Heated

I close my eyes in surrender and in welcome, then lie back as Damien guides me down onto the bed. He pulls the sheet away, leaving me exposed, and then I feel the bed shift as he moves to straddle me. He is naked and the hard steel of his erection presses against my thighs, hot and needy. I reach for him and cup my hands on his tight, firm ass. He is not inside me—he is not even stroking my sex—and yet I am awash in awareness, my muscles clenching with desire for him, my hips writhing in wanton, unashamed need.

“Damien,” I murmur, then open my eyes to see him above me, his eyes soft as he gazes upon my face.

“No,” he says. “Close your eyes. Let me give this to you. Let me show you just how well I know you. How intimately I know your body. Because it’s not just yours—it’s mine, too. And I intend to show you how very well—and how very thoroughly—I take care of what is mine.”

“Do you think I don’t already know that?”

He doesn’t answer with words, but the soft brush of his lips over mine is all the response I need. Slowly, he trails gentle kisses down the arch of my neck, then lower still until his mouth closes roughly over my breast. My nipple is already tight and hard and so very sensitive, and he drags his teeth over it.

I arch up as little shock waves shoot through me to pool like warm liquid in my womb. The muscles of my sex clench with longing. I want him inside me—I want it desperately. But he is not even touching me there. He’s not touching me anywhere except on my breast, where he is suckling and biting, tasting and teasing. He is erasing everything—thought, worries, fears—until I am reduced to that one point of pleasure that seems to fill me, dazzling me from the inside, sparking and singing until I am certain that I am going to come simply from the sensation of his mouth upon my breast.

Slowly—so painfully slowly—he moves his mouth away from my breast and then kisses his way down my midline. He pauses at my navel, his tongue teasing me, the touch almost a tickle, but far more sensual. He slides a hand under my lower back, and I arch up as he nips at me, tiny bites and the scrape of teeth against the soft skin of my belly.

He has moved down the bed, and my legs are spread wide. He is between them, but he is not touching my sex. He’s not even stroking my thighs. He has one hand beneath my back and the other on the mattress beside my hip for balance. But there is heat coming off of him, and the triangle made up of my thighs and sex seems on fire. I am alive with need, with desire, with want.

And yet Damien makes no move to satisfy me. He is content to tease and torment, and as he slowly traces the shape of my navel with the tip of his tongue, I moan in both pleasure and frustration.

“You like that?” he asks.

“Yes,” I murmur.

“So do I.” His voice is low and reverent. “You taste like candy.”

“Candy is bad for you,” I tease.

“In that case,” he says with a low growl, “I like being bad.”

“Me, too,” I whisper, even as my hips rise in unspoken demand. “But, Damien—”

“You want more,” he says, finishing my thought. He kisses the top of my pubic bone, then trails his lips over the bone of my hip, following it down to the juncture of my thigh.

“Yes, oh, God, yes.”

“And if I’m not done tasting you? If I want to kiss and suck and tease every inch of your body? If I want to have my fill of you before I thrust myself deep inside of you? Before we get lost together? Before I let you come?”

He lifts himself up, then bends over me, so close that I am certain he will kiss me, so near that we are breathing the same air.

Then he shifts away, moving his mouth to my temple. His lips brush lightly over my skin before he whispers, “I will always give you more, baby, but first I want you ready, I want you hot, I want you desperate.”

“I am.” The words are wrenched from me, and as Damien pulls away, I see the smug smile pull at his mouth.

“You are,” he says. “But you also asked for more. And that, my darling Nikki, is a demand I’m always happy to satisfy. The question is, more what?” His mouth closes over my breast, and I cry out as he bites my nipple. “More pain?”

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