“Please shut me up,” he said. “Please.”
She leaned down to slant her mouth against his, her tongue darting out to lick the place where he’d just bitten down on his lip. He groaned against her mouth, pulling at her shirt until he’d drawn it over her head, almost taking her glasses with it. He took those off next, setting them on the table before pulling her down for another kiss, his hand wrapped in her hair.
She had his shirt off in an instant, and this time there was no fumbling as he reached around to unclasp her bra, letting it slide down her arms to the floor. He’d seen her before, of course, when she’d unbuttoned her shirt in his room, but this felt different. Bright morning sunlight broke through the gauzy curtains over her living room window, and she was half-naked on his lap at her kitchen table. She felt exposed, suddenly shy.
“They’re small,” she blurted. “And I’ve always had this freckle right”—she pointed to the tan smudge near her left nipple—“here.”
Asa pressed his thumb into the freckle. “You’re perfect. And that is officially my favorite freckle. I’m obsessed with it. It’s unseemly how much.” He kissed her there, his lips dragging over her nipple in a way that made a shiver run up her spine. “And now you’ve got me running at the mouth again, when I can think of much more interesting things I want to do with it.”
He ran his tongue lightly over her collarbone, a tease, before finding the hollow at the base of her throat.
“I like the way you talk,” she said, her own voice coming out a little breathless. She realized she couldn’t put into words just how much she liked it, or how he made her feel. It wasn’t just the pulse she got between her legs when he touched her, when he told her how much he wanted to. It was the way it brought her back to herself, reminded her what she was doing and who she was doing it with. The fact that it was Asa, looking at her like that, causing this swirl of emotion and desire, made it that much better. And the fact that she was her . . . well, it made her feel like she was enough.
Her hand went to the hard ridge of his erection through his boxers, tentative at first, then a firm stroke with the heel of her hand along the length of him after she heard his intake of breath. He captured her mouth with his, taking her lower lip gently between his teeth before kissing her more deeply. “I want to see you,” he murmured against her mouth. “All of you.”
“Here?” The word came out as a high-pitched squeak.
He lifted her until she was sitting on the table, careful to move the notebook and her glasses over to one of the chairs. “What if I said please,” he said, his hand wrapped in the waistband of her jeans, the backs of his knuckles brushing against her skin while his thumb ran down the length of the zipper.
She lay back on her elbows, raising her hips in tacit acceptance as he flicked the top button open and pulled her jeans down her legs, laughing a little when they got snagged around one ankle.
“Lauren,” he said. “Jeans? You don’t own a nice pair of sweats for around the house?”
“I had a houseguest,” she said primly. “I was dressing up.”
Asa pressed a kiss to her calf, sliding his hands up her thighs and giving a squeeze. “What’s the situation on the cat pants,” he said. “If they’re stretch I’ll buy you three pair.”
“Stop,” she said, laughing, swatting at his shoulder, but then he was sliding her underwear down her legs and her breath caught.
She wouldn’t have called herself inexperienced, per se. She’d had sex before. But something about this, what she and Asa were doing, felt wholly new. Maybe it was the daytime effect, the fact that she could see him clearly and could feel his gaze on her, drinking in every inch of her body in the same unfiltered light. Maybe it was the sudden urge she had to do all kinds of dirty things with him, things she normally would’ve been too embarrassed to think about even in the heat of passion. Maybe it was that the passion had never really felt that hot . . . until now.
Still, she was surprised when he hooked her knees over his shoulders, his hands under her as he dragged her down closer to his mouth. She almost protested, but then any thought flew out of her head as he kissed his way along her inner thigh, ending with his mouth pressed against her hot center.
“Ah,” she choked out as he licked her like she was an ice cream cone, that one firm swipe of his tongue making her hips buck off the table. And then his tongue was inside her, her legs falling more open as she gripped at his hair, consumed by the sudden need to have him as close as possible as he licked and sucked, as she let out a moan that didn’t even sound like her.
“You taste so good,” he said, his breath warm against her. That would’ve been enough to do it for her—his words, that feathery touch, the sight of his blue hair between her pale thighs—but then he sucked her clit so hard she felt everything inside her shatter and break apart into a thousand pieces. She clenched her fingers more tightly in his hair, realizing only after she’d come back down that she’d probably been pulling too hard.
“Sorry,” she said, massaging his head where she feared she’d done the most damage.
He kissed the sensitive skin of her lower belly, then up to her breasts. “Pull my hair anytime.”
But she had her mind on another part of him as he slid back up her body to take her mouth with his, the taste of her still on his lips. She reached down, urging him to strip off the last of his clothes, barely waiting until he was naked, too, to wrap her fingers around his dick, sliding her hand up and down the hard, silky length of him, her thumb rubbing across the head.
“Fuck me, Lauren,” he half growled against her throat, and she stroked him harder.
“I thought that was the whole idea,” she said, deliberately taking his exclamation literally. She was feeling completely bold by now, any last trace of shyness shed along with the last of her clothes and her inhibitions. She watched him through heavy-lidded eyes, liking the way the muscles in his throat strained as he fought for control.
“I want you inside me,” she whispered. “Please.”
She could feel the tremble in his breath as he kissed just behind her ear, could feel him hardening even more in her hand.
“I like the way you talk, too,” he said, his voice a low rasp in her ear. “I want to be inside you so bad.”
A prickly heat suffused her whole body at his words, and she knew without looking down she’d probably flushed all over. “Condoms are in the bathroom,” she said. “Second drawer down.”
“Hold on.”
She thought he was telling her to wait, but then she realized he meant literally hold on as he stood, taking her with him. She wrapped her legs around his waist, kissing his jaw until he backed her against the doorframe to her bedroom, as though he’d already forgotten where he meant to go. His hands were on her ass, his bare chest pressed against her breasts, as he kissed her like she was the only thing keeping him from tumbling backward off a cliff.
He walked them both like that into the bathroom, shifting her weight slightly to free up a hand to open the drawer and rummage around until he retrieved a condom packet from the box. Then he carried her to the bedroom and laid her down on the bed.
“Call me traditional,” he said, “but I thought a bed might be nice. Something new for us.”
She’d had his body crushed against hers, had stroked her hand along the length of him, but this was her first chance to see him totally naked. She’d always been struck by how comfortable he seemed in his own skin, the easy grace with which he moved, and she was struck again by that now. He had a beautiful body, lean and lightly muscled in all the right places, and he seemed totally unselfconscious about his erection even as she was unable to take her eyes off it.