I take my time, exploring her mouth, letting my tongue learn the shape of her lips, how much pressure and suction will elicit that soft, feminine sound in her throat that I crave. When she finally makes it, inhaling and arching but then almost instantly suppressing her reaction, I feel like I’ve won a victory.
I take her wrist, press it above her head to the pillow, hold it there, captive. She flexes against my hold, but doesn’t break away. Her other hand lightly rests against my shoulder. Her fingertips are five points of fire on my skin. I’m aware of her leg drawn up against my hip, of the heat of her body beneath mine, the feel of leather against my bare skin, and purposefully restrain myself from giving in to the drumbeat of yes more deeper that has begun to pound inside my head.
When I draw back, it takes a moment before Tabby opens her eyes. She’s breathing erratically, gentle, ragged breaths that match my own. Her fingers on my shoulder slide to my neck, slip into my hair. She pulls me down to kiss her again.
This time it isn’t quite as gentle. Need—both hers and mine—is growing, and it’s much more difficult to hold myself back. My cock is trapped between us, stiff against her thigh, and when she subtly shifts her hips, it twitches in reaction, an unmistakable pulse that makes Tabby smile.
“Is he always this eager?” she murmurs against my mouth.
“No,” I say, letting her hear the raw honesty in my voice. “No, only with you.”
We gaze at each other in silence as another boom of thunder rolls over the valley outside. Then her lashes lower. She whispers, “I’m wondering whether it would be possible…to ask you to…kiss me anywhere else?”
Her cheeks turn scarlet.
An invisible hand takes hold of my heart and squeezes to a fist. I’m shaken with a sudden certainty that there isn’t anything this woman could ask me, sexual or otherwise, that I could or would refuse. It surprises me and scares me in equal measure, because it’s new. And extremely dangerous.
I turn her face to mine. Flushed and faintly trembling, she opens her eyes.
“Give yourself to me, Tabby. All of you. I want everything. If we’re gonna do this and I only get one night, I want it to count. No holding back. No games.”
She swallows. “I…I’m…” Her eyes close again. Her voice comes out small. “I don’t want to disappoint you.”
My heart threatens to burst inside my chest. “My God,” I breathe, “how could you possibly disappoint me? You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Sounding miserable, she says, “I don’t think I’m very good in bed.”
I resist the urge to laugh in disbelief, because I know it would be mistaken for mocking, and I know how excruciating that admission must have been for her. I can’t imagine where she could have gotten the idea that she’s not desirable or perfect just the way she is, but it’s obvious the nonconcordance she mentioned earlier has been a major problem in the past with other men.
But now isn’t the time for psychoanalysis. Or for making her tell me who those idiots might be so I can break their skulls.
Now is the time to make her feel as beautiful as she is.
I lower my mouth to her ear and very deliberately say, “I think you’re the sexiest fucking woman alive. You’ve been driving me wild since the moment I set eyes on you three years ago, and even if you just laid here snoring while I made love to you it would be the best sex of my entire life because it’s with you. Now I’m going to get you naked and eat your pussy like it’s the last supper and you don’t have to do anything but enjoy it, do you understand me?”
Her shy smile is worth more to me than all the gold in Fort Knox.
“Good.” I kiss her softly on the lips. “Oh, and one more thing.”
She drowsily blinks up at me.
“You’re not allowed to come.”
Her eyes snap open. “What? Are you joking? Connor—”
Before she can say more, I sit back on my heels, yank down her zipper, and drag the leather pants down her legs.
Eleven
Connor
“Fucking hell,” I mutter, staring down at Tabby’s spread legs.
“What’s wrong?” she says, panicked. She rears up on her elbows.
Wrong? Nothing’s wrong. Everything in the universe is perfectly right.
First, she isn’t wearing panties. It’s an unexpected, thrilling shock to find her laid bare to me like that, open and vulnerable and deliciously pink where only seconds before there was an impenetrable wall of black leather. The sheer decadence of it takes my breath away.
Second, she’s a natural blonde. That’s almost as much of a surprise as the first thing. I reach out and softly brush my fingers over pale gold curls, and hear a choked exhalation pass my lips. Why it should please me so much that she isn’t shaved I have no idea, maybe it’s the animal in me, but I know exactly why I like it that she dyes the hair on her head red, but down here she’s au naturel.
Because it’s a secret. No one else gets to see it but me. It’s a secret I now know, and feel privileged to know, and will always remember.