The key’s sliding into the lock. I stare at it. So does Christopher.
Shockingly fast, he bends and hoists me over his shoulder firefighter-style, then runs down the hallway, sliding into the bathroom with me and slamming the door shut just as I hear the front door open, then close.
The lights are on over the sink—I must have forgotten to turn them off before we left for paintball—so I can see as he crouches and eases me off his shoulder. I’m imbalanced, jelly-legged, and I thump back against the door.
Christopher stares up at me as he slumps from his crouch onto his knees. His forehead lands heavily against my hip. “Jesus Christ,” he mutters. “That was close.”
Jamie’s and Bea’s voices linger briefly in the main room, then die away, headed in the opposite direction in the apartment toward the bedrooms.
Peering up at me, he asks quietly, “Why are they here?”
I listen for a second and catch the high-pitched voice Bea uses for her pet hedgehog. My eyes slide shut with regret. “Cornelius needed his dinner. She probably tried to call and text to remind me to feed him, but I missed it.”
Come to think of it, I actually have no idea where my phone is. Hopefully buried in my coat pocket.
“Dammit, Kate,” he groans.
“Well, I’m sorry I was a little busy with you getting me off!” I hiss-whisper. “You want me preoccupied with modern technology while you’re going down on me?”
A groan rumbles out of him. He slides his hands around my waist, down lower, and wraps them around my ass. “I want you to make those sounds you were making again.” He lifts my shirt and presses a kiss to my stomach. “I want your heels digging into my shoulders.”
“I wasn’t making sounds,” I protest weakly. His mouth is on my hip bone, lower, over my underwear again. He kisses me there, slow and wet, and my legs buckle. Thankfully he catches me, pinning me by the hips against the door.
“You were. And I loved them.” He kisses me again, then nuzzles me, breathing deep. “Fuck, I don’t want to stop.”
“I don’t want you to, either.” My fingers slide into his hair.
He peers up at me, his hands rubbing my ass, kneading it. “Kate, can you be very quiet?”
I exhale shakily, moving my hips against his thumb as it starts to tease me over my underwear. My nipples feel hard and tight as they brush my shirt, the ache between my thighs so close to sweet satisfaction. “Probably not.”
“Try for me, honey,” he mutters, before kissing me between my thighs again, sucking and licking. Between his tongue and my own arousal, my underwear is soaked, plastered to my skin. “I need this so bad.”
What he’s doing feels good, but what I want is more. I want the hard, thick ridge of his erection grinding against me. I want his groans and pleas in my ear, those sounds that reassure me he’s as undone as I am.
I tug his shirt at the shoulder and yank him toward me until he stands.
“What is it?” he asks. “Too much? I can stop—”
“No.” I shake my head, wrapping my leg around his hip, showing him what I need. “Like this.”
He presses a slow kiss to my jaw, then my neck. I sigh as I feel him on the first perfect grind of his hips that makes him, stiff and heavy inside his jeans, rub over my clit. His mouth meets mine and I tighten my thigh’s grip around his waist so I can move faster, gripping his shoulder for leverage, panting against his mouth.
After only a few strokes, my breathing has turned hoarse and jagged. His has, too.
Christopher’s grip on me intensifies, moving me against him. “Hold on,” he mutters.
“Don’t tell me what to do—ah!”
Two fingers push aside my underwear, curling up inside me, stroking just where I need. A warm, sweet ache spreads through my veins.
“So good,” I whisper. “Oh shit, you’re good at this.”
“For you,” he whispers against my neck. “Just for you.”
Reaching down, I find him so hard inside his jeans, stretching the fabric, it has to hurt. Tentatively, I stroke along his length. Christopher curses into my neck.
“Is that okay?” I ask.
“So much more than okay,” he pants.
I tug at his belt, then the top button. “Can I touch you?”
“I’ll die if you don’t.” He shifts his hips, just enough so I can slip my hand inside his jeans, curling my fingers over his erection straining his briefs. He’s so thick, so hot even through the fabric. I whimper as I stroke him, thrilled that I’ve made his body like this.
“So good, honey.” He kisses me slow and deep, his tongue stroking mine. “Keep going. Yeah, that’s it. Fuck, that’s perfect.”
My head lands against the door with a thunk as his fingers change their rhythm, rubbing faster. I’m so close, trying so hard not to scream with pleasure on each thrust of his hand, as it brings me right to the edge.
“You gotta come for me, Kate,” he grits out. “Come on, honey. Give it up.”
“So close,” I whisper, working myself on his fingers, making a fist with the fabric of his shirt as I crush my mouth to his.
That’s when we hear voices coming closer again.
We freeze, our breathing so ragged and loud, I don’t know how they don’t hear us.
But then the front door eases open again, then shuts; the lock engages with a click.
And then we crash down on each other. The door thumps as Christopher thrusts into my hand, as my hips roll with him, banging into it.
“God, Kate.” He throws his head back when I bite his neck and chase it with my tongue. He starts to work his thumb over my clit in fast, expert circles, his fingers still pumping inside me.
I gasp as heat pools, a white-hot flash flood that tears through my limbs, washes between my thighs, through my breasts, making my toes curl. “Gonna come,” I beg. “I’m gonna—”
“Yeah,” he grunts. “That’s it, honey. Ride my hand. Come all over it.”
I slam my head against the door as pleasure pounds through me in seismic waves. A low, pained groan tears out of Christopher as he punches his hips into mine, as warmth and wetness seep between us and he comes against my waist.
Panting, messy, we kiss. Slowly, he lets my legs go and steadies me as I find my footing. I stare up at him, touching him, cresting my hands over his shoulders, down his arms, while he holds me tight to him, his hands savoring my ass, kneading it as he kisses me, reverent and deep.
And then the real world begins to seep into my awareness. The soft plink-plink of water dripping from the faucet. The muffled sounds of traffic outside, a siren wailing.
Christopher stares at me, his expression unreadable, chest heaving. He cups my face and presses one last soft kiss against my lips, breathing in. Exhaustion sweeps through me. Between paintball and the most intense orgasm of my life, my eyes feel heavy, my limbs heavier.
I want to drag him down the hall and make him fall on me like we did on the couch, for his big, heavy body to weigh me down. I want to sleep for a week. My legs wobble.
“Easy,” he says quietly. He paws around for the light switch and turns it down, until it’s low and dim.
Then he sweeps me up in his arms, making me squawk. “What are you doing?” I ask.
“Putting you to bed.”
Then leaving, is the unspoken remainder of that sentence.
I can tell by the way his expression turns serious and focused, its playful, passionate fire dimmed; the way that he walks me to my bed and lays me on it, then drags the blankets up.
“Stay,” I whisper, brave in the darkness, in the raw need that I feel. No one’s ever touched me like this, made me feel free and weightless and known, a fire billowing in the air that feeds it, hot, wild, alive. I don’t want to be left alone in that. “Please.”
He’s quiet for a long moment, his hand on my hip, his thumb sweeping tenderly against the skin beneath my shirt.
Then slowly, he stands.
My heart plummets. He’s leaving.
Except, he isn’t. He stops at my bedroom door and pushes it shut, bathing the room in darkness.
I hear drawers open and close. Fabric slide off his body. I hate the darkness for what it hides, knowing he’s changing out of the clothes he came all over.