Before Jamaica Lane (On Dublin Street, #3)

He gazed back at me over his shoulder. ‘I think we’ve done enough for tonight. I don’t want to overwhelm you.’

 

 

I frowned, unhappy with this turn of events. ‘Isn’t that up to me?’

 

Nate was reaching for his underwear, but I could see his shoulders shaking with amusement. Instead of answering, he strode out of the room, his muscled ass so biteworthy it took everything in me not to chase after it.

 

I heard the water running in my bathroom and a few minutes later Nate came back, cleaned up and wearing his boxers. He reached for his jeans and began pulling them on. Once fully dressed, he gazed at me, drinking me in, in all my flushed nakedness.

 

Strangely, I didn’t feel like squirming.

 

I waited, wondering what he was thinking. Dying to know, in fact. Before, I would have asked him, but somehow the intimacy we’d shared had changed that. Now if I asked him what was on his mind, I might come across as some clingy, wannabe girlfriend. In that moment, I resented my decision to ask for his help.

 

As if he sensed my dark thoughts, he crossed the room and bent down to press a sweet kiss to my mouth. I felt his fingers in my hair as he pulled back and murmured his carnal promise: ‘Tomorrow, we fuck.’

 

 

 

 

 

12

 

 

Monday might as well have been devoured by fog. I was walking, talking, doing my job, and yet it was covered in this euphoric mist that didn’t allow any of it to really sink in. Instead I was consumed by thoughts of the night before, of what Nate had done to me and what I had done to him.

 

I was consumed with anticipation for the evening to come.

 

When Nate called around my apartment that night I didn’t bother with clothes. I put on another set of nice lingerie – emerald green this time – and wore a robe over it.

 

I opened the door after buzzing him up, and his eyes sharpened as they drifted over my ensemble. He shut the door behind him and immediately shrugged out of his jacket.

 

‘I like undressing you,’ he said without even a hello, dumping his jacket over my kitchen stool. ‘Your Benjamin boy might not care, but since it’s me you’re about to fuck for the foreseeable future … I like to undress you.’

 

Not knowing quite what to make of that except that I liked it, I replied, ‘Okay, I won’t undress next time.’

 

Nate bit his lower lip, studying me. ‘Tonight’s lesson is all about discovering what turns you on. Do you like being in the driving seat, do you like him in the driving seat, do you like absolute control, absolute submission, or give-and-take?’

 

I hoped I understood what he meant and he wasn’t about to reveal to me that he had a thing for St. Andrew’s crosses and floggers. Better we found out now so I could run a million miles in the opposite direction. ‘Uh … what do you prefer?’

 

‘Both.’ He shrugged. ‘Depends where the mood takes us.’ He began to prowl toward me, and with my mind still on kink I backed up until I hit the wall. Nate pressed in on me, his hands reaching for the ties on my robe.

 

‘When you say control … we’re not talking whips and chains, are we?’

 

He burst out laughing, shaking his head. ‘No, babe. Just good old-fashioned fucking.’ The belt came loose and my robe fell open, revealing my lingerie. ‘Did I tell you you have shit-hot taste in underwear?’

 

‘It is nice to finally have it appreciated.’

 

Pushing the robe off my shoulders, Nate’s fingers lingered across the tops of them as the fabric pooled at my feet. Watching his hands the whole time, he caressed the skin along my collarbone while I stood shivering with eagerness.

 

His fingers trailed down my breastbone and over the swells of my breasts. Goose bumps prickled in the wake of his touch and my nipples tightened in expectation. Instead of giving in to their clear cry for attention, Nate let his fingertips drift back up over my chest and gently along my neck, touching a spot just under my ear that made me shudder with need.

 

The reaction made him smile and he immediately bent his head to graze his lips across the spot. I felt the wet touch of his tongue and the shiver rippled through me again.

 

‘Sweet spot,’ he whispered in my ear, brushing his lips over it and scattering barely-there kisses along my jaw. When he stopped, hovering above my mouth, he looked deep into my eyes. ‘Tell me what you want tonight.’

 

I blinked, wondering exactly what he meant.

 

‘Don’t think about it,’ he urged. ‘Just tell me what you want.’

 

My eyes dropped to his mouth, so close and yet not quite close enough. Hoarse with arousal, I said the first thing that came into my head: ‘You inside me.’