her laughing as she held a beer. Nearby, a few guys were standing, one with his hand on her shoulder.

Immediately, I felt my stomach burn with jealousy.

Is that a boyfriend? Did he fuck her?

I felt like if he was standing in front of me right then I could literally have ripped his head off.

“When was this taken?” I said, turning and showing her the picture.

She folded her arms and walked only a couple of steps closer. “That was a year ago. Me and some friends spent a week at the Cape.”

“Friends? These guys were friends of yours?”

“Is that a problem?”

“I don’t know yet,” I replied, my nostrils flaring as I stared again at the guy whose hand was touching her bare shoulder in the picture. Quickly, I scanned the other photos to see any recurrences of his face, and I didn’t see any.

“You’re pretty weird,” Caeli said. “First you wait for me outside my restaurant, then you beat up my cousins, and then you turn up at my apartment. Now you’re inside commenting on my old pictures and interrogating me about my friends.”

I turned around and looked at her.

She was wearing her work outfit, nothing but cheap waitress garb, but I could see her curves, and I knew somehow that she was just raring to go—that when I started her she would be like a thoroughbred, fast out the gate and with energy to spare down the stretch.

My dick was suddenly rock fucking hard as I looked at her standing there, with that judgmental, pouty expression on her face—and I could already imagine how those plump lips would look stretching around my cock.

“So what if I’m weird?” I said, meeting her gaze evenly.

“I don’t know,” she said, licking her lips and glancing away from me.

I started walking toward her, feeling the energy between us building and enjoying the sense of tension that flooded my every cell.

Right now this was all that mattered.

The past was nothing but ancient history. The screams and explosions, the sound and stink of gunfire and sweat and the pit in my stomach from seeing my best friends blown apart in front of me—it was all gone. Wiped away by just being in the presence of this girl who had that “fuck you” attitude and yet she so clearly wanted to get her rocks off with me.

“What don’t you know, Caeli?”

“I don’t know if I like you very much, Zack.”

“I like the way you say my name, Caeli.” I smirked, as I got even closer, and now we were near enough to touch.

“I definitely
don’t
like the way you say my name,” she replied.

“Then I won’t say it,” I told her. “I’ll call you something else instead.”

“Oh?” she asked, her voice challenging me, her eyes begging me. “What will you call me, then?”

“I’ll call you my little slut,” I replied.

The look of shock on her face was priceless. “What did you just say to me?”

“You heard me,” I replied, grinning. Meanwhile, despite her professed indignation, her nipples were poking through her shirt as clear as day and I could see the desperation in her eyes.

“You need to leave,” she said. “Right now.”

“But if I leave then you’ll never know what it feels like to have me make you scream when you come harder than you’ve ever come in your life.”

The color rose into her cheeks as her face flushed. “I should slap you in the face for the way you’re talking to me. It’s so disrespectful—“

“But you like it,” I said, reaching out and grabbing her by the waist. The feel was electric and she easily fell into my grasp like she’d always belonged there.

Her hips banged into mine, as I pushed my body against hers. I felt myself swell as a feeling came over me that was beyond description.

I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to slide inside someone as badly as this in all my life.

I stared into her dilated pupils as I felt her body, the softness of it, the heat radiating from her, and that fuck me, possess me, destroy me look in her big round eyes.

“I don’t like it,” she said.

“Tell me you don’t like it again and I’ll leave, no questions asked.” I stared at her, waiting, already knowing the truth.

“You can’t just walk into my apartment and do whatever you want.”

“Correction. I’m doing what
you
want.” I leaned in, inhaling her scent, smelling the pure milky softness of her, the creamy skin that I wanted to devour. “And you know it, but you’re trying to pretend otherwise.” I reached out and caressed her cheek, feeling the softness now, as my palm slid back until I could grab hold of her hair.

She looked up at me, her mouth open, those full lips parted. “I won’t pretend if you won’t,” she said.

“As long as we understand each other,” I told her, and then my lips were pressing into her lips, and she was everything I’d imagined and more.

The curves of her body were luscious and soft against my hardness. I pushed into her, my rock hard cock pressing through my jeans and trying to force its way out—like a prisoner trying to get loose.

Fuck.

She was already making me want to come. I’d never been this ready to go before.

Her lips were so pliant, so ready and willing, accepting of me, accepting of my tongue as I slid into her warmth, tasting her sweet breath for the first time.

Shit. This is something else.

It’s like I’m having real feelings for her. It’s as if I actually…I actually somehow care about her. But I don’t even know her.

This is insane.

Her body was so responsive to my touch, and as my hand slid from her hip up over her ribs and onto her ample breast, squeezing and sliding until I could pinch that big fat nipple between my fingertips.

Even over her shirt, I could feel it as clear as day.

She moaned, a soft sound that came from deep in her throat.

I pressed her back into the bookshelf. My cock was ready to explode, and we were still kissing, but the kiss was becoming mutually more intense and passionate.

Fuck me
.

How could she appear so naïve and pure one moment and like a hellcat the next?

She threw her head back and I kissed down her neck, licking her skin, and she tasted like sweet sugar and I needed to suck her tits more than anything in the world right then.

I needed her body naked, my cock inside of her, I needed her crying out while I fucked her until she screamed.

But instead I stepped back and took a deep breath, watching her.

She was panting, her eyes wide, her lips moist.

“Take off your shirt,” I told her, feeling my voice come like a growl. I was shaking a little from the wanting.

“Take my?”

“Shirt. Off. Now.” I said it like a drill sergeant. Like I was her commander in chief.

She hesitated but then did as she was told, dropping her shirt to the floor, her skin gooseflesh as she looked down.

My pulse quickened as I saw that creamy alabaster skin and then that sheer bra holding her plentiful breasts in.

“Now the bra,” I said, practically whispering.

She quickly unclasped it from behind and then it slowly fell, drifting to the ground beside her shirt.

Now she was showing me her whole torso, and it was so good that I dove in, kissing her neck as I pressed my chest into hers. She was hot to the touch. I kissed up her neck and went for those thick lips again as my hands both slid up and cupped those tits, those perfect tits, one in each hand.

She moaned again.

I pulled back and we stared into each other’s eyes and I felt that shock.

The shock of knowing that there was truly something different about her, and that I was playing with fire.

C
AELI

How was this happening right now?

I was standing in my apartment with my shirt off, a strange man kissing me and touching me, doing whatever he pleased.

And the worst part?

I liked it.

No, I didn’t just like it. I fucking loved it.

Zack Wild was playing with me as if I was nothing but a toy, and I couldn’t resist. More than that, I didn’t even want to resist. His body felt amazing, his hands knew how to touch me, and the strength of his body was like nothing I’d ever experienced before in my life.

I’d kissed a few boys, but I hadn’t ever felt a real man like this. Zack had some kind of knowledge, a confidence that came from experience. And the boys I’d kissed and let grope me in the back of cars and in basements while movies played on the TV and parents stomped overhead…they were so different from Zack that they might as well have been a different species.

They were truly boys. And even the one boyfriend I’d let take my virginity—it had been so unremarkable, so unlike what I’d hoped my first time could be.

But Zack was a man, and he was doing things to me that I didn’t know were possible, and I was frightened but exhilarated. I suddenly felt so alive, so much older and experienced, as if my body had merely been waiting for his touch to truly turn it on and heat it up.

My sex was wet, slick with need, open, throbbing already.

And I’d stripped for him.

He’d called me his little slut and even as my cheeks had turned bright red, my nipples had stiffened and I’d felt that urge in my belly.

Say it again.

Tell me everything.

Make me yours, I don’t care what it means.

The insanity of the restaurant, my irresponsible parents, my horrible relatives and the fight and the lying to the police—it was all erased.

This was all that mattered, right now.

Zack’s green eyes, his body pressed firmly against mine, as his strong hands wandered up my belly, chest, grabbing my bare breasts as he kissed me so tenderly and yet with so much passion.

Oh, God.

Could I come from just this—just his kiss, his touch on my skin?

My whole body was swimming, my center churning with spirals of ecstasy. If I didn’t bite down, I was going to climax right here and now and there was no stopping it.

Zack’s honey lips teased me, his tongue sliding in and penetrating my mouth and then he dipped back slightly, looking at me.

When we stared into one another’s eyes, it was like a trigger, an explosion.

I saw something in his gaze that shocked and stunned me.

Caring.

Deep and utter longing.

How could this be possible when he didn’t even know me?

It couldn’t be and yet in that moment, I was absolutely certain that he cared about me in a way that no one ever had.

“Let me suck on those perfect fucking tits,” he said, his voice gravelly.

“Oh, shit,” I moaned, as his soft tongue flicked my erect nipple. He grinned, flicking it again and again before moving in to suck and lick and suck my nipple until my knees locked together and I fought off the first wave of an orgasm.

My entire body clenched, fighting not to come and be humiliated by my own inexperience.

He glanced up at me as if he knew exactly what was happening.

“Don’t fight it,” he said, and then he moved to suck my other breast, as his hands massaged my tits, his palms firm on my skin.

My nipples were wet, shining and swollen from his attention. He pulled back and examined them, his fingers squeezing until I cried out from the intensity of it all.

And then Zack had taken off his coat and pulled his own shirt over his head, letting it fall to the floor.

I stared incredulously at his body—the sheer muscularity of him, his huge chest, his taught shoulders and chiseled abs.

He was like something out of a cartoon, a man who looked like a superhero.

He wore tattoos on his chest and shoulder. On his shoulder was an American flag that appeared to be rippling in the breeze in black and white, while another tattoo covering his left pectoral was a rifle with a helmet hanging atop the barrel of the gun. And yet another on his right pectoral was of an eagle carrying a tombstone in its talons. On the tombstone, the word Kabul was etched.